The art of getting funded: how scientists adapt to their funding conditions

Abstract

FundingThe art of getting funded: how scientists adapt to their funding conditions Grit Laudel Shrinking university budgets make university researchers more and more dependent on external funds. As a response, they develop specific strategies for selecting external funds and for adapting their research. In a comparative interview-based study of experimental physicists working at Australian and German universities, connections between their funding conditions and adaptation strategies were analysed. Strategies differ between scientists in the two countries because of different funding conditions; and they differ between top scientists and others. The adaptation affects the content of research, for instance, its quality and innovativeness. The findings can be generalised to resource-intensive fields that underwent a shift from recurrent to external funding.Grit Laudel is at .This article has benefited from discussions with Jochen Gläser and comments by Renate Mayntz, Uwe Schimank, Peter Weingart, and several unknown reviewers. As one important result of these discussions, the author hopes to have strengthened her arguments sufficiently to convince readers that the outlined causal relationships do indeed exist, and are not merely her rationalisation of scientists' common complaints.

How to sponsor ground-breaking research: a comparison of funding schemes

“…In her study of how Australian and German physicists adapt the content of their work to existing funding conditions, Laudel (2006) reports that in research systems with little, no or decreasing core organizational funding, scientists are ever more dependent on sponsorship from external agencies and thus upon their governance in the selection and distribution of funds. Among the various strategies they use to cope with this situation, scientists tend to accept externally predetermined topics or themes, avoid risky research and try to work in niche areas (Laudel, 2006: 496-497).…”

“…During the past three decades, a major trend in the governance of public research institutions involves an increase in the share of external, peer-reviewed funding from research councils (Laudel, 2006;Langfeldt, 2001;Bourke and Butler, 1999). 1 The result of this rising dependence on external project funding is that scientists are forced into a competitive environment driven by evaluation for the allocation of these scarce funds.…”

“…cientists and science policy makers are paying greater attention to the importance of funding mechanisms for the proper conduct of research (Laudel, 2006;HLEG, 2005;Bourke and Butler, 1999). Today, how research money is packaged, earmarked, distributed and finally spent within and across research institutions influences the working conditions under which research is carried out in laboratories.…”

Research Proposal: Barriers to new user and new domain adoption of the XSEDE Cyberinfrastructure

“…Competition thus has a complex relationship with peer review. Laudel [16] notes that the competitive process may have impacts to the course of science as scientist averse to risk select other research topics in order to avoid competition and increase favor in peer review, promote mainstream or existing research techniques in order to be more competitive with particular review boards. Reports from leaders in grant-funded research centers find that competitive resubmissions for funding has a disruptive effect on getting the work of the center done [17].…”

Token endeavors: the significance of academic spin-offs in technology transfer and research policy in Germany

“…A series of research programs thus included advisory boards and working groups, in which the specific interests of scientists were melded with those voiced by the representatives of the federal research ministry. In addition, the research centers of big science started their own information campaigns to inform the general public about the topics and the products of their own expensive research infrastructure (Laudel, 2006;Zuckermann and Merton 1971: 66-100;Daele et al, 1979: 32-34).…”