Barriers

quite short. Especially when compared to other sources of funding, which was also pointed out by this expert:

"So relatively quickly, considering how long it sometimes takes to apply for and receive funding by traditional approaches" (B6:31).

Larger projects, on the other hand, certainly required longer runtimes as some experts reported (B7:39; B3:35; B11:29). Without intending to be statistically representative for scientific crowdfunding projects, but rather as a point of reference based on the experiences of eleven interviews: The minimum duration for a crowdfunding campaign was three months, the maximum duration was nine months. The average of the eleven projects is 6.5 months, with a standard deviation of two months. Moreover, the ex-perts are not necessarily aware of this circumstance before the campaign, as the next section on barriers shows and as expert 11 summarizes:

"Well, it is very time-consuming, and I wasn t previously aware of that to be honest

(B11:9).

"Crowdfunding kept us busy 24 hours a day. Because it's always about posting new content, responding to posts on the Startnext page, sending emails, and simply keeping the crowd going. That was actually one of the most intensive things" (B10:37).

Thus, the experts argue that this effort is also a different kind of effort that researchers are accustomed to. This goes beyond the mentioned forms of effort, e.g. the bureau-cracy in crowdfunding is a frequently mentioned point: While smaller projects tend to think less about it, larger projects have to explain to which bank account the 20 to 50 l-lected money is taxed, especially if a purchase contract arises from the incentives to the funders (B9:9; B10:29; B1:47). When asked, one expert reported that he had re-ceived bureaucratic assistance from his university (B1:47), and three other experts were part of a crowdfunding hub (B7:65; B3:7; B8:39). The remaining seven experts were left to their own resources and had to get personal support or do individual re-search. Thus, these are unfamiliar procedures that require more consideration, result-ing in more effort, especially when compared to traditional fundresult-ing methods to which researchers are accustomed and which are embedded in the processes of the universi-ty (B2:44).

In the end, the ratio of effort and return is decisive for most experts. Accordingly, one expert reported that the effort is comparable to that of a grant application that he submitted recently, although he applied for 3.6 million Euro of funding (B1:57). Thus, the experts agree that the effort is not in proportion to the return if it is only a matter of funding the research. For example, expert B7 points out that crowdfunding is rec-ommended for projects where it is not only about money but also about public rela-tions work, because the effort does not balance out (B7:57). Other experts agree with this by considering crowdfunding only for co-financing because the amounts for scien-tific projects are too small (B10:41; B5:50). All experts were surprised by the amount of effort involved in the crowdfunding campaign, although some were previously warned (B1:33; B11:9; B10:19).

"Otherwise I simply would not have thought that crowdfunding would take such an

extreme amount of time" (B8:59).

Reputation

While the experts often describe crowdfunding as an "innovative tool" (B10:39), they report criticism on the reputation of crowdfunding by the public in Germany. Firstly, they consider the general attitude of Germans towards charity to be unfavorable, sec-ondly, crowdfunding also suffers from a lack of acceptance in the scientific community.

The cultural differences between the nations regarding the donation behavior of the citizens came up in several interviews without being specifically asked about it. As one expert reports:

"Well, in the USA things are actually better. But it's also a different culture when it comes to money, so that you just give something, even to people for a class, for exam-ple. That is much more common there" (B11:50).

In addition, an expert claims that the Germans are not the people of charity and are rather sober regarding donations. He conducted research in England and there appeals for donations are seen much more than in Germany (B1:59). He also states, that he can understand the German citizens, who already fund research with their taxes and now wonder why they should also contribute through crowdfunding (B1:59). This opinion is also shared by another expert:

"And I think that crowdfunding cannot really replace the fact that the state and state institutions also have a responsibility to finance fundamental research" (B4:45).

The above quote thus describes the opinion that it is not up to crowdfunding to fund

research in Germany, but the responsible government agencies. Another expert adds

that crowdfunding campaigns support the existing system of insufficient funds for

cer-tain fields of research by looking for alternative sources (B11:41). Consequently, he

suggests to always emphasize this fact when running a crowdfunding campaign

(B11:52). Another related issue is the lack of appreciation of crowdfunding in the

sci-entific community in contrast to traditional fundraising. For example, one expert

men-tioned that he had received thoroughly positive feedback from non-academics, but

smirking feedback from people from the scientific community:

"So significantly more [Feedback] from people outside of science, who also thought it was a great project and good. And in science it was rather: 'oh yes, quite nice. So he also financed himself additionally through crowdfunding'" (B2:62).

