28 June 2007

Rethinking granting

The idea of loans is to use money to create wealth.

The idea of grants is to use money to create scientific knowledge.

People have often tried to create wealth, particularly in non-industrial nations, by loaning money for huge mega-projects (e.g., building dams, power plants).

People have often tried to create knowledge by giving money for huge mega-projects (e.g., moon shots, human genome and biomedical research).

More recently, micro-loans have been so successful at creating wealth that some of the first to use this strategy were recognized with a Nobel Peace price in 2006.

Where are the equivalent micro-grants?

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