Barriers

Following the research objectives (see section 1.2), the question about barriers that hinder researchers to use crowdfunding for their research remains. Especially if the advantages just mentioned are considered, the use of crowdfunding does not seem to correspond to these (see section 1.1). These barriers are partly derived from the suc-cess factors emerging from the literature. If the chance of sucsuc-cess is low, this naturally acts as a barrier for the researchers and they tend to opt for an alternative form of funding. Apart from that, the process of identification is the same as for the motives (see section 3.2.1), so that the publications (see section 3.2) were searched for barri-ers, which results in the following potential barriers: Effort, Reputation, Specific Re-search, Expensive ReRe-search, Lack of Skills and Lack of Equipment. These barriers are depicted individually in the following and then summarized in the concept matrix in Table 5 at the end of this section.

Effort

The effort of a crowdfunding campaign is significantly positively related to the success of the campaign. Thus, the effort that the researcher puts into the campaign is consid-ered a major success factor (Byrnes et al., 2014, p. 22; Davidson and Tsfati, 2019, p. 879; Vachelard et al., 2016, p. 3). For example, there is often a pitch video, in which the project is presented, the progress is regularly published (lab notes) or discussions are held with the backers. The expected effort for a crowdfunding campaign espe-cially if it is the first one is therefore enormous (Ikkatai, McKay and Yokoyama, 2018, p. 2; Wheat et al., 2013, p. 71). Of course, a crowdfunding campaign can also be de-signed with little effort, but then it is very likely to be a failure. There are different timates for comparing the effort to the effort required for a grant-proposal. Some es-timate the effort of a crowdfunding campaign as lower, others as higher (Wheat et al., 2013, p. 71). Presumably, this is subjectively different from project to project and many determinants play a role in this equation. It should be emphasized that a possi-bly higher effort will also bring further advantages that a grant proposal does not promise, as is evident from the motives mentioned priory (see section 3.2.1).

Reputation

The barrier of reputation is divided into two aspects: Firstly, the reputation of the sponsor is the major focus. If a study has been funded by an institution with a good reputation, this emphasizes the quality of the study. Studies usually indicate the fund-ing they were financed by on the first page, thus directly highlightfund-ing the quality of the research. An application to a public funding institution is usually peer-reviewed by sev-eral experts, so that it can be assumed that the research complies with the guidelines for quality and ethics. If this process is successful and the study receives funding, this is already the first award and certifies quality. Consequently, a renowned research grant is of course more important in terms of reputation than a crowdfunding campaign. The reputation of the sponsor is decisive for the reputation of the study.

Secondly, the reputation of scientific crowdfunding itself is the focus of attention. In scientific crowdfunding considerable attention is devoted to the democratization of research (Byrnes et al., 2014). The crowd is to decide independently and uninfluenced which research should be funded and which should not. For this reason, some plat-forms deliberately decide against a prior review of the projects in order to guarantee neutrality. This, however, potentially leads to dishonesty and fraud in the platform, as there are people who want to exploit this non-review for their own interests (Sauermann, Franzoni and Shafi, 2019, p. 20). This in turn lowers the public perception of crowdfunding platforms. Other platforms opt for the safer option and require a peer review process to launch a campaign (Ikkatai, McKay and Yokoyama, p. 11). However, this again lowers the desired democratization of research. This results in a conflict be-tween the democratization of research on the one hand and the preservation of quali-tative and ethical guidelines and the prevention of fraud on the other.

Specific Research

A very decisive success factor for crowdfunding campaigns is to reach as many people

as possible. There are various strategies to achieve this, including an

easy-to-understand language and a subject area that is comprehensible to the general public

(Hui and Gerber, 2015, p. 33). Therefore, researchers orientate themselves on these

strategies and shape their campaign in such a way that the general public can

under-stand it. The downside of this phenomenon, however, is that only "Panda-Bear

Sci-ence" (Siva, 2014, p. 1086) is promoted by means of crowdfunding (Byrnes et al., 2014,

p. 23). This means that only research is promoted that has a high publicity value, such

as research with panda bears, which alone by their appearance cause different feelings in humans than e.g. Coli bacteria (Schäfer et al., 2018, p. 498). A possible consequence of this is, that specific research, which is no less important than high-publicity re-search, is neglected and cannot achieve the necessary funding goal.

