Younger researchers are more successful at raising grant money through crowdfunding sites, Nature News reports.
An international team of researchers analyzed hundreds of fund-raising campaigns launched through Experiment.com, the largest platform dedicated to that end. As they report in PLOS One, the researchers found that students and junior investigators were more likely to succeed than more established researchers. According to Nature News, students had a success rate of 61 percent, while associate professors or professors had a 33 percent success rate, though it notes that students tended to ask for less money. The researchers also found that the scientists' prior publications did not appear to matter for getting crowdfunding
In addition, the researchers found that women had higher success rates than men, a 57 percent success rate to men's 43 percent success rate, according to Nature News.
"Crowdfunding has opened the door for people who would not be able to participate in the traditional grant funding mechanism," first author Henry Sauermann from ESMT Berlin tells Nature News. He adds, though, that he and his colleagues are still teasing out why some groups are better at fundraising than others.