Interrelated funding streams in a multi-funder university system: Evidence from the German Exzellenzinitiative

Buenstorf, Guido; Koenig, Johannes

doi:10.1016/j.respol.2020.103924

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…First , and in support of H1, our analysis with all universities (Table 4a, b) revealed that in both funding phases, the number of professors significantly increased the chances for a subject field to be selected by the “excellence initiative” (all models). This result confirms similar findings at the university level [8]. Second , and in support of H2, the amount of external grant funding had explanatory power as well.…”

Section: Analysis and Discussion Of Resultssupporting

confidence: 88%

“…In financial terms, the "initiative" has not increased inequality between funded and non-funded universities so far. There has been an overall upward shift to a higher funding level for all universities [16] because those without "initiative" funding managed to find other (mostly public) sponsors [8]. These results are in line with our descriptive finding that Germany's public university system was stable between 1995 and 2018 (Section 4.1).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…The “initiative” has attracted considerable attention from academic researchers and political commentators, particularly in the years after it started [35–39], but also more recently [8–17]. Most studies have looked into the “initiative’s” consequences on the public university system, with almost exclusive focus either on the university level (“elite universities”) or the entire higher education system level (“university system”).…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even more interesting are results that contradicted earlier warnings about increased concentration of grant funding due to the “initiative”. While both critics and DFG’s leadership envisaged an increased functional differentiation between research universities and teaching colleges [4, 41], such effects have not taken place: Universities with no excellence-funding managed to obtain funding from other sources than the DFG (most notably ministries, and thus other public moneys), thereby both buffering the “initiative’s” effect for individual universities and increasing the level of grant funding in the university system as a whole [8, 16].…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Field size as a predictor of "excellence." The selection of subject fields in Germany's Excellence Initiative.

Heinze,

Habicht,

Eberhardt

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We investigate the selection of subject fields in Germany's "excellence initiative," a two-phase funding scheme administered by the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 2005 to 2017 to increase international competitiveness of scientific research at German universities. While most empirical studies have examined the "excellence initiative's" effects at the university level ("elite universities"), we focus on subject fields within universities. Based on both descriptive and logistic regression analyses, we find that the "excellence initiative" reveals a stable social order of public universities based on organizational size, that field selection is biased toward those fields with many professors and considerable grant funding, and that funding success in the second phase largely follows decisions from the first phase. We discuss these results and suggest avenues for future research.

show abstract

Section: Analysis and Discussion Of Resultssupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Field size as a predictor of "excellence." The selection of subject fields in Germany's Excellence Initiative.

Heinze,

Habicht,

Eberhardt

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…1. a lack of suitable data sets to confidently discard confounding factors (such as local and global trends in research systems; or the combination of impacts that comes with combining multiple streams of funding in research) in testing the effects of specific programmes using quantitative approaches such as econometric modelling and difference-in-differences (Buenstorf & Koenig, 2020;Hird & Pfotenhauer, 2017); e.g., data sets related to funding programmes specifically building on XDR are often too small to offer adequate statistical power in the complex model specifications required to resolve attribution; independent from team composition and may even be achieved by individual researchers that achieve 69 "individual interdisciplinarity" (Calvert, 2010). If DDA and DDR are properly captured, one would thus expect a positive, but not necessarily strong, correlation between them.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A large-scale validation of the relationship between cross-disciplinary research and its uptake in policy-related documents, using the novel Overton altmetrics database

Pinheiro¹,

Vignola-Gagné²,

Campbell³

2021

Quantitative Science Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cross-disciplinary research (multi-/inter-disciplinarity) is incentivised by funding agencies to foster research outcomes addressing complex societal challenges. This study focuses on the link between crossdisciplinary research and its uptake in a broad set of policy-related documents. Using the new policyoriented database Overton, matched to Scopus, logistic regression was used in assessing this relationship in publications from FP7- and H2020-supported projects. Cross-disciplinary research was captured through two lenses at the paper level, namely from the disciplinary diversity of contributing authors (DDA) and of cited references (DDR). DDA increased the likelihood that publications were cited in policy documents, with DDR possibly making a contribution, but only when publications result from the work of few authors. Citations to publications captured by Overton were found to originate in scientific advice documents, rather than in legislative or executive records. Our approach enables testing in a general way the assumption underlying many funding programmes, namely that cross-disciplinary research will increase the policy relevance of research outcomes. Findings suggest that research assessments could benefit from measuring uptake in policy-related literature, following additional characterisation of the Overton database; of the science-policy interactions it captures; and of the contribution of these interactions within the larger policymaking process. Peer Review https://publons.com/publon/10.1162/qss_a_00137

show abstract

Patterns of dissertation dissemination: publication-based outcomes of doctoral theses in the social sciences

Asanov,

Buenstorf

et al. 2024

Scientometrics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dissemination of knowledge through the publication of findings is a cornerstone of the academic research system. Doctoral dissertations document the findings made by early-stage researchers during their doctoral studies. However, prior research suggests that dissertations may not be effective in disseminating these findings to the broader community of researchers. We study how knowledge documented in doctoral dissertations is disseminated. Specifically, we investigate which dissertation characteristics and institutional factors are related to the number of journal publications based on these dissertations and the number of citations that these publications receive. Our analysis uses a random sample of doctoral dissertations from German universities in economics, political science, and sociology. We find that “cumulative” dissertations—dissertations consisting of a number of separate articles—are turned into three times more publications which receive three times more citations than monographic dissertations. We also find explorative evidence that dissertations written in English and empirical dissertations have higher publication-based outcomes. We conclude that a policy allowing doctoral candidates to write their dissertations in a cumulative format provides them with an opportunity to share the results of their research through publications in peer-reviewed journals.

show abstract

Interrelated funding streams in a multi-funder university system: Evidence from the German Exzellenzinitiative

Cited by 14 publications

References 23 publications

Field size as a predictor of "excellence." The selection of subject fields in Germany's Excellence Initiative.

Field size as a predictor of "excellence." The selection of subject fields in Germany's Excellence Initiative.

A large-scale validation of the relationship between cross-disciplinary research and its uptake in policy-related documents, using the novel Overton altmetrics database

Patterns of dissertation dissemination: publication-based outcomes of doctoral theses in the social sciences

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About