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

At first glance Sweden looks like a researcher’s paradise with high levels of GDP investment in research and high scores on citation indexes, yet recent studies have suggested that Sweden might be losing its edge in groundbreaking research. This paper explores why that is happening by examining researchers’ logics of decision-making at a large university in Sweden. Interviews with researchers at different career stages and at a range of different departments are analyzed using a neo-institutionalist framework. The inherent logic of the quasi-markets which have been constructed to implement new policy ideas is compared to the logics by which researchers approach their funding applications and research outputs. The results suggest that a highly fragmented and competitive system can undermine efforts to foster groundbreaking research, despite the expectations posited by a neoliberal logic of governance.