| Popis: |
Increasingly, the conditions of mainstream competitive research funding shape the conduct of research in ways that stifle researchers’ creativity with adverse effects on their job satisfaction and retention and, thus, on the potential for scientific breakthroughs. However, alternative grants are emerging. In this article, we interviewed24 recipients of such a grant, namely the Danish ‘Villum Experiment’ (VE), which seeks to promote unorthodox research within the natural and technical sciences. We unravel how researchers feel about the conditions of grants and their reflections on how these conditions shape their research. Our interviewees consistently juxtaposed their experiences of doing research funded by mainstream grants with that of doing their VE projects. To them, mainstream funding is characterized by conservatism, control, and path-dependency, whereas VE facilitates creativity, flexibility, and scientific joy. Conceptually, we outline a ‘two modes of science’ model: The industrial mode vis-à-vis the entrepreneurial mode of science. By contextualizing our empirical analysis in this model, we show that given the prevalence of funding, anchored in and promoting the industrial mode of science, alternatives, like VE, become a genuine welcome escape from the production line of big science. In emotional terms, the interviewees express that VE fosters a different research experience and that which initially led them to become scientists: playfulness, exploration and passion. Therefore, we propose that funders start taking researchers’ emotions seriously, because how the conditions of grants make scientists feel likely shape the research that they do and, consequently, the progress of science. |
