Equity and Excellence in Research Funding

The tension between equity and excellence is fundamental in science policy. This tension might appear to be resolved through the use of merit-based evaluation as a criterion for research funding. This is not the case. Merit-based decision making alone is insufficient because of inequality aversion, a fundamental tendency of people to avoid extremely unequal distributions. The distribution of performance in science is extremely unequal, and no decision maker with the power to establish a distribution of public money would dare to match the level of inequality in research performance. We argue that decision makers who increase concentration of resources because they accept that research resources should be distributed according to merit probably implement less inequality than would be justified by differences in research performance. Here we show that the consequences are likely to be suppression of incentives for the very best scientists. The consequences for the performance of a national research system may be substantial. Decision makers are unaware of the issue, as they operate with distributional assumptions of normality that guide our everyday intuitions

Where Is Science Going?

Do researchers produce scientific and technical knowledge differently than they did ten years ago? What will scientific research look like ten years from now? Addressing such questions means looking at science from a dynamic systems perspective. Two recent books about the social system of science, by Ziman and by Gibbons, Limoges, Nowotny, Schwartzman, Scott, and Trow, accept this challenge and argue that the research enterprise is changing. This article uses bibliometric data to examine the extent and nature of changes identified by these authors, taking as an example British research. We use their theoretical frameworks to investigate five characteristics of research said to be increasingly pervasive-namely, application, interdisciplinarity, networking, internationalization, and concentration of resources. Results indicate that research may be becoming more interdisciplinary and that research is increasingly conducted more in networks, both domestic and international; but the data are more ambiguous regarding application and concentration. CR - Copyright © 1996 Sage Publications, Inc

Research Performance and Resource Allocation

Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy 2009This presentation was part of the session : Policy Actors and RelationshipsIn this paper we analyze an unacknowledged tension in decision making about the distribution of resources for research and innovation. There is tension because while decision makers accept that there is inequality in research performance, and that resources should be distributed according to merit, the resulting inequality in the allocation of public money seems so extreme that it violates deeply held principles of equity in a democratic society. We will pursue this argument by considering how resources and performance are distributed. Specifically we will examine the properties of probability distributions - power law and normal - and the felt experience of "living within" these distributions. The argument proceeds as follows. The paper begins by discussing the distinctions commonly made between probability distributions and then proposes a metaphorical classification of the shape of distributions. There follows a review of the empirical evidence that a power law distribution characterizes research performance. Next, equity in the merit-based distribution of resources is discussed and recent results from experimental economics are brought to bear on the question of the felt experience of resource distribution. This is used to argue that the normal distribution of resources will feel more comfortable than the power law distribution of resources both to those distributing resources and to those receiving resources. Unfortunately, we find that in research the comfortable distribution of resources creates an incentive structure that may suppress excellence. We believe there is a fundamental tension in between equity and excellence that can suppress incentives for excellence in innovation when equity is a concern in distributing resources. Although using merit based evaluation as a criterion for research funding would seem likely to resolve this tension, we argue here that this is not the case. Merit based decision making alone is insufficient because of inequity aversion, a fundamental tendency of people to avoid extremely unequal distributions. The distribution of performance in innovation is extremely unequal, and no decision maker with the power to establish a distribution of public money among recipients would dare to match that level of inequality. In fact, decision makers are likely unaware of the issue, as they no doubt operate with distributional assumptions of normality that guide our everyday intuitions. Further research is needed to ascertain how best to resolve the tension, though innovative funding mechanisms such as prizes hold promise. Second, avoiding a system in which one decision maker or decision making committee makes a comprehensive allocation of resources may help. The U.S. exemplifies this situation in that the total Federal research support received by any state, university or department is allocated through many competitive decisions each of comparatively minor consequence. It is possible that many small, inequity averse, merit based decisions may accumulate into a distribution that provides innovators with appropriate incentives. However, further research is needed to confirm this point

Introduction to the Handbook of Public Funding of Research: understanding vertical and horizontal complexities.

This introductory chapter to the Handbook of Public Funding of Research discusses the underlying ideas and rationales for investing public funds in research. It highlights some of the cross-cutting themes of the book’s chapters and locates components of public research funding systems in, respectively, (1)four organizational layers and (2) two allocation modes. In terms of the first, it focuses on the policy design, the policy instruments, research organisations and the layer of the researchers. In terms of allocation modes, the chapter looks at institutional funding and project funding. In sum, we show that the research policy and funding landscape has become increasingly complex and differentiated

English language teaching teacher's guides : a critical discourse analysis of three texts.

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN040748 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Ista mjerila nisu prikladna za sve: o međusobnoj prilagodbi nacionalnih evaluacijskih sustava i objavljivanja u društvenim znanostima

Forum Izvorno izdanje članka: Diana Hicks, »One size doesn’t fit all: On the co-evolution of national evaluation systems and social science publishing«, Confero, god. 1, 2013, br. 1, str. 67–90 (doi: 10.3384/confero13v1121207b). [Original article: Diana Hicks, “One size doesn’t fit all: On the co-evolution of national evaluation systems and social science publishing”, Confero, vol. 1, 2013, no. 1, pp. 67–90 (doi: 10.3384/confero13v1121207b).

Who uses open access research? evidence from the use of US national academies reports

A fundamental principle of open access is that publication technology enables the widest possible audience for research findings. However, the extent to which open research is used outside of academia is often underexplored. Drawing on a dataset covering over a million user comments about their use of US National Academies consensus study reports, Ameet Doshi, Diana Hicks, Matteo Zullo and Omar I. Asensio find widespread use of open research in the public sphere