Characterizing researchers to study research funding agency impacts: The case of the European Research Council's Starting Grants

Abstract

We describe the development and testing of a framework to characterize researchers individually (a profile) and in aggregate (as types) at the first stage, baseline step of a controlled, two-stage study of public research funding agency impacts. Our framework characterizes researcher attitudes and attributes, and conditions and opportunities experienced, addressing: 'demographic' factors; researcher 'approach'; and 'standing' (organizational career, knowledge community career, and local and national research environment aspects). This integrated demographic-approach-standing (DAS) framework is tested using a survey of 184 applicants to the inaugural, 2007 call for the European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants (StG). Successful applicants are characterized to match-pair with a control group of quality-screened unsuccessful applicants. Given the inherent difficulty to identify in advance the 'frontier' researchers the ERC aims to fund with its StG, we characterize 'frontier-potential' factors that might lead researchers later to become regarded as frontier. We develop researcher types using several of our framework elements: researcher intellectual field mobility; novelty and risk-taking; independence; output productivity; and local research workplace standing. We find a variety of grantee types, but primarily not yet independent researchers whose 'standing' could be impacted upon by the early-career StG scheme. Lastly, we suggest impact pathways between types we could capture following a second stage survey, and discuss limitations to our framework including revising it to characterize better local research environment aspects.

The impact of research funding on scientific outputs: Evidence from six smallerEuropean countries

“…There is broad discussion about the effectiveness of these investments (see, e.g., BIS, 2011). The European Research Council (launched in 2007) has been subject to investigation but researchers have tended to examine its processes rather than its research impacts (Luukkonen, 2012;Neufeld, Huber, & Wegner, 2013;Scherngell et al, 2013;Thomas & Nedeva, 2012). Recent work on the impact of the EU's FP includes that by E. Arnold (2012) although this does not use bibliometric methods.…”

“…A number of other studies have looked at the FPs (including J. G. Arnold & Fohrer, 2005;Bayona-Saez & Garcia-Marco, 2010;Cassi, Corrocher, Malerba, & Vonortas, 2008;Jennings, 2012;Kleijn & Sutherland, 2003;Laredo, 1998;Lewison, 1994;Noyons, Teigland, Schenkel, & Maier, 2009). The European Research Council (launched in 2007) has been subject to investigation but researchers have tended to examine its processes rather than its research impacts (Luukkonen, 2012;Neufeld, Huber, & Wegner, 2013;Scherngell et al, 2013;Thomas & Nedeva, 2012). In the context of our own investigations of the linkages between funding sponsorship and research outputs, we are particularly interested in how EU sponsorship affects research quality and impact.…”

Changing Funding Arrangements and the Production of Scientific Knowledge: Introduction to the Special Issue

“…Attention shifted to the study of funding programmes (Aguilar et al 1998;Melin and Danell 2006;Heinze 2008;Edler et al 2014), and here mostly to selection processes (Bornmann and Daniel 2005;Lamont 2009;Luukkonen 2012). This move has certainly been promoted by the growing interest of funders in the efficacy of their funding schemes and the commissioning of evaluation reports (Hornbostel et al 2009;Thomas and Nedeva 2012;Möller et al 2016). Yet studies of funding programmes have produced little in terms of generalisable findings regarding the impact of funding schemes on research practices, not least because they mostly focus on single funding programmes.…”

Measuring researcher independence using bibliometric data: A proposal for a new performance indicator

“…A good example is the Starting Grants scheme of the ERC [21,22]. The ERC instructs its panels to select excellent researchers and groundbreaking projects, and one of the few concrete criteria they mention is 'independence', defined as having one (or a few) publications without the former PhD supervisor being co-author.…”

“…Independence is not the only relevant dimension. One may also think of 'originality', 'risk taking', or 'interdisciplinary' as important features of the research lines to be developed [22,27]. And the own research line should be promising and relevant, so probably within a research field that shows growth.…”