Institutions can also help enable more independent research....

Institutions can also help enable more independent research. I’m lucky to have found an organization, Protocol Labs, that funds research in all sorts of unusual ways. Having tried this both ways, I can say that having a steady salary (and health insurance!) allows me to do much better work than when I was worried about my next source of funding. Likewise, Harvard generously provided me with tools that an independent researcher wouldn’t otherwise get, such as access to their library and resources. Organizations can still provide this type of support, and the benefit of collaborating with likeminded peers, without requiring a formal entry into academia.

nadia.xyz • The Independent Researcher

Saved by Jonathan Simcoe

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At each point between phases, I didn’t know where my next source of funding was going to come from. What I can say is that if you’re writing thoughtfully, in public, about a topic of niche interest to a certain set of people, and getting those people to engage with your work, it’s very likely that someone will come along and offer to pay you to kee... See more

nadia.xyz • Reimagining the PhD

You don’t need a PhD to study something you care about. You don’t need to publish papers in academic journals to become widely respected. You just need a curious mind, a bankroll, and a commitment to learning in public. Producing work that makes other people think, and perhaps change their behavior, is the validation, and it’s enormously satisfying