Different recipes for the same dish: Comparing policies for scientific excellence across different countries

Leon Cremonini; Laurens Hessels; Edwin Horlings

doi:10.1093/scipol/scx062

Different recipes for the same dish: Comparing policies for scientific excellence across different countries

Leon Cremonini, Laurens Hessels, Edwin Horlings

Rathenau Institute

Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › Scientific › peer-review

170 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Many countries witness the rise of ‘excellence initiatives’. These policies promote vertical differentiation in the science system by funding top research performers and expecting positive spill-over effects. However, current understanding of the functioning and (potential) effects of these instruments is limited. We compare policies aimed at promoting excellence in four countries (the UK, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland), using secondary sources and 14 expert interviews. Using the notion of coordination approaches as a heuristic tool, we characterise each policy in terms of the coordinating actor, the system addressed, the activities that are coordinated, the specific interventions taken and the types of relationships affected. We find that countries adopt very different approaches to reach similar goals and thus bring into question appealing but simplistic ideas of ‘excellence’ as an agreed concept. Remarkably, excellence policies are more prone to reveal existing but tacit diversity in the system than to generate new relational patterns.

Original language	English
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scx062
Publication status	Published - 23 Oct 2017

Keywords

excellence
science policy
coordination
differentiation
matthew effect

Access to Document

10.1093/scipol/scx062

Different_recipes_SPP_resubmitted_20170413Submitted manuscript, 450 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

@conference{30e5e41c9fda4740abcc7aea7a031805,

title = "Different recipes for the same dish: Comparing policies for scientific excellence across different countries",

abstract = "Many countries witness the rise of {\textquoteleft}excellence initiatives{\textquoteright}. These policies promote vertical differentiation in the science system by funding top research performers and expecting positive spill-over effects. However, current understanding of the functioning and (potential) effects of these instruments is limited. We compare policies aimed at promoting excellence in four countries (the UK, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland), using secondary sources and 14 expert interviews. Using the notion of coordination approaches as a heuristic tool, we characterise each policy in terms of the coordinating actor, the system addressed, the activities that are coordinated, the specific interventions taken and the types of relationships affected. We find that countries adopt very different approaches to reach similar goals and thus bring into question appealing but simplistic ideas of {\textquoteleft}excellence{\textquoteright} as an agreed concept. Remarkably, excellence policies are more prone to reveal existing but tacit diversity in the system than to generate new relational patterns.",

keywords = "excellence, science policy, coordination, differentiation, matthew effect",

author = "Leon Cremonini and Laurens Hessels and Edwin Horlings",

year = "2017",

month = oct,

day = "23",

doi = "10.1093/scipol/scx062",

language = "English",

}

TY - CONF

T1 - Different recipes for the same dish

T2 - Comparing policies for scientific excellence across different countries

AU - Cremonini, Leon

AU - Hessels, Laurens

AU - Horlings, Edwin

PY - 2017/10/23

Y1 - 2017/10/23

N2 - Many countries witness the rise of ‘excellence initiatives’. These policies promote vertical differentiation in the science system by funding top research performers and expecting positive spill-over effects. However, current understanding of the functioning and (potential) effects of these instruments is limited. We compare policies aimed at promoting excellence in four countries (the UK, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland), using secondary sources and 14 expert interviews. Using the notion of coordination approaches as a heuristic tool, we characterise each policy in terms of the coordinating actor, the system addressed, the activities that are coordinated, the specific interventions taken and the types of relationships affected. We find that countries adopt very different approaches to reach similar goals and thus bring into question appealing but simplistic ideas of ‘excellence’ as an agreed concept. Remarkably, excellence policies are more prone to reveal existing but tacit diversity in the system than to generate new relational patterns.

AB - Many countries witness the rise of ‘excellence initiatives’. These policies promote vertical differentiation in the science system by funding top research performers and expecting positive spill-over effects. However, current understanding of the functioning and (potential) effects of these instruments is limited. We compare policies aimed at promoting excellence in four countries (the UK, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland), using secondary sources and 14 expert interviews. Using the notion of coordination approaches as a heuristic tool, we characterise each policy in terms of the coordinating actor, the system addressed, the activities that are coordinated, the specific interventions taken and the types of relationships affected. We find that countries adopt very different approaches to reach similar goals and thus bring into question appealing but simplistic ideas of ‘excellence’ as an agreed concept. Remarkably, excellence policies are more prone to reveal existing but tacit diversity in the system than to generate new relational patterns.

KW - excellence

KW - science policy

KW - coordination

KW - differentiation

KW - matthew effect

U2 - 10.1093/scipol/scx062

DO - 10.1093/scipol/scx062

M3 - Paper

ER -

Different recipes for the same dish: Comparing policies for scientific excellence across different countries

Abstract

Keywords

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this