  Sir, We write as senior scientists about a problem vital to the scientific
enterprise and prosperity. Nowadays, funding is a lengthy and complex business.
First, universities themselves must approve all proposals for submission.
Funding agencies then subject those that survive to peer review, a process by
which a few researchers, usually acting anonymously, assess a proposal's
chances that it will achieve its goals, is the best value for money, is
relevant to a national priority and will impact on a socio-economic problem.
Only 25% of proposals received by the funding agencies are funded. These
protracted processes force researchers to exploit existing knowledge, severely
discourage open-ended studies and are hugely time-consuming. They are also new:
before 1970, few researchers wrote proposals. Now they are virtually mandatory.
