Lucy Bernholz, a nonprofit consultant and author of Philanthropy 2173, is questioning an opinion article that appeared in The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

In the article, J. H. Snider, president of iSolon.org, which studies the links between democracy and technology, argues that American public-policy debates are being squelched because of plagiarism concerns. To help protect scholars from having their ideas stolen, Mr. Snider proposes that grant makers support an “authoritative online clearinghouse of think-tank research with new tools to facilitate peer review.”

But Ms. Bernholz found the proposal puzzling.

“This was a mind-bending piece for me, one which I finally realized struck me as the ‘solution’ being — at best, a misapplication of resources — and, at worst, a bigger problem than that which it was proposed to solve,” she writes.

What do you think? Is public-policy innovation at risk because of the way the scholarly world works? If so, would Mr. Snider’s proposal be a solution?