Concentration of Danish research funding on individual researchers and research topics: Patterns and potential drivers

The degree of concentration in research funding has long been a principal matter of contention in science policy. Strong concentration has been seen as both a tool for optimizing and focusing research investments, but also as a damaging path towards hypercompetition, lacking diversity and conservative research topic selection. While several studies have documented high funding concentration linked to individual funding organisations, few have looked at funding concentration from a systemic perspective. In this article, we examine nearly 20,000 competitive grants allocated by fifteen major Danish research funders. Our results show a strongly skewed allocation of funding towards a small elite of individual researchers, and toward a very select group of research areas and topics. We discuss several potential drivers, and highlight that strong funding concentrations likely result from a complex interplay between funders’ overlapping priorities, excellence-dominated evaluation criteria, and lack of coordination between both public and private research funding bodies.