Abstract
The modes of competition in the German science system are changing; this is the result of increases in third-party research funding in general, the growing importance of Coordinated Large Research Programmes and, especially, the Excellence Initiative and the Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation. The public basic funding of academic research is increasingly being replaced by the competitive awarding of funds through the German Länder and by formula- and indicator-based allocation of funds between and within universities. As New Public Management ideas have been applied to the sciences system, the decision-making authorities responsible for setting research priorities and allocating resources have been more and more centralised at the top level of research organisations. The degree of hierarchical steering in research organisations is reflected in the growing competencies of university presidents and faculty heads. Concerning the management of non-university research institutions, comparable trends can also be observed. The central organisations are being strengthened, as can be seen at the Leibniz Association and the Helmholtz Association. The central organisations of both have gained influence on the research directions of their institutes. This influence is made possible by evaluations, the allocation of the funds from the Joint Initiative, and, at Leibniz, the possibility to exclude institutes from the Association and from funding by the State and the Länder.
Our contribution deals with the question of how the changes in the type and level of competition and the transformation of universities and research organisations into competitive actors influence research that still has to be conducted by individual researchers and research teams. In particular, we will present data on the change of governance patterns at the micro level of research with respect to traced research lines and the choice of research partners. This analysis is based on a panel study of German research groups from three disciplines, astrophysics, nanotechnology, and economics. Comparable data on governance structure, collaboration networks, available resources and performance of the groups were collected in 2004, 2006/2007, and 2009. This allows us to assess the effects of the new governance mechanisms on research related decisions (e.g. orientation towards “third mission”, performance-based allocation systems, or organisations’ research priorities) which can in turn be related to the specialisation strategies and performance profiles of research groups. In particular, we focus on potential unintended effects of new governance patterns and trade-offs. First analyses indicate that an orientation towards third-party funding criteria and towards organisational profiles both have negative effects on the ability to pursue unconventional research ideas. Moreover, our analyses indicate a trade-off between scientific outputs and the new requirements on universities and research institutions to take responsibility for a “Third Mission”, i.e., to transfer technology towards industry.
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Notes
- 1.
In 1995, for every €100 in basic funding another €13.64 in private funding came in, but in 2005 this ratio had shifted to €21.33. From 2000 to 2005, the third-party funding revenues of universities and medical facilities increased by 29.4 %, whereas the basic funding revenues only increased by 6.5 % and thus, taking inflation into account, decreased in real terms. However, the expenditures of the German states for the German Research Foundation increased by 16.5 %. A little less than a third of the third-party funds for universities come from industry (WR 2008). Moreover, the share of the Individual Grants Programme which the German Research Foundation spent next to coordinated grants programmes has decreased also in real terms (2003: 35.1 %; 2006: 31.9 %, cf. WR 2008: Table 7.4, p. 27).
- 2.
The accordant articles were identified by a search strategy developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research.
- 3.
The differences between nanoscience and economics in TPF and organisational orientation were tested in an analysis of variance, confirming their significance: 2004 (sig. 0.048; 0.008), 2006 (sig. 0.049; 0.028) 2009 (sig. 0.029; 0.004). The same is true for the comparison of astrophysics and economics in 2006 (sig. 0.058; 0.048) and 2009 (sig. 0.025; 0.061).
- 4.
Organisational priorities were not mentioned at all in the open-ended interviews in astrophysics. Since these were the very first interviews, this may be due to an error in the guidelines or of the interviewer.
- 5.
Nanoscience significantly differs from astrophysics (2006: sig. 0.121, n = 46) and economics (2006: sig. 0.007, n = 48; 2009: sig. 0.057, n = 48).
- 6.
Since some higher education institutions (HEI) later reported corrected data, the figures given in Special series 11, Vol. 4.5 do not coincide with the figures in the ICE on Higher Education Finance for 2004. Since winter term 2002/03, the HEI category “Gesamthochschulen” has been integrated into the category “university”.
- 7.
In public media and official science-policy documents the aim of introducing “competition” into the system is often mentioned. This is misleading because a competition for reputation has accompanied the functional differentiation of the system from its beginning (Merton 1957). It is more precise to speak about a “competition for resources”.
- 8.
A statistically more sophisticated model for the same data can be found in Schmoch et al. (2010). It addresses the simultaneity problem which results from the fact that TPF are not totally exogenous in a regression on publications, because although the number of publications is (partly) caused by TPF, the TPF are also caused by publications.
- 9.
In the model from Schmoch et al. (2010), these values are quite lower with 48.92 % for astrophysics and 67.02 % for nanoscience. For economics research groups the significance of the curvilinear effect vanishes in this model.
- 10.
Even if Gibbons et al. do not mention the terms “Nanoscience” or “Nanotechnology”, which were not yet in popular use at the time, they clearly describe this kind of research: “Instead of purifying natural substances or resorting to complex reactions to obtain those with desired properties, the required materials can now be built up atom by atom, or molecule by molecule, by design, in order to obtain a product with specified properties and possessing certain desired functions.” (Gibbons et al. 1994: 45, cf. also p. 19).
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Jansen, D., von Görtz, R., Heidler, R. (2015). Consequences of the New Actorhood of German Universities and Research Organisations. In: Jansen, D., Pruisken, I. (eds) The Changing Governance of Higher Education and Research. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 43. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09677-3_7
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