Policies for research excellence:

2012 Eu-SPRI Conference Towards Transformative Governance, Karlsruhe 12 June 2012

A comparative study of centres of excellence schemes

PEAC

Liv Langfeldt ; Egil Kallerud; Ernst Kristiansen;Dag Aksnes; Siri Brorstad Borlaug; Gunnar SivertsenHanne Foss Hansen; Mats Benner; Antti Pelkonen

Excellence policy

Globalisation

Research policy- Specialisation/ concentration

- Strong research environments

PEAC 2

Cumulative advantages and elitism

Excellence policy

• A few groups are allocated many good cards

Researchers’ behaviour

• How are the cards played?

• - Exploiting advantages - New ways of producing knowledge

• Changing norms and organisation?

• - Elitism• - Cooperation/competition

- Research management

PEAC 3

Effects on the research environment/institutions

Methods – comparative study of excellence policy and centres

Mapping all centre schemes and centres in 4 countries (completed)– National policy and centre schemes: policy documents, key informants– Centres (287): funding agencies and CoEs’ web sites and reports– Host institutions’ competitiveness: Bibliometrics and FP7 funding data/success rates

In-depth studies of 12 centres in 4 countries (in progress)– Centre organisation, funding, activities, collaboration, host relations, cumulative

advantages and challenges:• Web sites, annual reports, mid-terms reviews, etc.• Funding data and bibliometrics (publications, citations and collaboration)

– Key researchers’ activity profiles before and during CoE period • Interviews centre staff, partners and host institutions

PEAC 4

Schemes were introduced based on different opportunities and arguments

Different policy contexts/processes – Denmark (1993): entrepreneurial process – good timing– Finland (1995): part of overall government policy process– Sweden (2001): the government pushed the (hesitant) funding agencies – Norway (2003): ‘seems to work elsewhere’

Different schemes – different objectives– Scientific competiveness: international visibility, resource concentration– Economic growth, innovation – Societal challenges/broader social objectives

PEAC 5

Mapping 287 centres in 4 countries

A few research fields dominate in all 4 countries– 29% Biomedicine/Health Sciences– 28% Engineering/ICT/Materials Sciences

A few universities host a large number of centres– FI: University of Helsinki hosts 33 CoEs (44%)– DK: University of Copenhagen hosts 25 centres (35%)– SE: University of Lund hosts 21 centres (24%)– NO: University of Oslo and NTNU hosts 9 centres each (17% each)

87% of centre leaders are men

Scheme funding 2.5 to 6.1% of total national gov. expenditure on R&D– In addition

• co-funding from host institutions • large amounts of other funding

PEAC 6

Highly competitive host institutions

89% of centres are in fields where the host institution score above the world average citation– Overall relative citation impact 17% above the world average

• Biomedicine 1% above• Health Sciences 13% above• Engineering & Material Sciences 20% above• Chemistry 42% above

Only 6 of 189 ERC grants to a host institution without CoEs– The more CoEs the more ERC grants

PEAC 7

These social processes of social selection that deepen the concentration of top scientific talent create extreme difficulties for any efforts to counteract the institutional consequences of the Matthew principle in order to produce new centers of scientific excellence

Merton 1968:62

8PEAC

preeminent departments of science will decline while others rise

Merton 1988:619

Implications – impacting terms and conditions for research?

Cumulative effects– redirecting research resources and recruitment positions

Internationalisation

Visibility of status – importance of ‘branding’

Increased focus on academic leadership

… centre schemes have different status

PEAC 9

www.nifu.noPEAC

Centres of Excellence in the Nordic countries. A comparative study of research excellence policy and excellence centre schemes in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

NIFU Working Paper 4/2012 http://www.nifu.no/Norway/Publications/2012/PEAC%20-%20NIFU%20Working%20Paper%204%202012%20-%2010%20Feb%202012.pdf