Sovereign science is conducted by researchers working outside the sponsored projects research pipeline, which lies between research sponsors (i.e., funders) and the traditional institutions that host research (i.e., universities, government agencies, and industry labs).  These institutions impose an exclusivity model that restricts participation to individuals who possess a post-graduate degree, regardless of specific competency, aptitude, or merit.  This is no criticism of the vast majority of qualified experts who work within these institutions; rather, it is a critical observation about the vast majority of qualified experts who are excluded from contributing their skills and efforts due to any number of exclusionary policies.   

There is no formal name for the relationship between research funders, who sponsor scientific studies and academic research, and the institutional recipients of those funds.  However, it can accurately be described as a sponsored projects research pipeline, and it represents a complex web of public and private money, politics, powerbrokers, laws regulations, expertise, and traditions that work together outside public scrutiny.  At its core, the pipeline is the mechanism that moves money from sponsors to recipients.  

The main actors in the pipeline are the sponsors, who pay for resesarch, and the awardees, who receive funding to conduct research projects.  American sponsors pay for ~75% of all scientific research conducted across the globe, combined.  Nonetheless, research funding is highly competetive with ~20% proposal acceptance rate. (Source: NSF)

Over the decades, the pipeline has become concretized in a variety of ways to increase the likelihood that funding is directed to the wealthiest, most prestigious institutions, and away from the neediest entities, regardless of objective measures of merit.  For example, industry labs that have received the most funding from government coffers are likely to receive future No Bid contracts as a matter of policy.  This practice is generally true across all types of sponsors and recipients.

Scientists, researchers, and scholars who work within the pipeline enjoy all of the benefits that the affiliation with their institution affords them.  Everybody else is unaffiliated, which is a problem in the sponsored projects resesarch pipeline.  

The least likely award recipient is an unaffiliated researcher or research team.  This is true, even when those individuals are otherwise affiliated or have reached the pinnacle of their careers inside a pipeline institution.  For example, a retired Nobelist may wish to lead a study, but as a retiree, may be barred from accessing facilities and resources as a matter of policy or law (e.g., a retiree from a classified government research facility is not allowed to return as a guest researcher, etc.).  While this is an extreme example, it demonstrates a vast gap between opportunity and talent, which is underpinned by pipeline practices and values.

The entire research pipeline is predicated on the assumption that science, scholarship, and academic research is only for PhD experts who work inside or out of a university, industry, or government facility.  The problem is that this narrow understanding of human ingenuity fails to account for how it artificially caps our capacity for innovation, and what it costs our tech-driven economy.

The most famous tech moguls in American history either didn't go to college at all, or left academia before finishing a graduate degree, or immigrated to the US to strike out on their own.  Despite the preponderance of evidence about who is qualified to make history-changing contributions to science, we find ourselves in a sort of innovation bottleneck that forces potential researchers from every interest and discipline into a handful of strict opportunity silos:

• complete an advanced degree and work in a traditional lab environment,

• pursue capital venture financing and work independently,  

•  pursue grants and contracts that allow independent work, or

• self-finance independent work.

We recognize this as a serious shortcoming in the research ecosystem that may be costing the global economy trillions of dollars in missed opportunities.  While the value and importance of the existing research infrastructure is obvious, the solution is not to fundamentally change them.  Instead, this problem calls for an additional enabling mechanism--a new pipeline in the landscape.

Collaboratory Science was created to connect the globe's largely untapped innovation potential to the instruments of organized science: sponsored projects, project management, and access to infrastructure and facilities.  We are an independent research institute, which means that we dont' operate under the aegis of an external institution, such as a university or philanthropic foundation.  Independent research institutes are very common and serve a variety of purposes to advance STEM, economy, and policy goals.  But research institutes that serve the community of unaffiliated researchers themselves is exceedingly rare.  

We serve our sovereign researchers, scientists, and scholars through the proposal development process with the support of of highly-skilled research administration professionals; matching project needs with talent, facilities, services, and equipment; contract & grant management, oversight, and enforcement; project management and support; and affiliation for proposers and authors. We apply a rigorous process of proposal development to vet our researchers; those that demonstrate ability to complete the process through to submission prove their viability to lead their proposed projects.  

In short, we close the gap between potential and opportunity in the scientific research space.