Concentration of Danish research funding on individual researchers and research topics: Patterns and potential drivers

Abstract

The degree of concentration in research funding has long been a principal matter of contention in science policy. Strong concentration has been seen as a tool for optimizing and focusing research investments, but also as a damaging path towards hypercompetition, diminished diversity and conservative topic selection. While several studies have documented funding concentration linked to individual funding organisations, few have looked at funding concentration from a systemic perspective. In this article, we examine nearly 20,000 competitive grants allocated by fifteen major Danish research funders. Our results show a strongly skewed allocation of funding towards a small elite of individual researchers, and toward a select group of research areas and topics. We discuss potential drivers, and highlight that funding concentration likely results from a complex interplay between funders’ overlapping priorities, excellence-dominated evaluation criteria, and lack of coordination between both public and private research funding bodies.

Global citation inequality is on the rise

“…In science, like in other social systems, hierarchies of status tend to be self-reinforcing. Our finding that a general decline in productivity rates and a "collaborative advantage" enjoyed by the most-cited scientists have coincided with increasing citation inequality, aligns with evidence suggesting accelerating trends toward funding concentration at the individual level (16,20). Indeed, these processes may be closely interlinked.…”

“…Inequality may foster creative competition in the science system (18,19). However, it can also lead to a dense concentration of resources with diminishing returns on investment (intellectual and fiscal) (16,20), and to monopolies in the marketplace of ideas (21,22).…”

The Interdependence of Research Funding Concentration, Policy Priorities, and Problem Choice

“…Data from both Danish and United Kingdom research funders confirm that competitively awarded grants tend to be accrued by few successful researchers, while the majority of grantees accumulate one to two grants over a prolonged period. Consistent with other studies of research funding (Madsen & Aagaard, 2020;Stoeger et al, 2018), the same degree of concentration exists for the type of research that is conducted within these grants. Funding is extremely skewed at the disciplinary level, but also for more fine grained topics or problems.…”

“…This reflects a strong power dynamic where a select group of decision makers influence what type of research is deemed a priority. Moreover, because topic choice is hard to influence through priorities (Myers, 2020), the most effective instrument is rather funders' decisions not to fund certain topics (Madsen & Aagaard, 2020). When thematic and non-thematic funding instruments overlap this becomes a vicious cycle.…”

“…Across many funders, grant amounts have increased, but are simultaneously awarded to a small selection of individuals (see e.g. Katz & Matter, 2019;Ma et al, 2015;Madsen & Aagaard, 2020;Mongeon et al, 2016). Often, around 20-25 % of grantees recieve 75-80 % of funding, all the while leading to decreasing marginal returns in terms of publications and other research output (Aagaard et al, 2020;Mongeon et al, 2016).…”