Étiquette : research funding

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Reforming research funding: Combining editorial preregistration with grant peer review

Authors : Lutz Bornmann, Gerald Schweiger

Competitive grant funding is associated with high costs and a potential bias to favor conservative research. This comment proposes integrating editorial preregistration, in the form of registered reports, into grant peer review processes as a reform strategy.

Linking funding decisions to in principle accepted study protocols would reduce reviewer burden, strengthen methodological rigor, and provide an institutional foundation for (more) replication, theory driven research, and high risk research. Our proposal also minimizes strategic proposal writing and ensures scholarly output through the publication of preregistered protocols, regardless of funding outcomes.

Possible implementation models include direct coupling of journal acceptance with funding, co review mechanisms, voucher systems, and lotteries. While challenges remain in aligning journal and funding agency procedures, the integration of preregistration and funding offers a promising pathway toward a more transparent and efficient research ecosystem.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2511.01439

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Peer review across borders: benefits and challenges of international review panels in research funding organizations

Authors : Helen Peterson, Liisa Husu

Peer review by external experts is widely recognized as a legitimate and trustworthy academic practice, essential for ensuring the quality and rigor of research, providing more objective and less impartial assessments, and promoting transparent decision-making in science and academia. Research Funding Organisations (RFOs) usually rely on some form of peer review to evaluate the scientific quality of research proposals to allocate their limited resources.

The peer review system is, however, also associated with several weaknesses, such as risks for bias and conflict of interest. This article explores the implications of replacing National Review Panels (NRPs) with International Review Panels (IRPs) in a national RFO, examining how this shift may impact the peer review process.

Drawing on semi-structured interviews with staff from a national RFO in a European country and members of its IRPs, the article provides a nuanced analysis of both the potential benefits and challenges with substituting NRPs with IRPs.

The results highlight how IRPs increase the distance between applicants and reviewers, which benefits the impartiality of the process. Nevertheless, this distance needs to be balanced by domestic panel members, chairs or research officers possessing appropriate knowledge of the local academic context, culture and structure.

IRPs also introduce a greater diversity of perspectives into the assessments of applicants, which may promote objective and balanced assessments. The diversity may however also lower inter-reviewer reliability, and, in turn, complicate calibration practices and hinder the development of informal deliberative norms during the process of reaching decisions and consensus.

URL : Peer review across borders: benefits and challenges of international review panels in research funding organizations

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvaf030

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Who funds what: An assessment of research funding networks in data papers

Authors : Yurdagül Ünal, Müge Akbulut

This study examines the role of funding collaborations in shaping the production and dissemination of scientific information through data papers, a rapidly growing academic publication format.

To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies investigating, and evaluating the data paper-funder relationship. The goal of this study was, therefore, to evaluate data papers and funder information in detail, extracted from the data papers themselves, in order to reveal the collaborative characteristics of funders, and to provide guidance to researchers and funding agencies.

Data papers published between 2006–2017 were downloaded from the Web of Science database. The same papers were retrieved from Dimension, which offered more detailed category classifications. These classifications were then utilized for further analysis based on categories. The names of funders were standardized by matching them using the Crossref funder registry, and associated funding metadata.

A statistical, and social network analysis were performed. The top funding country was the USA; the top funding institution was the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. The collaboration network among funders exhibited relatively low density.

A collaboration network of 1197 links between 69 countries was created. The USA had connections with 62 countries. Our study is important because it standardizes the funding data for data papers by associating them with Crossref funding metadata.

The widespread increase of data papers, and their relatively dispersed funding among a variety of funders points to the need for research evaluating collaborations between funders, as important both for the funded researchers, and for understanding and optimizing the shortcomings of current funding management.

URL : Who funds what: An assessment of research funding networks in data papers

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/02666669251352185

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Cost for research — how cost data of research can be included in open metadata to be reused and evaluated

Authors : Julia Bartlewski, Christoph Broschinski, Gernot Deinzer, Cornelia Lang, Dirk Pieper, Bianca Schweighofer, Colin Sippl, Lisa-Marie Stein, Alexander Wagner, Silke Weisheit

The openCost project aims to enhance transparency in research funding by making publication-related costs publicly accessible, following FAIR principles. It introduces a metadata schema for cost data, allowing aggregation and analysis across institutions.

