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

With this special issue, we would like to promote research on changes in the funding of the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Since funding secures the livelihood of researchers and the means to do research, it is an indispensable condition for almost all research; as funding arrangements are undergoing dramatic changes, we think it timely to renew the science studies community’s efforts to understand the funding of research. Changes in the governance of science have garnered considerable attention from science studies and higher education research; however, the impact of these changes on the conduct and content of research has not received sufficient attention, and theoretical insights into the connections between funding practices and research practices are few and far between. The aim of this special issue is to contribute to our theoretical understanding of the changing nature of research funding and its impact on the production of scientific knowledge. More specifically, we are interested in the interplay between funding and research practices: What is the impact of institutionalised funding arrangements on the production of scientific knowledge?     

Autonomy and Authority in Public Research Organisations: Structure and Funding Factors

This paper establishes a structural typology of the organisational configurations of public research organisations which vary in their relative internal sharing of authority between researchers and managers; we distinguish between autonomous, heteronomous and managed research organisations. We assume that there are at least two sources of legitimate authority within research organisations, one derived from formal hierarchy (organisational leadership) and another derived from the research community (professional); the balance of authority between researchers and managers is essentially structural but is empirically mediated by the funding portfolio of organisations and the corresponding endowment of resources at the disposal of leaders or researchers. Changes in the level, sources and strings of organisational and individual research funding are expected to affect the balance of internal authority in different ways depending on the organisational configuration, and to open the door to the influence of external actors in the development of research agendas.     

Changing Governance and Authority Relations in the Public Sciences

Major changes in the governance of higher education and the public sciences have taken place over the past 40 or so years in many OECD countries. These have affected the nature of authority relationships governing research priorities and the evaluation of results. In particular, the increasing exogeneity, formalisation and substantive nature of governance mechanisms, as well as the strength and extent of their enforcement, have altered the relative authority of different groups and organisations over research priorities and evaluations, as well as creating some new ones. These shifts in authority have occurred to different degrees in differently organised public science systems. As a result, the diversity and longevity of many research projects, the intensity of competition for disciplinary reputations and the coordination of research goals and outcomes across universities and national boundaries have changed to different degrees in different countries.     

The Perceived Impact of Eight Systemic Factors on Scientific Capital Accumulation

Minerva - In the global academic capitalist race, academics, institutions and countries’ symbolic power results from the accumulation of scientific capital. This paper relies on the...     

The Impact of the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States: Institutional and Sectoral Effects on Private Funding

This paper examines the impact of the National Endowment for the Arts on private donations to the arts. The aim of the analysis is to assess whether public funding generates a crowding effect on private giving. We distinguish between institutional and sectoral crowding phenomena and discuss their possible implications.We used both a qualitative approach and an econometric model to estimate the effect of NEA introduction and appropriations on donations. Our results suggest that at the institutional level NEA grants do not generally induce donations to recipients while at the sectoral level appropriations and private giving are independent. The introduction of the agency appears to have caused a decrease in donations.     

The Drawbacks of Project Funding for Epistemic Innovation: Comparing Institutional Affordances and Constraints of Different Types of Research Funding

Over the past decades, science funding shows a shift from recurrent block funding towards project funding mechanisms. However, our knowledge of how project funding arrangements influence the organizational and epistemic properties of research is limited. To study this relation, a bridge between science policy studies and science studies is necessary. Recent studies have analyzed the relation between the affordances and constraints of project grants and the epistemic properties of research. However, the potentially very different affordances and constraints of funding arrangements such as awards, prizes and fellowships, have not yet been taken into account. Drawing on eight case studies of funding arrangements in high performing Dutch research groups, this study compares the institutional affordances and constraints of prizes with those of project grants and their effects on organizational and epistemic properties of research. We argue that the prize case studies diverge from project-funded research in three ways: 1) a more flexible use, and adaptation of use, of funds during the research process compared to project grants; 2) investments in the larger organization which have effects beyond the research project itself; and 3), closely related, greater deviation from epistemic and organizational standards. The increasing dominance of project funding arrangements in Western science systems is therefore argued to be problematic in light of epistemic and organizational innovation. Funding arrangements that offer funding without scholars having to submit a project-proposal remain crucial to support researchers and research groups to deviate from epistemic and organizational standards.     

Cross-Sectoral Mobility Funding and the Challenge of Immersion: The Case of SSH

Minerva - Project funding rarely demands much change on behalf of the recipient. In contrast, cross-sectoral mobility funding requires recipients to change their environment and often some aspects...     

The Evolution of a National Research Funding System: Transformative Change Through Layering and Displacement

This article outlines the evolution of a national research funding system over a timespan of more than 40 years and analyzes the development from a rather stable Humboldt-inspired floor funding model to a complex multi-tiered system where new mechanisms continually have been added on top of the system. Based on recent contributions to Historical Institutionalism it is shown how layering and displacement processes gradually have changed the funding system along a number of dimensions and thus how a series of minor adjustments over time has led to a transformation of the system as a whole. The analysis also highlights the remarkable resistance of the traditional academically oriented research council system towards restructuring. Due to this resistance the political system has, however, circumvented the research council system and implemented change through other channels of the funding system. For periods of time these strategies have marginalized the role of the councils.     

The Perception of Scientific Authorship Across Domains

Minerva - We extend previous research by systematically investigating whether perceptions of scientific authorship vary between domains. Employing regulations for authorship of scientific journals...     

