Collegiality and careerism trump critical questions and bold new ideas: a student's perspective and solution. The structure of scientific funding limits bold new ideas.

Funding agencies (and journals) seem to be discriminating against ideas that are contrary to the mainstream, leading to leading to the preferential funding of predictable and safe research over radically new ideas. To remedy this problem a restructuring of the scientific funding system is needed, e.g. by utilizing laymen--together with scientists--to evaluate grant proposals.