Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter have proven successful for artists, musicians, and technology startups, but, asks Bitesize Bio, can the same model work for science?

An interview with "Saving Diamondback Terrapins" project manager Russell Burke on his life's work, and his experience with crowdfunding.

An interview with "Saving Diamondback Terrapins" project manager Russell Burke on his life's work, and his experience with crowdfunding.

Last week we posted our featured project, Saving Diamondback Terrapins with New Technology and this week we would like to thank all the of the organizations that have contributed so far. Currently we are 22% towards our goal of $10,344.

Ask any scientist in the university system what they spend most of their time doing, and the answer may surprise and disappoint you. Generally speaking, it’s not science. It’s not even grading papers or overseeing students to nurture a new generation of researchers and innovators. Filling out grant paperwork is the single activity that dominates the days of all too many researchers and academics.

iAMscientist today officially launched KnowledgeXchange

Crowdfunding is entering its golden age, with new startups popping up at a frequency that rivals daily deals sites in their heyday. iAMscientist is one of the few to bring the Kickstarter model to the deepest and darkest depths of science and academia.

Diamondback terrapins are magnificent and unusual turtles in many ways—they live in salt water but are not sea turtles, they are restricted to the Atlantic coasts of the United States, and they play key roles in their ecosystems. From the 18th through the 20th centuries they were hunted and eaten in huge numbers, sometimes as the unpopular food of the poor and other times as haut cuisine.

Thanks to popular sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, crowdfunding is now commonplace. They’re the platforms musicians turn to, to release their first CD, or where local alumni pray to break their initial $18,000 fundraising goal in just 25 hours. Although started for today’s creatives, however, crowdfunding’s begun to to take a turn for the educational. Because if you can crowdfund art, why not crowdfund academic research?

Boston-based startup IAMScientist hopes to apply the crowd-funding approach pioneered by Kickstarter to research funding.
The company has already enjoyed modest success as a matchmaking service for companies and scientists. For a fee, it will tap its network of researchers—mainly in medicine and the life sciences—to find an available expert in a specific research area. But IAMScientist recently started allowing users to advertise projects for others to fund as well.