Currency and the Collective Representations of Authority,Nationality, and Value

Mainstream economics has consistently ignored the iconography of currency, describing money ‘just’ as a commodity. The paper is going to investigate the economic and political significance of the representations of authority and nationality in currency describing how these representation support its acceptability. The aim of the analysis is double: to decipher the visual identity of currency and its contribution to the acceptance of money in day-to-day transactions, as well as to discuss the operational principles of the monetary system as they are uncovered in the iconography of money. By answering these questions, the paper is going to trace the theoretical presuppositions and the cultural stereotypes that inform the representation of economic value and national identity as they are articulated in banknotes and coins with a specific emphasis on the European Monetary Union and the recent financial crisis that is still affecting its periphery.     

The Rise of Computing Research in East Africa: The Relationship Between Funding,Capacity and Research Community in a Nascent Field

The emergence of vibrant research communities of computer scientists in Kenya and Uganda has occurred in the context of neoliberal privatization, commercialization, and transnational capital flows from donors and corporations. We explore how this funding environment configures research culture and research practices, which are conceptualized as two main components of a research community. Data come from a three-year longitudinal study utilizing interview, ethnographic and survey data collected in Nairobi and Kampala. We document how administrators shape research culture by building academic programs and training growing numbers of PhDs, and analyze how this is linked to complicated interactions between political economy, the epistemic nature of computer science and sociocultural factors like entrepreneurial leadership of key actors and distinctive cultures of innovation. In a donor-driven funding environment, research practice involves scientists constructing their own localized research priorities by adopting distinctive professional identities and creatively structuring projects. The neoliberal political economic context thus clearly influenced research communities, but did not debilitate computing research capacity nor leave researchers without any agency to carry out research programs. The cases illustrate how sites of knowledge production in Africa can gain some measure of research autonomy, some degree of global competency in a central arena of scientific and technological activity, and some expression of their regional cultural priorities and aspirations. Furthermore, the cases suggest that social analysts must balance structure with culture, place and agency in their approaches to understanding how funding and political economy shape scientific knowledge.     

易性想象与男性立场--茅盾前期小说中的性别意识分析

作家塑造异性形象是否成功,往往取决于其是否能够在某一层面上完成心理易性.茅盾在塑造慧女士-孙舞阳-章秋柳这些热情、性感的时代女性时,受阻于自我的男性立场,忽视女性生命逻辑,使得人物失去性格的内在统一性而成为"狂乱的混合物".在塑造静女士-方太太-琼华这些性格相对弱一点的女性形象时,茅盾表现出出色的易性想象能力,塑造了一批符合女性生命逻辑的圆形人物,有效地弥补了封建等级文化所制造的性别鸿沟.茅盾卓越的艺术才华还体现在<蚀>与<野蔷薇>中男性立场与女性立场的对话关系上,尽管其男性性别立场中既有现代人的生命真实,也还残留着男权文化的遗迹.     

The Impact of Museum Purchase on the Auction Prices of Paintings

This study examines how art museumspurchasing policy influences the auction prices ofpaintings. Using a cross section of non-speculativetransactions during the period 1820–1970, we findconsiderable empirical support for the hypothesisthat public museums outside the U.S. pay above averageprices in auction markets providing higher thanaverage yields to private sellers. The typical U.S.private museums appear to be more restricted byfinancial constraints and the development of thegeneral economic conditions than their publiccounterparts.     

How Experiments Begin: The Formation of Scientific Collaborations

Multi-organizational collaborations are increasingly important incontemporary science, but their formative processes have beenneglected by scholars in the social studies of science. Based onan examination of 53 collaborations in physics and relateddisciplines, we have found five types of formations.Collaborations that encountered greater difficulties in formingbecame more formal in their organization and management.     

The Significance of Scientific Capital in UK Medical Education

For decades, debates over medical curriculum reform have centred on the role of science in medical education, but the meaning of ‘science’ in this domain is vague and the persistence of the debate has not been explained. Following Bourdieu, this paper examines struggles over legitimate knowledge and the forms of capital associated with science in contemporary UK medical education. Data are presented from a study of two UK medical schools, one with a traditional, science-oriented curriculum, another with an integrated curriculum. Constructions of legitimate knowledge were explored at both schools through six months participant observation, interviews with faculty members (n=15) and students (n=37) and documentary analysis. Findings show that medical schools compete for both scientific and clinical capital, but ultimately science has greater legitimacy. ‘Science’ is defined in accordance with the structure of the traditional curriculum and has become a symbolic resource – a mark of distinction for both medical schools and medical students – which is equated with clinical competence. The significance of science is circumscribed by the medical education field, yet the struggles for scientific capital there have ramifications beyond medical education itself. It is argued that Bourdieu’s concepts are particularly useful tools for studying the meanings that science takes on outside of the scientific field.     

Space for Ambitions: The Dutch Space Program in Changing European and Transatlantic Contexts

Why would a small country like the Netherlands become active in space? The field was monopolized by large countries with large military establishments, especially in the early years of spaceflight. Nevertheless, the Netherlands established a space program in the late 1960s. In this paper I will analyze the backgrounds of Dutch space policy in international post-war politics, national industrial policy, and science. After the Second World War, European space activities were shaped by the interplay between transatlantic and European cooperation and competition, limited by American Cold War diplomacy. At the national level, the Dutch space program was shaped firstly by two powerful companies, Philips electronics and Fokker Aircraft. As I will demonstrate, these two firms sought to gain crucial management skills as well as technological ones. Meanwhile, the nation’s astronomers were able to capitalize on an advantageous confluence of political, economic and scientific ambitions to forward their own agenda. They succeeded in obtaining two of the most expensive scientific instruments ever built in the Netherlands: the Astronomical Netherlands Satellite (ANS, launched 1974) and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS, 1983). Both were joint Dutch-American missions, but the nature of the cooperation on each was very different, reflecting the changing relationship between America and Western Europe from the 1950s until the 1980s.