Concentration Of Research Funding Research Articles

Invisible innovation: Intellectual labour on regional university campuses in Australia

In Australia, regional university campuses occupy a geographically and institutionally peripheral position in a metrocentric higher education system. We argue that the concentration of research funding and capabilities at metropolitan campuses devalues the intellectual labour of academics working on regional university campuses. The authors use collaborative autoethnography to explore a common theme of ‘gap filling’, that is, mobilising scarce resources to create unique solutions for local issues, and draw on Southern Theory to theorise the implications for our work in the location-based power relations of the Australian knowledge production economy. In this context, we utilise Eversole's concept of ‘invisible innovation’ to theorise how the important place-based knowledge work associated with ‘gap filling’ on regional university campuses is rendered invisible by the metrocentric geopolitics of knowledge production within Australia. The research reveals that the place-based knowledge work of regional academics fills gaps in regional services and resources through innovations largely unrecognised within the higher education system.

A method for identifying different types of university research teams

Identifying research teams constitutes a fundamental step in team science research, and universities harbor diverse types of such teams. This study introduces a method and proposes algorithms for team identification, encompassing the project-based research team (Pbrt), the individual-based research team (Ibrt), the backbone-based research group (Bbrg), and the representative research group (Rrg), scrutinizing aspects such as project, contribution, collaboration, and similarity. Drawing on two top universities in Materials Science and Engineering as case studies, this research reveals that university research teams predominantly manifest as backbone-based research groups. The distribution of members within these groups adheres to Price’s Law, indicating a concentration of research funding among a minority of research groups. Furthermore, the representative research groups in universities exhibit interdisciplinary characteristics. Notably, significant differences exist in collaboration mode and member structures among high-level backbone-based research groups across diverse cultural backgrounds.

Maneuvering through a Changing Funding Terrain: Biomedical University Scientists in Positive and Negative Feedback Loops

The mechanisms of research funding are in flux across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In Denmark the research system has experienced an increase in the concentration of research funding on individual researchers and topic areas. This article documents such concentration patterns in biomedical research and applies a case study methodology to explore some of its consequences. The study contrasts the markedly different funding environments of two sets of biomedical researchers at the same public university. One set of scientists has benefited significantly from working in specialized research centers sponsored by private funds. The other, located at a conventional university department has been adversely affected by the changing funding logic of the Danish research system. We compare the two sets of researchers with regard to: 1) how they perceive their funding conditions to have changed in recent times, 2) what coping strategies they rely on, and 3) how they perceive this to impact their “problem choice.” Our analysis shows how scientists, as a consequence of rising competition over funding and growing resource concentration on fewer research specialties (of particular interest to private funders), perceive considerable pressure to adapt their research activities. The perceived impact however differs substantially across informants.

Which scientific elites? On the concentration of research funds, publications and citations

Using the population of all university professors (N = 13,479) in the province of Quebec, Canada, this article analyses the concentration of funding, papers and citations at the level of individual researchers. It shows that each of these distributions is different, citations being the most concentrated followed by funding, papers published and, finally, number of funded projects. Concentration measures also vary between disciplines; social sciences and humanities generally being the most concentrated. The article also shows that the correspondence between the elites defined by each of these measures is limited. In fact, only 3.2% of the researchers are in the top 10% for all indicators, while about 20% are in the top 10% for at least one of the indicators. The article concludes with a discussion of the causes of these observed differences and formulates a few hypotheses.

Who Rules Research Commands the University: A Comparison of Research Assessment Schemes in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands

This paper compares the research assessment schemes in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, which are diametrically opposed in methods and approach. The main question is if the different approaches lead to different impacts on universities. It will be argued that the UK's RAE leads to a higher degree of concentration of research funds than the Dutch research evaluations. Other consequences are quite similar, however: concentration on publishable research (”short-termism”, ”salami publishing”), mobility on the academic labour market, knock-on effects of research assessments ratings on grant-earning capacity, etc. Through research assessment schemes, governments may be pushing higher education harder towards research, but especially university managers have gained an important position to govern the academic heartland.

U.K. Universities: The End of Equality

Following the publication last week of the first major report into Britain's higher education system for more than 30 years, U.K. universities face some major changes. The report's panel, chaired by educational troubleshooter Sir Ron Dearing, recommends widening participation in higher education to 45% of all school leavers, an end to free tuition, and the concentration of research funding in a select number of research-intensive universities.

The impact of the science research council's policy of selectivity and concentration on average levels of research support: 1965–1974

Use is made of the peer-adjudicated grants awarded by the Science Research Council (SRC) during the years 1965–1974 to examine the Council's policy of selectivity and concentration. The paper develops earlier work on the concentration of these resources in two ways, firstly, be exploring changes in the median levels of grants over the decade, and secondly, by correlating these changes with changes in the concentration of research funds. With regard to the first dimension the analysis revealed that in all but two committees of the Council, the median of the grant distributions remained constant or declined over time. In the second case, expensive areas of research - those exhibiting a high median grant - were found to exhibit the highest concentration index. Both of these results clarify the manner in which the SRC had responded to a perceived escalation in the costs of research and also provided a basis for examining the rationale for the SRC's adoption of an expanded policy of selectivity and concentration in which such escalation has forced the SRC to be both more selective in the research they support and to concentrate those limited resources in fewer groups in order that quality in research be sustained. The analyses presented in this paper raise certain questions over the extent to which these changes have occured in the area of peer-adjudicated grants.

The concentration of research funds: the case of the Science Research Council

Abstract. A perennial problem facing an R & D effort is the allocation of scarce resources amongst competing proposals or projects. One conceptualization of this problem evolves from the notion of concentration of resources. That is, the balance between more and less expensive projects. The Science Research Council (SRC) has pursued a policy of concentration of resources within both selected areas of research and specific research units for a number of years. This paper presents both a technique for monitoring the concentration of resources and an analysis of the effect of the SRC's policy on the distribution of grants for the years 1964 to 1974 inclusive.