Publications
Publications
- 2020
Scientific Production: An Exploration into Organization, Resource Allocation, and Funding
By: Jerry Thursby, Marie Thursby, Karim R. Lakhani, Kyle R. Myers, Nina Cohodes, Sarah Bratt, Dennis Byrski, Hannah Cohoon and Maria Roche
Abstract
Production of scientific knowledge is core to civilizational advancement in economic and material wellbeing of societies. Despite its fundamental importance, however, a systematic effort to quantitatively study the factors underlying scientific production, particularly at the micro-organizational level has not taken place in either the social or natural sciences. As a first step, we report on intensive interviews with academic principal investigators on how they organize their research. Our interviews examine composition, structure and management of research groups, topic selection and resource allocation. Our purpose was not only to document the many facets of the organization of academic science, but also to uncover potential directions for research into science policy. We provide new insights on the relation between funding and resource allocation (to include research group composition) and between funding and topic selection (to include novelty of projects). In fact, what comprises “research groups” themselves emerges as a potentially new important direction.
Keywords
Citation
Thursby, Jerry, Marie Thursby, Karim R. Lakhani, Kyle R. Myers, Nina Cohodes, Sarah Bratt, Dennis Byrski, Hannah Cohoon, and Maria Roche. "Scientific Production: An Exploration into Organization, Resource Allocation, and Funding." Working Paper, May 2020.
About The Authors