Furthermore, people have an intrinsic preference for certainty, including supporters of a crowdfunding campaign (Sauermann, Franzoni and Shafi, 2019, p. 2). Consequently, they are more likely to support projects that are expected to achieve the funding goal.

Consequently, high-risk projects which are no less important than others, receive con-siderably less support. As a result, the project may be perceived as too specific or risky for a crowdfunding campaign, and the effort may rather be put into a grant proposal where subject experts take the funding decision.

Expensive Research

In crowdfunding, lower funding targets have a significantly higher probability of being funded than high targets (Sauermann, Franzoni and Shafi, 2019, p. 15). Although the millions of dollars of individual campaigns are effective publicity measures used by crowdfunding platforms to raise attention, the average amount of funding per crowd-funding campaign lies at approximately $9,500 USD (Experiment, 2020; Wheat et al., 2013, p. 72). Compared to public or foundation-based research funding, the amounts generated are marginal (Schäfer et al., 2018, p. 510). Scientific crowdfunding is there-fore recommended for smaller amounts. This level of funding is recommended, for example, for the financing of scientific excursions or necessary laboratory materials (Sauermann, Franzoni and Shafi, 2019, p. 20) and not for the costly development of nano- or space-technology (Pappalepore et al., 2017).

Lack of Skills

Following on from the required effort for a successful crowdfunding campaign, there are also several different skills involved. Firstly, there are the communication and mar-keting skills needed to reach as many people as possible (Hui and Gerber, 2015, p. 31).

In addition, media skills are required to create a pitch video or to regularly update the

campaign website with notes and research results (Sauermann, Franzoni and Shafi,

2019, p. 20). Moreover, it is recommended to translate the scientific work into

under-standable language; in earlier days, for example, translators were employed to

estab-lish contact with the public, as the language of the researcher was not fully compre-hensible to the majority of people (Hui and Gerber, 2015, p. 39). Consequently, the creation of a crowdfunding campaign is not automatically recommended for everyone and a lack of these skills (whether consciously or unconsciously) may act as a barrier.

Lack of Equipment

Along with the required media skills, it certainly also needs the equipment to produce these videos. Davidson and Tsfati (2019, p. 871) indicate that the success of crowd-funding campaigns does not necessarily correlate with the status of the researcher, but rather with the size of the university (Davidson and Tsfati, 2019, p. 871). Thus, larger, stronger and more prestigious institutions are more likely to have a successful crowd-funding campaign, as researchers have more resources and equipment available to deliver their messages in high-profile content videos (Davidson and Tsfati, 2019, p. 870; Pappalepore et al., 2017, p. 59). Thus, if the respective research institution cannot provide the appropriate equipment, a crowdfunding campaign will not be con-ducted in consideration of the pessimistic success rate.

Following the same procedure as in the chapter Motives (see section 3.2.1), a concept matrix in Table 5 is developed for the barriers, which summarizes the barriers for the use of scientific crowdfunding and their naming in the publications. The evaluation is distributed more evenly and is lower in comparison to the motives. Merely a minor focus on reputation is noticeable. Consequently, it can be concluded that researchers are more likely to turn to the motives than the barriers, although these are equally important for the research of the subject. After all, it is not entirely certain whether researchers do not crowdfund due to the lack of motives or existing barriers. This find-ing supports the formulation of the research question in Chapter 1.2, which states the goal of identifying both motives and barriers. The listed barriers will be summed up in the subsequent section and form the basis for the formulation of the interview guide-line in chapter 4.1.

Lack

Concepts

References Ef fo rt R e p u tati on Spe ci fi c / R isky R e sea rch Exp e n si ve R e sea rch Skil ls Eq u ip m e n t

Wheat et al. (2013) X

Byrnes, J.E.K. et al. (2014) X X X X X

Hui and Gerber (2015) XX

Vachelard, J. et al. (2016) X Dey, S., Karahalios, K. and Fu,

W.-T. (2017)

Pappalepore, G. et al. (2017) X X XX X X

Ikkatai, Y., McKay, E. and

Yoko-yama, H.M. (2018) X X

Schäfer, M.S. et al. (2018) X X X

Sauermann, Franzoni and Shafi

(2019) XXX X XX X

Davidson, R. and Tsfati, Y. (2019) X XXX

Sum 5 7 4 5 5 5

Im Dokument Crowdfunding - A way to finance science? (Seite 36-40)