The role of funding agencies in the cognitive development of science

Abstract The influence of the policies of funding agencies on cognitive developments in science has never been systematically evaluated. In this paper it is endeavoured to gather the knowledge we have on this subject and to answer two questions: by what means and processes is the distribution of funding resources transformed into scientific information and knowledge processes? Who is deciding on the distribution of funds within funding agencies and how is this related to incremental or innovative cognitive developments in science? The major argument is that because funding resources contribute significantly to the chances of doing research and, therefore, to the maintenance or contesting of existing power relations in the scientific field, the policy-making in funding agencies is the focus of diverse interests. The structure, norms and interests within funding agencies explain both the divergence in policy output, and the often conservative implications with regard to cognitive scientific developments.

[1]  Daryl E. Chubin,et al.  Peer Review at the NSF: A Dialectical Policy Analysis , 1979 .

[2]  Fritz W. Scharpf,et al.  Gesellschaftliche Selbstregelung und politische Steuerung , 1995 .

[3]  W. Scott.  Grundlagen der Organisationstheorie , 1986 .

[4]  P. Bourdieu.  The specificity of the scientific field and the social conditions of the progress of reason , 1975 .

[5]  D. Feeny,et al.  Rethinking Institutional Analysis and Development: Issues, Alternatives, and Choices , 1993 .

[6]  B. Clark,et al.  The Higher Education System , 2023 .

[7]  I. Hartmann-Tews.  Begutachtung in der Forschungsförderung : die Argumente der Gutachter in der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft , 1990 .

[8]  Friedhelm Neidhardt,et al.  Selbststeuerung in der Forschungsförderung , 1988 .

[9]  J. Ben-David,et al.  The Scientist's Role in Society: A Comparative Study , 1973 .

[10]  Harold Maurice Collins,et al.  New Light on Old Boys: Cognitive and Institutional Particularism in the Peer Review System , 1991 .

[11]  D. Braun.  Who Governs Intermediary Agencies? Principal-Agent Relations in Research Policy-Making , 1993, Journal of Public Policy.

[12]  Robert D. Tollison,et al.  The Rise and Decline of Nations , 1983 .

[13]  J. Ben-David,et al.  The Scientist's Role in Society. , 1975 .

[14]  Susan E. Cozzens,et al.  23 Science, Government, and the Politics of Knowledge , 1995 .

[15]  Sheila Jasanoff,et al.  Handbook of Science and Technology Studies , 1995 .

[16]  J Walsh,et al.  NSF and Its Critics in Congress: New Pressure on Peer Review. , 1975, Science.

[17]  Technological Policy,et al.  Choosing priorities in science and technology , 1991 .

[18]  A. Rip.  The republic of science in the 1990s , 1994 .

[19]  Arie Rip.  Contextual transformations in contemporary science , 1988 .

[20]  Norman Kaplan,et al.  The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations , 1974 .

[21]  J. Ravetz.  Sociology of Science , 1972, Nature.

[22]  B. Clark,et al.  The higher education system : academic organization in cross-national perspective , 1984 .

[23]  R. Merton,et al.  The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations , 1975, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

[24]  David H. Guston,et al.  Principal-agent theory and the structure of science policy , 1996 .

[25]  Karin D. Knorr-Cetina,et al.  Scientific Communities or Transepistemic Arenas of Research? A Critique of Quasi-Economic Models of Science , 1982 .

[26]  Wolfgang Krohn,et al.  Geplante Forschung : vergleichende Studien über den Einfluß politischer Programme auf die Wissenschaftsentwicklung , 1979 .

[27]  A. Rip.  Higher forms of nonsense , 2000, European Review.

[28]  Fritz W. Scharpf,et al.  Steuerung und Selbstorganisation in staatsnahen Sektoren , 1995 .

[29]  D. J. Montgomery,et al.  The Organization Of Inquiry , 1967 .

[30]  Mancur Olson,et al.  The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities. , 1983 .