You submit the first grant, youpropose the novel thing. You know damn well any study section that’s evenmildly conservative is going give you, ‘‘Well, it sounds promising.’’ Theymight give you a good score, you hope for a good score, but it’s not going toget funded, because it’s too novel, it’s too risky, it’s too blah blah. But youalready have the damn data. You know on the second resubmit, you’re goingto say, ‘‘Good point! We took that to heart. Oh, what a wonderful suggestion!We will worry about this too. Guess what? Here’s the data!’’ Shove it downtheir throat. And then it’s funded. Because, wow, you flagged them, yousucker-punched them. They said, ‘‘This is really novel, blah, blah. Boy if youcould only do that, that would be a great grant.’’ Well, you alreadydiddo it,and that’s the point. And you basically sucker-punch the study section intogiving you the money by default. They have to at that point. They don’t havea choice.

Competition for funding, publications, scientific priority and overall career successleads scientists to describe their work in terms of strategies one might use in a game.Focus-group participants revealed that, like it or not, working within the scientificcommunity requires artful maneuvering and strategizing.