In case you think “grant money” means “salary,” it doesn’t. If one person gets 5x as much grant money, he doesn’t get 5x as much salary. If the group pretends to be 1 person, it loses out on the salary money.
Grants are budgeted for specific projects and are mainly used to hire people (grad students, etc). (Often the university hires the professor to teach and the grant buys out the professor’s teaching obligation. But only up to the salary set by the university.) So in that sense grants are for salary. You could declare 1 person the professor and the other 4 assistants, but then they’d be getting a lot less salary than if they were professors.
As to the literal question, if one can demonstrate the ability to manage 5x as many projects, it is pretty easy to get 5x as many grants to hire 5x as many people. And I guess scale is mainly a matter of hierarchy, of being able to choose assistants who can do both the research and subsidiary management. And you have assumed this under the hypothesis that the assistants are the real researchers.
I have heard suggested from many people that having a 2 author paper on your CV is worth more than having half of a single-author paper, and thus one should choose a buddy and co-sign all papers.
So… now it seems like going in the opposite direction would be the (financially) better way.
Like, if you are a super productive scientist, publish (and get employed) under 5 different identities. For example, use real people who are not scientists, and attribute some of your work to them. Even better, make them co-authors, and your contributions will still be remembered by history.
In case you think “grant money” means “salary,” it doesn’t. If one person gets 5x as much grant money, he doesn’t get 5x as much salary. If the group pretends to be 1 person, it loses out on the salary money.
Grants are budgeted for specific projects and are mainly used to hire people (grad students, etc). (Often the university hires the professor to teach and the grant buys out the professor’s teaching obligation. But only up to the salary set by the university.) So in that sense grants are for salary. You could declare 1 person the professor and the other 4 assistants, but then they’d be getting a lot less salary than if they were professors.
As to the literal question, if one can demonstrate the ability to manage 5x as many projects, it is pretty easy to get 5x as many grants to hire 5x as many people. And I guess scale is mainly a matter of hierarchy, of being able to choose assistants who can do both the research and subsidiary management. And you have assumed this under the hypothesis that the assistants are the real researchers.
I have heard suggested from many people that having a 2 author paper on your CV is worth more than having half of a single-author paper, and thus one should choose a buddy and co-sign all papers.
So… now it seems like going in the opposite direction would be the (financially) better way.
Like, if you are a super productive scientist, publish (and get employed) under 5 different identities. For example, use real people who are not scientists, and attribute some of your work to them. Even better, make them co-authors, and your contributions will still be remembered by history.