Many people typically invest in solutions – especially solutions that they deem have a great chance of working and scaling. The quality of the solution gives confidence about its potential success. However, given that the foundation of good research is latching onto the right problem, there needs to be mechanisms that allows for experimentation or basically, the journey of exploring, sifting and refining the societal and scientific phenomena and distilling what question ought to be pursued.

There are also few funders who focus on this. An example is MacArthur Fellowship, where the funder identifies inspiring researchers and provides them a 5 year grant of 125,000 USD/annum. The only mandate on the person being that they continue to do research and create. There are others who might not require exact problems to be defined at the time of application, but who define an area to be research. They then fund principal investigators who are at liberty to determine how they work and in what direction they go. The UK government’s ARIA falls under this category of throwing out an ambitious blanket and hoping they fall on breakthrough technologies through the scientists that they fund.

Investing in scientists and investing in scientific solutions require often similar approaches but the former requires a great deal of trust, both in the capabilities of the scientists to find the right problem, stay focused and do the right work; and in their capabilities to manage their work diligently. The easiest way to trust another professional is to know that they are qualified to do the work you have entrusted with them. Thus, building research capabilities among researchers in Africa is crucial for them to receive such type of funding, that comes with less strings attached.

Reference – On funding scientific research (by Alan Kay)