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Funding of young scientist and scientific excellence

Author

Listed:
  • Stefan Hornbostel

    (Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance)

  • Susan Böhmer

    (Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance)

  • Bernd Klingsporn

    (Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance)

  • Jörg Neufeld

    (Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance)

  • Markus Ins

    (Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance)

Abstract

The German Research Foundation’s (DFG) Emmy Noether Programme aims to fund excellent young researchers in the postdoctoral phase and, in particular, to open up an alternative to the traditional route to professorial qualification via the Habilitation (venia legendi). This paper seeks to evaluate this funding programme with a combination of methods made up of questionnaires, interviews, appraisals of the reviews, and bibliometric analyses. The key success criteria in this respect are the frequency of professorial appointments plus excellent research performance demonstrated in the form of publications. Up to now, such postdoc programme evaluations have been conducted only scarcely. In professional terms, approved applicants are actually clearly better placed. The personal career satisfaction level is also higher among funding recipients. Concerning publications and citations, some minor performance differences could be identified between approved and rejected applicants. Nevertheless, we can confirm that, on average, the reviewers indeed selected the slightly better performers from a relatively homogenous group of very high-performing applicants. However, a comparison between approved and rejected applicants did not show that participation in the programme had decisively influenced research performance in the examined fields of medicine and physics.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Hornbostel & Susan Böhmer & Bernd Klingsporn & Jörg Neufeld & Markus Ins, 2009. "Funding of young scientist and scientific excellence," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 79(1), pages 171-190, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:79:y:2009:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-009-0411-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-009-0411-5
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Göran Melin & Rickard Danell, 2006. "The top eight percent: Development of approved and rejected applicants for a prestigious grant in Sweden," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(10), pages 702-712, December.
    2. Péter Vinkler, 2003. "Relations of relative scientometric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 58(3), pages 687-694, November.
    3. Lutz Bornmann & Hans-Dieter Daniel, 2005. "Selection of research fellowship recipients by committee peer review. Reliability, fairness and predictive validity of Board of Trustees' decisions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 63(2), pages 297-320, April.
    4. Bornmann, Lutz & Daniel, Hans-Dieter, 2007. "Convergent validation of peer review decisions using the h index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 204-213.
    5. Lutz Bornmann & Hans-Dieter Daniel, 2006. "Selecting scientific excellence through committee peer review - A citation analysis of publications previously published to approval or rejection of post-doctoral research fellowship applicants," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 68(3), pages 427-440, September.
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