Competitive funding, citation regimes, and the diminishment of breakthrough research

Development and Validation of the Multi-dimensional University Research Workplace Inventory (MDURWI)

“…Another critical dimension is the matter of freedom. Academic researchers require a significant amount of freedom (Marginson, 2008) associated to time dedicated to researchoriented activities (which can encompass postgraduate education; see Kwan, 2013), but this is often limited due to hierarchical constraints (Bourdieu, 1999;Latour and Woolgar, 2013) or other competing tasks, such as teaching duties and management and bureaucratic tasks (Pepper and Giles, 2015;Young, 2015). Indeed, it has been reported that individuals feel that institutions actively attempt to limit this freedom by shifting the researcher's priorities towards administrative tasks as a way of weighting the scales of power in favor of the institution (Henkel, 2000), which has a negative impact on the bond between individual and institution (Cuthbert, 1996).…”

“…The second notion of freedom relates to the absence of external pressures on the work of the academic researcher. These forces can be of three natures: bureaucratic, meaning pressure into committee participation, management duties, or simple administrative requirements (e.g., Pepper and Giles, 2015;Young, 2015); hierarchical, meaning that the academic researcher's work is imposed or dependent on his hierarchical superior (e.g., Bourdieu, 1999;Latour and Woolgar, 2013); or pressure, derived from academic "marketization", which can push the academic researcher into a direction which is not his or hers own, thus curbing his or her freedom (Ek et al, 2013).…”

“…Academic researchers require a significant amount of freedom (Marginson, 2008) to develop creative work (Hemlin et al, 2008), but are constantly subjected to the current "publish-or-perish" paradigm (Jung, 2014), according to which they must constantly publish lest they fall behind their peers (Dobele and Rundle-Theile, 2015). Academic researchers also have to cope with other institutional duties such as committee participation, mid-level leadership roles, attracting funding, and balancing the teaching-research nexus (Henkel, 2000;Horta et al, 2012;Pepper and Giles, 2015;Young, 2015). The stress of balancing this multi-dimensional work life and appeasing the many different stakeholders while maintaining a productive track record creates a unique environment arguably far different than working, for example, in a private firm (even if universities are increasingly adopting managerial practices traditional of the business private sectors (Kauppinen and Kaidesoja, 2014); these are mostly considered a threat to academic research, culture and work (Jemielniak and Greenwood, 2015)).…”

Does external funding push doctoral supervisors to be more directive? A large-scale Danish study

“…Around the world, higher education has witnessed significant core ("institutional") funding reductions to universities since the 1990s. The changing funding policy has pushed for university departments and faculty members to find increased external project-based funding, which is evident within individual countries such as Finland (Tammi 2009), Estonia (Roudla et al 2015, Sweden (Young 2015), Norway (Gulbrandsen and Smeby 2005), Australia (Neumann 2007), New Zealand (Sampson and Comer 2010) and USA (Mendoza 2007;Villalba and Young 2012). Whilst there is clear acknowledgement in the literature that the new funding structure of universities has fostered significant external, competitive financing (Raudla 2015;Tammi 2009), there are mixed views about how these new agendas are impacting on faculty members' pedagogical decisions and practices (Malfroy 2011).…”

Challenges to research systems, academic research and knowledge production in East Asia: learning from the past to inform future policy

“…This competitive environment, part of the dynamics of academic capitalism, has led to the mass production of research outputs, but also raised substantial doubt about their ability to fulfil the actual innovative research agendas desired by policy makers when devising and implementing them (Horta & Santos, 2019). Some scholars have argued that although more research is being produced, much of it is generated merely to tick evaluative boxes, at the expense of high-quality research that could effectively lead to knowledge breakthroughs (Young, 2015). Concurrently, there is increased evidence that despite the larger volume of tangible research products, the output of innovations capable of impacting and transforming society is decreasing.…”