The allocation of research funding on the basis of peer review has recently come under scrutiny, due to the difficulty of assessing the difference between growing numbers of high quality applications. Presenting evidence from a large-scale survey of academics involved in the peer review of grant applications, James Hardcastle argues that academics largely see peer review as the best mechanism […]
Category: Research funding
Pushing research to the limit – Who innovates in social science research?
Innovation in any field of research often runs the risk of being poorly judged and misunderstood by researchers beholden to more conventional methods. What then allows researchers to undertake research that could leave them ostracised from their disciplinary communities? In this post, Sharon Koppman and Erin Leahey highlight how the development of interdisciplinary identities, association with key organisations, and the […]
Scientist Led or Mission Oriented – How much does it cost research funders to lead science?
Across national research systems, decisions about what research is funded are influenced by both researchers themselves, and policymakers with national priorities. However, beyond short term change in response to grants, it is unclear how the latter mission oriented form of research funding affects research practices over the long term. In this post Kyle Myers, shows that the funding needed to […]
Lessons from the past – Why our current understanding of UK research policy is wrong
As a result of Brexit, research policy in the UK is being asked to perform an increasingly large array of functions and will likely undergo significant changes. In this post David Edgerton draws on the findings of a recent British Academy report on the history of UK research policy to highlight how research policy in the UK is frequently misunderstood […]
Reflections on academic fundraising: the art of getting there
Fundraising, or grant capture, has become an increasingly established part of a career in the social sciences. Whereas, in the UK this process has become institutionalized, in other research systems grant capture remains less central. In this post Abel Polese reflects on his own experiences of academic fundraising and argues that for researchers seeking research funding, failure is relative and […]
To achieve a truly ‘Global Britain’ we need to take international research policy partnerships seriously
The relationship between the UK’s research endeavour and its international partners is likely to change in coming years as a result of changes in domestic funding streams and a potentially sharp exit from EU funded research projects. In this post James Georgalakis argues that if the UK is seeking to be truly ‘Global’ in terms of research, there is a […]
Do monographs have a future? Publishers, funders and research evaluators must decide
The future of the academic monograph has been questioned for over two decades. At the heart of this ‘monograph crisis’ has been a publishing industry centred on the print publication of monographs and a failure and lack of incentives to develop business models that would support a transition to open digital monographs. In this post Mike Taylor argues that if […]
A call for funders to ban institutions that use grant capture targets
Grant capture, or the ability of researchers to secure funding for their projects, is often used as a formal metric for academic evaluation. In this repost, Dorothy Bishop argues that this practice has led to peverse incentives for researchers and institutions and that research funders have both a responsibility and a significant interest in using their influence to halt this […]
How does funding and publication affect the time taken to complete a PhD?
A persistent problem for higher education policy has been how to ensure a steady supply of doctoral graduates equipped to deal with today’s global challenges. In this post Hugo Horta, Mattia Cattaneo and Michele Meoli examine the relationship between PhD funding and research productivity during PhD studies with time taken to complete a PhD and suggest that a key factor […]
Between value for money & development impact: Some reflections for the Global Challenges Research Fund
The Global Challenges Research Fund has engaged many researches with Overseas Development Aid and the auditing and assessment infrastructures associated with it. In this post Valeria Izzi and Becky Murray outline how researchers can adopt a value for money (VfM) approach that can justify North/South research projects in a way that accounts for economy, efficiency, effectiveness, as well equity. Since […]