Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin

1. Effects of funding young, promising scientists by Göran Melin1 and Rickard Danell2 1 Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research (SISTER) Drottning Kristinas Väg 33 D S-114 28 Stockholm Sweden 2 Inforsk, Department of Sociology Umeå University S-901 87 Umeå Sweden Mail to: goran.melin@sister.nu Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 1

2. Scope of the study: • INGVAR: One of Sweden’s most prestigious programmes • 504 applicants; 40 reached final round with full applications and interviews; 20 got the €1.2 million grant. Start: 2001 • What scientific merits did the applicants have? • How have the scientific merits developed after the decision to fund/reject was taken? Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 2

3. Method: • Comparisons between 1997-2000 and 2001-2005 • Bibliometric comparisons: productivity, publications in high ranked journals, and international co-authorships • - fractionalised counts of productivity • - normalised measures of Journal Impact Factor • Email survey: Growth of research group, spinn-offs, annual amount of funding, patents Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 3

4. Table 1: Publication productivity for the approved group. No. of journal articles. Table 2: Publication productivity for the rejected group. No. of journal articles. Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 4

5. Before the grant, the approved group had published slightly less than the rejected group. Was there a difference between the journals that they published in? • JIF = Number of citations during a two-year window to a given journal / number of articles published in the same journal during the same two-year period • Normalisation procedure: For each article, JIF of the journal it is published in / median JIF for journal category in the SCI database = to which extent the JIF of the journal where the article is published deviates from the median of the journal category Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 5

6. Table 3: Changes in publication pattern regarding choice of journal. • If the rate is larger than 1, then the article is published in higher layers of the given journal category.Both groups tend to publish in the high layers of the respective journal category. However, the approved researchers publish in journals with slightly higher JIF within the respective category, than the rejected researchers do. Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 6

7. To what extent do the groups differ when it comes to international cooperation? Has the degree of international cooperation changed between the two periods? We use co-authored journal articles as an indicator of international cooperation. Table 4: Average share of internationally co-authored articles. Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 7

8. Email survey results: Development of research group size. No. of group members 2000 and 2005, for the approved /rejected applicants, respectively Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 8

9. Development of research group budget. Million SEK in 2000 and 2005, for the approved /rejected applicants, respectively. (1 euro=9.45 SEK in Dec 2005) Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 9

10. Sum of spinn-off research groups / spin-off firms for approved /rejected applicants respectively Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 10

11. Conclusions - similarities: • There is no difference between the approved and the rejected groups in terms of number of articles in scientific journals, neither during the period before the grant (1997-2000) nor after (2001-2004). • Both groups publish in perceived good journals, i.e. journals with high impact factor. • The approved group seems slightly better internationally connected. • The research groups that the applicants direct have grown to approximately twice the size in terms of individuals. Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 11

12. Conclusions - differences: • The approved group has approximately four times the research budget in 2005 compared to 2000, while the rejected group has less than twice the budget. • The approved group has in average generated over four patents while the rejected group has in average generated less than one. • The number of spin-off firms is clearly higher for the approved group as is the number of spin-off research groups: it is almost the double. • Thus, the grant generated great activity and both academic and industrial spinn-offs Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 12

13. Discussion: • Where to draw the rejection line? • Size and shape of the grant? • Which evaluation instruments are suitable? • What is the cost of not granting highly promising junior researchers? Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research Göran Melin 13