My memories of research funding from a long time ago

I remember attending the ASPB (American Society of Plant Biologists) annual meeting a long time ago when I was a PhD student. A speaker used a bar chart to illustrate the distribution of US research funding across different fields. Research funding in biology was already significantly less than in other fields, and almost all of that funding went to medical and health related research. Funding for plant science was so minimal that it didn't even appear on that chart. Yes, some say that even without plant science research, plants can grow simply by being planted; without this basic research, they might just not grow well. Why would decision-makers care about this research? When resources are scarce, everyone has to work even harder to compete for limited funding. Back then, biomass energy was highly valued, so we could still apply for funding from the DOE. However, with more applicants than available funding, lab research funding was still insufficient. Graduate students had to register and prioritize the number of kits they could use to avoid interrupting experiments… Graduate students and their advisors would joke that if they could find a military application for the poplar plant they were researching, then they could apply for research funding from the DOD.

Here, I would like to pay tribute to those who continue to work on basic research even when funding is insufficient. I still love plant research, even though I can't continue it due to reality and practical limitations.

我記得在很久以前我還在唸博士時，去參加 ASPB (American Society of Plant Biologists)年度大會，有一位講者用柱狀圖展示美國科研經費在不同領域的分佈。

生物領域的研究經費已經比其他領域少很多了，而生物領域裡面的經費幾乎都是在醫學及健康相關研究上面，植物科學的經費是少到在那張圖上連一個pixel都沒有。是啊，有人說，即使不做植物科學研究，植物種下去就可以生長，沒有這些基礎研究可能只是長得不好，做決策的人怎麼會在乎這些研究，當資源不足時，大家只好更加努力在有限的經費中彼此爭奪。

那時候還是重視生質能的時代，所以還能向DOE申請經費，但是僧多粥少的情況下，實驗室的研究經費仍然不足，研究生必須登記及排序可以使用的kits數量以免造成實驗中斷而...。研究生和指導教授們會彼此開玩笑說，如果能幫我們研究的植物poplar找到軍事用途就好了，那就可以向DOD申請研究經費了。

在此，要對那些即使在經費不足的情況下仍然努力於基礎研究的人致敬。我還是喜歡植物研究，即使限於現實環境而無法繼續。