The reason for this is very pragmatic actually. We don’t have enough researchers of a particular specialty in one country alone. When you get that specialized the air is very rare.
By pooling our funding / effort we can create a larger body of collaborators to solve problems faster and better.
It could be that the organizations are funding wild stuff that isn’t salient. I’ll concede that.
However, in basic sciences there are so few specialists it is important to share resources. The funding is worse than ever (hello 2006!), and that trend is unlikely to reverse for a while.
Source: I worked in bioenergetics for 10y, my collaborators were from Hungary, Chile, Canada, Israel, Italy, and more! At a major conference on mito energetics they all fit in one big lecture hall (100ish?)
By pooling our funding / effort we can create a larger body of collaborators to solve problems faster and better.
It could be that the organizations are funding wild stuff that isn’t salient. I’ll concede that.
However, in basic sciences there are so few specialists it is important to share resources. The funding is worse than ever (hello 2006!), and that trend is unlikely to reverse for a while.
Source: I worked in bioenergetics for 10y, my collaborators were from Hungary, Chile, Canada, Israel, Italy, and more! At a major conference on mito energetics they all fit in one big lecture hall (100ish?)