Research funding systems are not isolated systems - they are embedded in a larger scientific system with an enormous influence on the system. This paper aims to analyze the allocation of competitive research funding from different perspectives: How reliable are decision processes for funding? What are the economic costs of competitive funding? How does competition for funds affect doing risky research? How do competitive funding environments affect scientists themselves, and which ethical issues must be considered? We attempt to identify gaps in our knowledge of research funding systems; we propose recommendations for policymakers and funding agencies, including empirical experiments of decision processes and the collection of data on these processes. With our recommendations we hope to contribute to developing improved ways of organizing research funding.

There has been a surge of interest in research integrity over the last decade, with a wide range of studies investigating the prevalence of questionable research practices (QRPs). However, nearly all these studies focus on research design, data collection and analysis, and hardly any empirical research has been done on the occurrence of QRPs in the context of research funding. To fill this gap, we conducted a cross-sectional pre-registered survey of applicants, reviewers and panel members from the Research Foundation–Flanders (FWO), one of the main funding agencies in Belgium. We developed a bespoke survey and further refined it through feedback from experienced researchers and a pilot study. We asked how often respondents had engaged in a series of QRPs over the last ten years. A total of 1748 emails were sent, inviting recipients to participate in the survey, complemented by featuring the survey in the FWO newsletter. This resulted in 704 complete responses. Our results indicate that such QRPs are remarkably prevalent. Of the 496 participants who answered both the applicant and reviewer track, more than 60% responded that they engaged regularly in at least one of such practices, and around 40% indicated that they engaged at least occasionally in half of the QRPs queried. Only 12% reported not to have engaged in any of the QRPs. Contrary to our hypotheses, male respondents did not self-report to engage in the QRPs more often than female respondents, nor was there an association between the prevalence of QRPs and self-reported success rate in grant funding. Furthermore, half of the respondents indicated that they doubted the reliability of the grant peer review process more often than not. These results suggest that preventive action is needed, and provide new reasons to reconsider the practice of allocating research money through grant peer review.

There are notoriously many different definitions of species and methods of species delimitation, forcing taxonomists to make a long range of methodological decisions in species delimitation. Because of this, there are sometimes multiple viable competing methodological paths, which could lead to different ranking (or even grouping) decisions. As a result, it is often unclear what it means for a group to be recognized as a species, the groups recognized as species are not always comparable, and some have even called ranking decisions ‘subjective’. To mitigate the problems this causes for users of taxonomy and taxonomists, we propose that taxonomists across the tree of life should start preregistering their research design and criteria for species delimitation in advance of their research. We argue that even if it were to require additional effort, preregistering taxonomic research would strongly benefit taxonomy in the long term, by increasing the transparency and usability of taxonomic outcomes and by reducing the need for ad hoc methodological decisions.

A recent controversy about neural networks allegedly capable of detecting a person’s sexual orientation raises the question of whether all research on homosexuality should be permitted. This paper considers two arguments for limits to such research, and concludes that there are good reasons to limit at least the dissemination of applied research on the etiology of homosexuality. The paper then briefly sketches how this could work, and looks at three objections against these limitations..

We investigate whether LEMM (Philosophy of Language, Epistemology, Mind and Metaphysics) is more isolated than Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Value Theory. To do this, we collected 2369 Web of Science indexed papers divided into 17 PhilPapers topics from these three subfields of philosophy, and used 10 indicators to measure their isolation. The results showed that the topics from LEMM were more isolated from other fields of science than the topics from Value Theory and Philosophy of Science. Within philosophy, however, the topics from LEMM generally seemed as well-connected as Philosophy of Science and Value Theory.

Many systematic biologists claim that a new paradigm about species classification has been established in their discipline. This paradigm, which I call the ‘unified species paradigm’, consists in a set of theoretical claims and methodological practices centered around the view that species are independently evolving lineages. This paper sets out the basic theoretical and methodological principles of this new paradigm, and looks at biological textbooks, publication patterns and citation patterns to evaluate the claim that there is growing consensus about it.

Research suggests that funding distributed by peer review has a number of disadvantages, and often depends heavily on luck. We suggest that this randomness should be part of the distribution mechanism, and argue for a modified lottery. 

We argue against natural kind eliminativism by showing that the notion of ‘natural kinds’ enables fruitful investigation into non-arbitrary classification in science. 

This paper considers whether it would in theory be possible to develop a unitary scale for evolutionary independence. Such a scale would show clearly when groups are comparable and allow taxonomists to choose a conventional threshold of independence for species status. I draw a parallel with the measurement of temperature to argue that such a measurement approach may be fruitful and could help to make the vague notion of evolutionary independence more precise.

This paper investigates the case of enzyme classification to evaluate different ideals for regulating values in science. I argue that the case of enzyme classification poses a problem for two important views, and suggest that these two views provide different but complementary perspectives that are both useful.

This paper argues that taxonomic governance (which I argue to be a combination of standardization, unification and regulation) is a promising solution to the incomparability, inconsistency and instability of species classifications. It does this by drawing a parallel with the classification of enzymes and viruses, and by responding to the main objections to this view.

This paper discusses how the outcomes of taxonomy can be reliable and objective despite the fact that they are heavily dependent on the particular way taxonomists operationalize the species concept. It does this by drawing a parallel with measurement in the physical sciences.

I react to the widespread rejection (see here and here) in the taxonomic community of Stephen Garnett's and Les Christidis' proposal to regulate species classification (see here). I argue that neither the limitations to taxonomic freedom they propose nor the role for value-judgments in species classification they envisage are good reasons to reject their proposal. Instead, I argue, we should encourage the dialogue they try to start about resolving the problem of taxonomic anarchy and start by evaluating the practical feasibility of their ideas.

I argue that value-judgments should play a profound role in species classifications. The argument for this claim is presented over the course of five chapters. These are divided into two main parts; part one, which consists of the two first chapters, presents an argument for a radical form of species pluralism; part two, which comprises the remaining chapters, discusses the implications of radical species pluralism for the role of values in species classification.