#06 Bacchus reading group summary
This month’s reading: Hove, K. H. (2020). Does the type of funding influence research results–and do researchers influence funders?. Prometheus, 36(2), 153-172.
Notes of the comments made during the discussion:
The paper has obvious limitation based on the empirical material that it departs from. In that it is germane to 10 research managers and researchers’ at a large already well-established Norwegian defence research institute.
Hence, there are question in terms of how applicable the findings are for different disciplinary contexts, as well as if the power dynamics described are different for not so well established researchers or research themes
An overarching question, not well addressed in the paper is that of what is labelled as “undone science”, or to put into other way, what type of research falls by the wayside that is not relevant to the fashion of funding priorities?
As showcased within the paper, a large research institution has potentially some leeway to allocate its own funds to build competency or explore “non-useful” (in any immediate sense) research.
The traditional model of the Humboldian university acted in a similar way, but it is questionable if modern universities’, especially those with restraint budgets, still have this capacity
Within the paper, the informants stressed several time that having the institution as its’ backing that they had several research contracts to choose from, allowed them a greater degree of freedom than they think they otherwise would have had.
Another aspect that could be better developed, is to exactly parse out what “influenced” exactly meant. As it stands in the paper it is somewhat left open for interpretation.
Here, the base assumptions ought to be that funding regarding of source does not influence the content of ideas, and the onus is on the individual making the claim to showcase how it does influence.
The university as an institution, always to some degree made ‘Faustian bargains’ with ‘tainted’(?) money, under the condition that the benefactors did not have an influence on the results.
Here the question is, due to the increase in size and complexity of society, do the old informal understandings still work to the same degree, and what new issues arise that previously were not problematic (or thought as such)?
In the UK, in principle the QR funding is meant to “keep the lights on” and project funding from research funding bodies or charities are then meant to top up the budgets. To what degree this system is still operable and not being co-opted is an open question.
The contrasts, between degrees of freedom in specifically bounded projects to tell the funder what the researcher thought, as opposed to more open ended types of inquires where the findings were more politically sensitive was an interesting findings. Especially, since the potential for impact was felt to be greater in the latter than the former, as well as the need for open exchange of ideas.
Ground-breaking research, by its very definition, is in the category of not already established ideas. In the paper they are dealing with an already established institute, which presumably has a cohesive research philosophy and approach to their research subject.
There is a coarsening of the language used around research, where the scholarship dimension is getting squeezed out.
Likewise, the (utilitarian) category of societal benefit in itself might not be problematic. However, once this becomes the established discourse of competition, than different social dynamics apply and big players self-evidently squash smaller ones by the token of being more “impactful”.
“Academic freedom” as an idea, in combination with reason and logic as a means of conflict resolution, might potentially represent the template/role model of how (Western) society resolves conflict through dialogue and not violence. Here, a critical mass of researchers, are necessary in order to keep this as a dominant form of conflict resolution.
Yet a look at the internal departmental politics of university departments belies how rational and logical these really are.
