Call for Papers: Funded and Unfunded Science

[Radim Hladik]

Dear fellow ISSI members, I would like to bring the following call for papers to your attention. I hope the topic of science funding will be of interest to some of you and/or that you can share the call with the appropriate recipients.

Best regards,

Radim Hladík

CfP: Funded and Unfunded Science: Academic Inequalities and Epistemic Gaps

International Research Symposium on Science Funding

October 4-5, 2021 Prague, Czech Republic

Centre for Science, Technology, and Society Studies at the Czech Academy of Sciences invites prospective participants to submit abstracts for presentation at the international research symposium Funded and Unfunded Science: Academic Inequalities and Epistemic Gaps in Prague, Czech Republic, on October 4-5, 2021.

The need for research on science funding increases with the projectification of academic labor, penetration of grant-getting into research evaluations, demands on the public accountability of science, and the vast financial requirements of the state-of-the-art research. Recently available funding data in large scientific databases also open up new research pathways. Insights from science studies can inform evidence-based science policies, but even more urgently, they should enable science practitioners to better comprehend the role of funding in the transformation of scientific topics, norms, impact, community, and careers.

We especially welcome empirically-grounded contributions driven by computational, network, quantitative or qualitative methods in disciplines such as science on science, research on research, scientometrics, social studies of science, or science and technology studies. All levels of analysis - individual, organizational, disciplinary, national or global - are relevant to the proposed symposium. A non-exhaustive list of suggested topics includes the following:

- differences between funded and unfunded science
- peer-review and funding allocation
- linguistic features of grant applications
- epistemological and topical biases in funded research
- performance, productivity, impact and funding
- funding and diversity in academia
- novelty, interdisciplinarity, risk-taking as funding factors
- concentration of funding in topics, disciplines, institutions
- effects of funding on academic career trajectories
- funding systems, policies, agencies, and competitions
- project-based funding and scientific labor

The symposium aims to provide a low-key, non-archival platform for discussions about science funding and for sharing accomplished as well as research-in-progress work. 

Confirmed keynote speakers are Cassidy R. Sugimoto (The Georgia Institute of Technology), Grit Laudel (Technische Universität Berlin), and Peter van den Besselaar (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam).

To submit an abstract by May 31, 2021, find out more details about the event or to get the latest update on the symposium format, go to the website https://stss.flu.cas.cz/resfun-2021 or send an inquiry to res...@flu.cas.cz.



Note: Participation in the symposium will be free of charge but with limited capacity and service. The symposium is primarily intended as an in-person meeting, but it may convert to a hybrid or fully online event if public health concerns so require.