publications

2023

1. 

   Do mission-oriented grant schemes shape the direction of science?

   Raffaele Mancuso, and Anders Broström

   Working Paper, 2023

   Abs PDF

   A growing literature has examined how applying for and winning competitive project grants affects the career trajectory of scientists in terms of productivity, quality, social networks and knowledge. However, the role of grant schemes in shaping the direction of scientific inquiry remains very poorly understood. In this study, we investigate how the research output of grant recipients, rejected applicants and a set of comparable non-applicants working in the same fields relates to a set of funding calls issued by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. These calls are all of the ‘request for applications’ (RFA) type – i.e. targeting a certain type of research that the funder has identified and seeks to strengthen. We analyze topic similarity between applicants’ research and the texts defining the RFA calls. Applying an optimal full matching followed by a difference-in- differences design, we find that – in line with expectations – applicants increase their topic similarity with the call more than non-applicants. However – contrary to expectations – the pace at which the research of the average grant winner shifts towards the topic of the call is not statistically different from that of non-winning applicants. These results can not be explained by differences in post-call productivity. Our findings have important implications for science policy, and for our understanding of how the formulation of RFA calls shape the direction of scientific inquiry.

2. 

   Topic Choice, Gendered Language, and the under-Funding of Female Scholars in Mission-Oriented Research

   Raffaele Mancuso, Cristina Rossi-Lamastra , and Chiara Franzoni

   Research Policy, 2023

   Abs Bib PDF

   We investigate the participation of male and female applicants to a competition for research funding, using an original dataset with detailed information on both successful and unsuccessful applicants to 21 calls by a mission-oriented funding agency. We use this information to construct a fictitious pool of 277,464 potential applicants and to model their probability to submit an application. We find that, even after controlling for productivity, quality of research, seniority, years of career discontinuity, number of prior applications, affiliation, and ethnicity, women were still less likely to apply than men. The lower likelihood of females to apply was not explained by the use of masculine language in the text of the calls. Instead, women’s research interests were more distant from the topics of the calls than men’s. Topic proximity fully mediated female penalization in the likelihood to apply for research funding. These results are an important heads-up, in view of the increasing focus of governments in mission-oriented programs.

   @article{mancusoTopicChoiceGendered2023,
     title = {Topic Choice, Gendered Language, and the under-Funding of Female Scholars in Mission-Oriented Research},
     author = {Mancuso, Raffaele and Rossi-Lamastra, Cristina and Franzoni, Chiara},
     date = {2023-07-01},
     journal = {Research Policy},
     volume = {52},
     number = {6},
     pages = {104758},
     year = {2023},
     issn = {0048-7333},
     doi = {10.1016/j.respol.2023.104758},
     url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733323000422},
     urldate = {2023-03-28},
     langid = {english},
     keywords = {Female penalty,Grant funding,Masculine language,Mission-oriented research,Topic mismatch},
     dimensions = {true},
   }