Funded by you
Declan Fleming investigates how crowdfunding helped a chemist to uncover the secrets behind some familiar reactions
This March, the prestigious chemistry journal Nature Chemistry contained something very unusual: a research paper partially funded by YouTube viewers. The paper, about explosions caused by alkali metals reacting with water, was written by chemists from the Czech Republic and Germany. Crowdfunding is a way of raising finance by asking a large number of people each for a small amount of money. The earliest chemists were often rich or had rich patrons to fund them. These days, chemists mostly apply for funding for their work from the government through a collection of organisations known as Research Councils. To add to the challenge, a scientist’s career relies to a large degree on his or her ability to publish papers in the most prestigious journals possible.
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