• Medientyp: E-Book
  • Titel: Designing Scientific Grants
  • Beteiligte: Carnehl, Christoph [Verfasser:in]; Ottaviani, Marco [Verfasser:in]; Preusser, Justus [Verfasser:in]
  • Körperschaft: National Bureau of Economic Research
  • Erschienen: Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2024
  • Erschienen in: NBER working paper series ; no. w32668
  • Umfang: 1 Online-Ressource; illustrations (black and white)
  • Sprache: Englisch
  • Schlagwörter: Technologiepolitik ; Forschungsfinanzierung ; scientific grant ; Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness ; Governmental Loans; Loan Guarantees; Credits; Grants; Bailouts ; Higher Education; Research Institutions ; Arbeitspapier ; Graue Literatur
  • Reproduktionsnotiz: Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
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  • Beschreibung: This paper overviews the economics of scientific grants, focusing on the interplay between the inherent uncertainty in research, researchers' incentives, and grant design. Grants differ from traditional market systems and other science and innovation policy tools, such as prizes and patents. We outline the main economic forces specific to science, noting the limited attention given to grant funding in the economics literature. Using tools from information economics, we identify key incentive problems at various stages of the grant funding process and offer guidance for effective grant design

    In the allocation stage, funders aim to select the highest-merit applications while minimizing evaluation costs. The selection rule, in turn, impacts researchers' incentives to apply and invest in their proposals. In the grant management stage, funders monitor researchers to ensure efficient use of funds. We discuss the advantages and potential pitfalls of (partial) lotteries and emphasize the effectiveness of staged grant design in promoting a productive use of grants

    Beyond these broadly applicable insights, our overview highlights the need for further research on grantmaking. Understudied areas include, at the micro level, the interplay of different grant funding stages, and at the macro level, the interaction of grants with other instruments in the market for science