This is confirmed by another expert and reports of "lack of appreciation by the scien-tific community" (B6:75) and that other grants provided by a foundation imply a cer-tain quality feature that researchers like to print on the title page of their publication (B6:77). Another expert also agrees with this and says that third-party funding of pro-jects and other private persons brings much more prestige (B2:66). Consequently, there are some barriers related to the reputation of crowdfunding, which the experts even experienced during a successful crowdfunding campaign.

Research Subject

This barrier indicates the dependence of the success of the crowdfunding campaign on the subject of the project. Most experts agree that not every research subject is quali-fied for crowdfunding. There are several reasons for this, as the following section out-lines:

"So [crowdfunding is] a good thing if you have the right topic" (B1:97).

The first reason that most experts see is the very limited funds that can be raised through crowdfunding. For example, one expert clarifies that "research simply costs a lot of money" (B8:69). Therefore, full funding of projects is very difficult to achieve with crowdfunding (B8:69). Other experts agree with this and point out that crowd-funding is only suitable for co-financing of a project where other types of crowd-funding are also applied (B9:35; B10:41; B5:50; B2:52). As already mentioned in the barrier effort, the difference between an example .6 million) and a regular

Another important aspect for the experts is a topic that affects the public (B6:61). This

means that the public can identify with the topic, such as climate research (B7:61),

cancer research (B8:69) or social projects in general (B3:55). In other words, research

that society would like to see implemented in their day-to-day life (B8:69). Other

top-ics, such as fundamental research or abstract mathemattop-ics, to which the public has no

direct connection, are not ideally suited for funding by crowdfunding (B1:93).

Howev-er, at the same time, one expert noted that the industry in which the research topic is

situated can be decisive for a crowdfunding campaign. For example, larger supporters would be found more quickly in industrial science than in the arts and humanities (B9:55).

A success factor related to this is the comprehensibility of the project. For example, one expert mentioned that the benefit of a scientific project for the public is often veiled and not immediately apparent, since research also requires a lot of time to be realized (B8:67). Directly linked to the lack of transparency are campaigns that are not aimed at creating a product. Thus, only few experts answered confirmed that they would consider another crowdfunding campaign. The reason for this was often that in a scientific campaign it was difficult for them to design good incentives because no product was the outcome of the research (B5:48). For example, one expert stated that crowdfunding relies on providing an incentive (B1:15) (see section 2.2). Another expert also gave an example of this:

"When you look at the other crowdfunding campaigns, you often see that they are product-based. So pay 100 Euro now and then in six months you will get this sleeping bag for example. These are product-based campaigns, which I think are easier because people receive something in return. We just sort of promise people a project report or photos or something (B5:48).

Publicity

The above mentioned required public perception of a successful crowdfunding cam-paign can, according to some experts, also have negative effects. For example, one expert stated that his project was not perceived well in the scientific community and was therefore intentionally not presented publicly to avoid unwanted attention (B6:23). Another expert adds:

"And in my experience, a bad crowdfunding campaign is worse than no campaign. Be-cause of course it's extremely visible" (B7:63).

Thus, transparency not only plays a positive role, but can also have negative

conse-quences for the researcher. For example, one expert described that supporters among

the family members were also rather critical and hostile towards the Crowdfunding

campaign (B11:37). The fact that the funds had to be raised for the work context and

not for a private project resulted in a "feeling of begging" in the expert, which was per-ceived as unpleasant (B11:17).

Another aspect is controversial among the experts and is definitely part of the individ-ual's personality but can still act as a barrier for researchers who are considering of running a crowdfunding campaign. For example, some experts pointed out that a crowdfunding campaign and the associated publicity requires a certain personality.

Thus, one expert reported that he found the advertising of the campaign and the presentation of himself uncomfortable (B11:27). In addition, one expert reported that this is also a distinction from traditional funding, as publicity is rather unfamiliar terri-tory for researchers (B7:43). Another expert summed up these thoughts by stating that he is a person who enjoys interacting with people:

"Well, I had to get used to presenting my face and voice to a few thousand people. [...] I

just think that not so many academics have such a great interest in being in the public

eye. This is also a matter of the extent of social competencies (B5:38).

Im Dokument Crowdfunding - A way to finance science? (Seite 65-70)