[open-science] Finding data on funded research

[Gavin Baker]

This is outside my expertise, so I thought I'd ask here:

How easy is it to find information on funded research projects (e.g. by
research agencies and foundations)?

It seems to me that taxpayers (or foundations' donors) have a right to
easily find out what research they're funding, from award through
research outputs. This also seems like useful information for other
researchers, especially prior to publication -- e.g. to minimize
duplication, facilitate potential collaboration, etc.

How good -- or how bad -- is current transparency in this area? What
could be improved? What (if any) are the obstacles to openness?

I'm reminded of the issue because of recent announcements by two U.S.
research funders of new tools to search their grants:

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/09/new-transparency-tool-on-nih-funded.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/09/new-database-of-neh-funded-projects.html

But I have little context about how novel these tools are or their
strengths/weaknesses. What do you think?

-- 
Gavin Baker
http://www.gavinbaker.com/
gavin at gavinbaker.com

You gotta give 'em hope.
    Harvey Milk