Can citizen science include Kickstarter-like campaigns for certain projects?

It’s a fascinating proposition. Success rates for NSF and NASA grants are below 20% (and in some cases, below 10%), meaning that even outstanding, high-impact, low-lisk research has a low chance of getting funded. Sites like experiment.com have offered scientists ways to fund their research using a Kickstarter model: ask the public to pitch in.

For this to work, a project needs to capture the public’s attention. KIC 8462852 certainly has, and after a lot f recommendations on the topic, Tabetha Boyajian decided to start a Kickstarter campaign to fund follow-up observations of it.

Things started slowly, but the effort has really picked up steam in the past 48 hours.  We have a Cool Worlds video about it, courtesy of David Kipping:

and I was asked to mention it at my recent panel discussion on SETI at the New York Academy of Sciences:

and APOD gave us a boost on Monday.

I think it would be fascinating to see if $100,000 projects could be funded this way—in this era of incredibly tight funding landscapes, it’s clear that there’s an appetite for more (and different) science than the government funds. I would not advocate that we move over to such a model entirely of course—peer reviewed proposal are still the best way to move science ahead, especially in directions with merits that are difficult to explain in lay terms—but it’s something that seems to be getting more popular.

Will get get to $100,000?  Well, as I write this we’re at $92,000 and there’s 24 hours to go.  We’re achingly close.

Give us a hand, will you?

The logo for Tabetha Boyajian’s Kickstarter campaign.