Study casts doubt on whether grants for specific fields can enduringly reshape what gets researched
Photo credits: Hush Naidoo Jade Photography / Unsplash
A study looking at Swiss and Norwegian research grants has concluded that targeted research calls don’t shift what scientists study in the longer-term, raising doubts over whether such calls can have a big impact on academia overall.
There’s a long-running debate in research policy over whether to allow scientists complete freedom to pitch their own ideas and win funding from so-called open calls, or specify that they should solve pressing social challenges.
The European Research Council, for example, favours open calls. But EU collaborative grants typically spell out what scientists should focus on, often in areas that meet European environmental, defence or economic targets, for example.
This latest study, by the London-based Research on Research Institute, looked at scientists’ publications before, during and after they received targeted grants…
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