The project promotes open access and cost-efficient models, benefiting academic institutions, funders, and policymakers.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2506.18517

 

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An APC Trap? Privilege and the Perception of Reasonableness in Open Access Publishing

Authors : Melissa H. Cantrell, Jennifer A. Mezick, Matthew Estill, Rachel Caldwell &
Lauren B. Collister

Introduction: This article investigates funding sources reported by authors of open access (OA) articles at four R1 (doctoral-granting institutions in the United States with very high research activity) universities, along with these authors’ perceptions of Article Processing Charges (APCs). The study suggests a cognitive dissonance among many respondents, in which there appears to be a desire and willingness to participate in OA publishing, which is at odds with a sense of unreasonableness and an uneven distribution of the ability of researchers to participate.

Literature review: Much of the literature on APCs centers on rising prices, how commercial publishers profit from this model, and the resulting inequities in OA publishing. Some information exists about resources for funding APCs, including grant funding, library programs, and fee waivers.

Methods: We surveyed authors who published an OA article in the calendar year 2022. The survey asked whether there was an APC, the funding source for the fee, and the author’s perception of the reasonableness of APC prices and their relative ability to pay compared with their peers.

Results: From 321 total respondents, grant funding was the largest source of APC funding, and authors reported fees of over $1,500 in U.S. dollars as unreasonable.

Discussion: This study confirms the hypothesis that external grants are the primary support for authors paying APCs, and beyond that, authors use a variety of sources to support their publishing fees. Respondents characterized APCs in general as unreasonable for less well-resourced colleagues.

Conclusion: Though authors were generally able to find funding or have fees waived, they perceive a threshold of reasonableness for APCs.

URL : An APC Trap? Privilege and the Perception of Reasonableness in Open Access Publishing

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.18184

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Research Data Management in the Humanities: Challenges and Opportunities in the Canadian Context

Authors : Stefan Higgins, Lisa Goddard, Shahira Khair

In recent years, research funders across the world have implemented mandates for research data management (RDM) that introduce new obligations for researchers seeking funding. Although data work is not new in the humanities, digital research infrastructures, best practices, and the development of highly qualified personnel to support humanist researchers are all still nascent.

Responding to these changes, this article offers four contributions to how humanists can consider the role of “data” in their research and succeed in its management. First, we define RDM and data management plans (DMP) and raise some exigent questions regarding their development and maintenance.

Second, acknowledging the unsettled status of “data” in the humanities, we offer some conceptual explanations of what data are, and gesture to some ways in which humanists are already (and have always been) engaged in data work.

Third, we argue that data work requires conscious design—attention to how data are produced—and that thinking of data work as involving design (e.g., experimental and interpretive work) can help humanists engage more fruitfully in RDM.

Fourth, we argue that RDM (and data work, generally) is labour that requires compensation in the form of funding, support, and tools, as well as accreditation and recognition that incentivizes researchers to make RDM an integral part of their research.

Finally, we offer a set of concrete recommendations to support humanist RDM in the Canadian context.

URL : Research Data Management in the Humanities: Challenges and Opportunities in the Canadian Context

DOI : https://doi.org/10.16995/dscn.9956

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Gender differences in Dutch research funding over time: A statistical investigation of the innovation scheme 2012–2021

Authors : Casper Albers, Sense Jan van der Molen, Thijs Bol

Background

In 2015, the Dutch research council, NWO, took measures to combat gender bias disadvantaging female applicants in a popular three-tiered funding scheme called the Talent Programme. The innovation scheme consists of three grants for different career stages, called Veni, Vidi and Vici.

Objectives

This paper studies the question whether or not NWO has been successful in removing gender differences in their funding procedure.

Methods

Using all available data from 2012 onwards of grant applications in the Talent Programme (16,249 applications of which 2,449 received funding), we study whether these measures had an effect using binomial generalized linear models.

Results

We find strong statistical evidence of a shift in gender effects in favour of female applicants in the first tier, the Veni (p < .001). Significant gender differences are not found in the two other tiers, the Vidi and Vici schemes.

Conclusions

In recent years, female applicants are more likely to be awarded with a Veni grant than male applicants and this gender gap has increased over time. This suggests that gender differences still exist in the assessment of Talent Programme submissions, albeit in a different direction than a decade ago.

URL : Gender differences in Dutch research funding over time: A statistical investigation of the innovation scheme 2012–2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0297311