@article{f9b36f657b604d668399302b46a979bf,
title = "Affording excellence: What does excellence funding do for researchers?",
abstract = "The ambitions to fund excellent researchers and path-breaking research unite a whole family of funding instruments ranging from Centres of Excellence to individual grants. While instruments aimed at funding excellence share a number of commonalities, there are important subsidiary features which determine their overall efficacy. The paper uses a case study of the Swedish Distinguished Professor Grant (DPG) to investigate the role of subsidiary features in enabling conditions associated with path-breaking research. Interviews were conducted with DPG recipients, to develop an “affordance analysis” identifying how features of the instrument enabled certain researcher actions and opportunities. Results suggest that while long duration and large funds are central to research excellence, the way in which subsidiary features such as reporting, planning and content requirements are structured affect the level of risk-taking. In terms of policy, the paper offers specific and general suggestions for the design of excellence funding instruments.",
keywords = "affordance, excellence, instrument design, policy instrument, Science funding",
author = "Merle Jacob and Tomas Hellstr{\"o}m",
note = "Funding Information: This paper addresses the question of how an excellence funding instrument promotes excellent research, in terms of how the combination of specific features of the instrument stimulates favourable conditions for path-breaking research. It also aims to demonstrate a methodology for capturing such insights, namely affordance analysis. The designation “excellence” has come to indicate a particular form of research funding – one that targets top performers in science and offers them substantial resources, for longer time period than is usual. The most well-known form of excellence funding is that of Centers of Excellence (CoE), where a group of several researchers are expected to coordinate efforts over a period of time, usually ten years, typically “under one roof”. The assumption is that this arrangement builds capacity and captures synergies, thereby increasing the chances of new discoveries (Heinze ; Hellstr{\"o}m ). Typical examples of CoE funding include the Swedish Linnaeus Centers, the Swiss NCCR programme and the Norwegian SFF scheme. The collectivist slant of the CoE, the idea that a network of scholars applies for money and form a group from day one, can be contrasted with a more individually oriented mode of funding, where an individual researcher is granted a similar level of funding for equal or a longer time period. This individual is then expected to use the funding to build an environment and advance her own research programme. Examples include the European Research Council{\textquoteright}s (ERC) Advanced Grant, the Norwegian Research Council{\textquoteright}s Renewal Grant and the not-so-typical Swedish Distinguished Professor Grant (DPG), which is the subject of this study. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.",
year = "2025",
doi = "10.1080/01442872.2023.2267458",
language = "English",
volume = "46",
pages = "83--101",
journal = "Policy Studies",
issn = "0144-2872",
publisher = "Routledge",
number = "1",
}