Gentleman Scientist - Benefits and Drawbacks

Benefits and Drawbacks

Self-funding has the disadvantage that funds may be more restricted; however, it has the advantage of eliminating a number of inconveniences such as teaching obligations, administrative duties, and writing grant requests to funding bodies. It also permits the scientist to have greater control over research directions, as funding bodies direct grants towards interests that may not coincide with that of the scientist. However, peer review of findings is sidestepped. Furthermore, intellectual property of the inventions belongs to the inventor and not the employer.

Modern science requires competence and may require access to scientific equipment. However, independent scientists may have past careers as funded scientists, cooperate with funded colleagues, obtain partial equipment-only grants or choose directions where the most expensive resource required is the researcher's time. If the research succeeds, gentleman scientists may publish results in the same peer-reviewed journals as funded scientists do.

Scientists may choose to work on unusual projects with high risk of failure also when the grant system does not fund them. A scientist could be attributed the status of independent scientist if they work on such projects during a gap between two academic positions, for example.