Abstract

One is generally appointed at universities on the basis of being an excellent researcher but has little or no financial means to perform research. One of the key challenges for researchers is therefore to seek and apply for research funding. The research funding landscape is dominated by a competitive model of research funding. While the time investment to write a proposal is substantial, the success rates are low. In order to counter this, many of the RMAs based at (resource-rich) universities as well as private actors provide support to obtain research funding. Those researchers who receive support have an increased chance of obtaining funding. Yet, this does not take away some of the obvious disadvantages of a competitive system. This creates a boomerang effect as increased support has lead to an overall increase in the quality, and therefore competitiveness, of the proposals. The consequence then is that the rejection of a very good proposals is commonplace which in turn leaves researchers with the same frustrations. In reaction to such competitive funding landscape and its disadvantages voices have advocated for providing non-competitive research funding (NCF). Many researchers would react enthusiastic as such system trusts a researcher’s competence to perform good research and decentralizes the decision-making in what should be funded.

Yet, many questions still seem to remain on the rationale, effects and modalities of allocating NCF. As NCF is a bottom-up or decentralized manner of granting funding many question arise such as: what will the effects be on developing research policies at the university level? Will there be a positive or negative effect on obtaining external (competitive) funding when researchers are granted NCF? Should one differentiate between researchers, domains, or type of research in granting such funding? Does one for example need to differentiate between science domains based on the differences in changes of obtaining funding? Should researchers who do not generally apply for funding receive a budget? Should we deliver funding only to a certain type of research (e.g. blue sky research)? Finally, if the research agenda is set bottom-up and competitive, institutional channels disappear to a certain extent in order to reallocate budget for NCF, may this not have an effect on the well-being and/or career planning of early-stage (doctoral) researchers?

In this presentation we will take stock of the available evidence and literature around NCF. What policies have already been developed in this direction by universities? What were the effects of these policies? More fundamentally, what is the rationale for NCF policies (well-being of researchers, more research vs. excellence,…) and can we determine when this is a proper solution for the problems researchers face? By identifying and analyzing the available evidence and mapping the existing knowledge gaps one can have an informed discussion about the merits of NCF and the possible scenarios to implement this. Through this presentation we seek to set out the key issues one has to take into account when thinking about NCF policies and its potential effects. In addition, the presentation wants to spark further debate between the RMA community and discuss the implications of NCF policies for those in the RMA profession.