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Nature News posted a piece on Friday about a new enterprise Science Exchange which its co-founder, Elizabeth Irons, describes as: ‘an ebay, but for Scientific Knowledge’.

Cool idea and obviously born of a real need to get things done. As Dr Irons recounts, the genesis for the idea was when she wanted to commission experiments outside her field, a process she politely describes as “entirely frustrating” (I’m sure stronger words were used in private). Adding “…and when I found a provider, it was difficult to pay them because they were outside my university’s purchasing system ”.

Administrative hurdles aren’t uncommon in any organisation, and though it would be insane to suggest that bureaucracy be dispensed with entirely (though it’s a tempting thought), a recent book ‘The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative Faculty and Why it Matters’ published by Oxford university Press and reviewed in The Scientist has attracted extensive and frank commenting from the community… and it’s not hard to see why. Surely, one of  roles (if not the only role) of an administrator is to facilitate the ‘doing of things’…those ‘things’ being whatever the goals of the organization it serves.

If scientists were able to source vendors or collaborators in a simplified bidding process such as Science Exchange or the like then it could only help to reduce the administrative burden of researchers and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration.