What matters in funding: The value of research coherence and alignment in evaluators' decisions
Charles Ayoubi, Sandra Barbosu, Michele Pezzoni & Fabiana Visentin
#2020-010
Entrepreneurs, managers, and scientists participate in competitive
selection processes to obtain resources. The project they propose is a
crucial aspect of their success. In this paper, we focus on the
selection of scientists applying for academic funding by submitting a
research proposal. We argue that two core dimensions of the research
proposal affect the probability of funding success: its coherence with
the applicant's previous work, and its alignment with subjects of
general interest for the scientific community. Employing a neural
network algorithm, we analyse the text of 2,494 research proposals for a
prestigious fellowship awarded to promising early-stage North American
researchers. We find field-specific heterogeneity in the committees'
evaluations. In life sciences and chemistry, evaluators value the
research proposal's coherence positively with the scientist's recent
work and the proposals' alignment with the current subject of general
interest for the scientific community. Conversely, in physics,
evaluators give more weight to bibliometric indicators and less to the
proposal coherence and alignment. Our results can be extended beyond the
academic context to managerial implications in cases such as
entrepreneurs and managers submitting project proposals to investors.
Keywords: Research trajectories, research funding, coherence, alignment
JEL Classification: I23, O38
