The Hollywood Model for Science

Ad-hoc teams of specialists who come together intensely but temporarily

In Hollywood, movies are created by ad-hoc teams of specialists who come together intensely but temporarily. Producers organize funding and lend their status to a project. Directors are full-time on the ground managing the team. Studios provide the infrastructure and equipment. You can see shades of this model in science today. A professor might hire a postdoc with particular experience for a specific project, and scientific collaborations often rely on facilities with expensive pieces of shared equipment. However, the analogy starts to break down if you look deeper. One collaboration is rarely a scientist’s only project, deep specialization is impossible outside of large companies or projects like the LHC, and teams do not form and dissolve freely.

Imagine a world where some science went full Hollywood model.

Instead of undifferentiated author lists, research projects have credits rolls. This allows people to build reputations for specific skills. Need a data analyst? Find the project with the best analysis, read the credits, and hire that person! New collaborations bloom in a constantly renewing landscape of projects. 

Want to start a project? Take your proposal to funders, laboratories, and highly-skilled individuals and attach them tentatively until the project builds enough momentum to start rolling downhill on its own. This is a world with multiple paths to project inception and thousands of Focused Research Organizations popping into and out of existence.

This model can run on US federal grants with an indirect rate around 10%. Wondering how to write your next proposal when your last one had 50% overhead and the maximum allowed is now 15%? We dare you to submit a grant budget where you rent laboratory space at market rates and hire all your researchers through an Employer of Record company.