Funding science

I was recently discussing the current state of research funding with some other scientists. Most science funding for university researchers comes from the government--National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health, Department of Energy, NASA, etc. As most of us know, funding rates are decreasing, especially with changes to National Science Foundation policies. As more people get PhDs and go into research, the chance of getting money for research isn't likely to go up anytime soon. I think we need a new system. I see two models: 1) a patron system, like artists in the Renaissance used or 2) a sales system, where we develop products to fund our research.

Under a patron system, individual researchers or teams of researchers would be funded by a donor (the patron), and the scientists would research exactly what the patron wanted. Unfortunately, I think we would get a lot of superficial or inane questions that wouldn't necessarily further scientific knowledge. Unless of course, that patron is a scientist him/herself. Could universities or institutions be patrons? Perhaps, but they still need the money to come from somewhere.

The sales system is already used by pharmaceutical companies and probably every company that does R&D. Develop a product, sell it, use some of the profit to fund more research, get rich in the process. Or at least that's the goal. Could individual researchers use this method? I suppose we could to some extent. The problem is that developing something that people actually want to buy takes time, and wouldn't leave a whole lot of time for the actual "useless" research that is contributing to our knowledge of the world around us. Basically, we would have to develop immediate applications for our research that are marketable, or sell awesome souvenirs. Crowdsourcing sites like Petri Dish encourage researchers to give a souvenir of their research to donors. Photos, hats, and having a species named after you are cool rewards for donors. I could sell mangrove mud masks, photos of insects, and maybe some aquarium plants...I wonder if that would work. Hmm...