How Competition for Funding Impacts Scientific Practice: Building Pre-fab Houses but no Cathedrals.
In the research integrity literature, funding plays two different roles: it is thought to elevate questionable research practices (QRPs) due to perverse incentives, and it is a potential actor to incentivize research integrity standards. Recent studies, asking funders, have emphasized the importance...
| Publicado en: | Science & Engineering Ethics Vol. 30; no. 1; pp. 1 - 20 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Feb2024
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=175424285&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 175424285 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 13533452 GNI jtl: Science & Engineering Ethics issn: 13533452 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Feb2024 vid: 30 iid: 1 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 175424285 10.1007/s11948-024-00465-5 ppf: 1 ppct: 19 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 910KB tig: atl: How Competition for Funding Impacts Scientific Practice: Building Pre-fab Houses but no Cathedrals. aug: au: Meirmans, Stephanie affil: Department of Ethics, Law and Humanities, Amsterdam UMC, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 9, 1105 AZ, Amsterdam, Netherlands sug: keyword: Ethnographic Projectification Questionable research practices Research integrity Risky science Science in practice ab: In the research integrity literature, funding plays two different roles: it is thought to elevate questionable research practices (QRPs) due to perverse incentives, and it is a potential actor to incentivize research integrity standards. Recent studies, asking funders, have emphasized the importance of the latter. However, the perspective of active researchers on the impact of competitive research funding on science has not been explored yet. Here, I address this issue by conducting a series of group sessions with researchers in two different countries with different degrees of competition for funding, from three scientific fields (medical sciences, natural sciences, humanities), and in two different career stages (permanent versus temporary employment). Researchers across all groups experienced that competition for funding shapes science, with many unintended negative consequences. Intriguingly, these consequences had little to do with the type of QRPs typically being presented in the research integrity literature. Instead, the researchers pointed out that funding could result in predictable, fashionable, short-sighted, and overpromising science. This was seen as highly problematic: scientists experienced that the ‘projectification’ of science makes it more and more difficult to do any science of real importance: plunging into the unknown or addressing big issues that need a long-term horizon to mature. They also problematized unintended negative effects from collaboration and strategizing. I suggest it may be time to move away from a focus on QRPs in connection with funding, and rather address the real problems. Such a shift may then call for entirely different types of policy actions. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Science & Engineering Ethics is a copyright of Springer, 2024. All Rights Reserved. item: Science & Engineering Ethics holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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