Figure 10

Hypothetical relationships between research effort (I.E., dollars) and results (metric unspecified). If each dollar spent generates results that lead to the same decrease in burden then the relationship between effort and results would be a linear one (solid line). Positive synergistic effects would cause results, per dollar, to increase with the total funding amount (dotted line). Negative synergistic effects would cause results, per dollar, to decrease with the total funding amount (dashed line). Which of these relationships is likely to be true is unclear, but each leads to different optimal approaches for the distribution of research effort.