… you go to a supermarket or a grocery store, buy everything you need, pay at the cashier’s but leave all your purchase in the store, come home, save the receipt for the end-of-the-month accounting and move on as if this is how it should be. 

In 2017-2021, PAASP was part of the EQIPD consortium funded by the European Horizon 2020 program. At the end of 2023, two years after the project ended, we (PAASP) were informed about a finance audit to be performed by PricewaterhouseCoopers. To cut the long story short, this turned out to be a very lengthy and detailed process culminating in two PwC colleagues traveling from Romania (!) to Heidelberg to go through our books over four consecutive days. Several months after this visit, the final report was accepted by the European Commission. The outcome was positive but it gave us a lot of food for thought. 

The funder must be really concerned that its money is spent properly (i.e., all expenses are correctly booked and documented) and does not mind spending significant amounts of money on such audits. This is understandable and PAASP is certainly not the only organization that is subjected to such assessments. 

However, we struggle with the question: Why do funders not check whether there was indeed a meaningful output generated from what they funded? Why do we not hear about funders checking that the funded research actually left traces in a form of experimental records containing data documented according to preferred practices?