Funding of young scientist and scientific excellence

Jointly published by Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest Scientometrics, Vol. 79, No. 1 (2009) 171–190 and Springer, Dordrecht DOI: 10.1007/s11192-009-0411-5

Received December 5, 2007

Address for correspondence: SUSAN BÖHMER E-mail: [email protected] 0138–9130/US $ 20.00 Copyright © 2008 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest All rights reserved

Funding of young scientist and scientific excellence

STEFAN HORNBOSTEL, SUSAN BÖHMER, BERND KLINGSPORN, JÖRG NEUFELD, MARKUS VON INS

iFQ, Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance, Godesberger Allee 90, 53175 Bonn, Germany

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.

Background

International comparisons reveal a special feature of the German higher education system. After completing their doctorate (Promotion), a large proportion of young researchers go on to gain a postdoctoral qualification (called the Habilitation), which is the traditional prerequisite for appointment to a professorship [ENDERS & BORNMANN, 2001].

This system has been in flux for several years now. On the one hand, the introduction of so-called junior professorships created the status of non-tenured professors, while, on the other, the funding of junior research group leaders (including positions for doctoral students) opened up an alternative route to professorial appointment. This funding aims to give junior research group leaders the earliest possible opportunity to demonstrate through independent research (and corresponding

HORNBOSTEL & AL.: Funding of young scientist and scientific excellence

172 Scientometrics 79 (2009)

publications) that they have the qualifications needed for professorial appointment, even without a Habilitation. The aim of the funding programme described here is to select excellent young researchers and to qualify them for a professorship.

This funding transforms the selection for professorship to the extent that universities are responsible for selecting and funding junior professors, while junior research group leaders are reviewed and recommended by referees from the funding organisations that finance the programmes in question. Hence, junior research group leaders do not, generally, have the legal status of a professor.

One of the most renowned junior research group leader programmes in Germany is the Emmy Noether Programme run by the German Research Foundation (DFG). By 2006 this programme had funded some 380 young researchers since its introduction in 1999. The other major research funding organisations in Germany operate similar funding instruments: Max Planck Society, Volkswagen Foundation, and Helmholtz Association. The programme goals are to fund excellent researchers, to lower the age on first professorship, to facilitate early independent research, to encourage international networking, and to raise the proportion of women by improving the compatibility of career and family (DFG, 2002, DFG, 2006). Last but not least, these programmes want to oppose potential brain-drain-effects [OECD, 2002; STIFTERVERBAND FÜR DIE DEUTSCHE WISSENSCHAFT, 2002; JANSON & AL., 2006] and stimulate brain-gain-effects by enhancing Germany’s attractiveness as a research location for promising young researchers.

These programmes indeed respond to problems reported by young researchers. For example, 75.9% of the applicants of the Emmy Noether Programme agree that “the habilitation has become just a ritual, while actual scientific qualification takes place by other means” and 72.8% agree that “the hierarchical structure of German higher education impedes the scientific independence of young researchers”. Accordingly, 93.2% of the applicants judged the prospect of early scientific independence as important or very important, while only 43.6% considered the qualification for professorial appointment as important or very important for their decision to apply for the programme.

Since the beginning of 2006, the Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance (iFQ)1 has conducted an evaluation study on these funding programmes. The following reports on the findings on the career development and scientific performance of junior research group leaders funded under the DFG’s Emmy Noether Programme. The programme has a multidisciplinary focus. In the following, we will only report on applicants in physics and medicine (cf. Table 1). Compared with other funding programmes for young researchers, this programme is not very selective [MELIN &

1 www.research-information.de


Scientometrics 79 (2009) 173

DANELL, 2006] – 52% of all applicants being approved.2 However, applicants are required to meet high standards:

Eligibility requirements: As a rule, application is open to young researchers from all disciplines, with at least two and up to a maximum of four years of postdoctoral experience, substantial international research experience, as a rule proven by a research stay abroad lasting at least 12 months during the doctoral or postdoctoral phase or by comparable scientific cooperation with researchers abroad (the collaboration may have resulted in a relevant publication), and early completion of the research training.

Applicant requirements: Excellent scientific track record, outstanding publications in high-ranking international specialist journals or comparable qualifications.

Project requirements: Excellent research project [DFG, 2002]

Methods

We combined several methods to evaluate the Emmy Noether Programme. All applicants (approved and rejected) were asked to take part in a comprehensive online survey. Despite the substantial scope of the questionnaire (taking between 60 and 90 minutes to complete), we achieved an outstanding response rate, with 76.2% of the approved and 55.5% of the rejected applicants (Table 1). A sample of applicants and representatives of the hosting universities were selected for depth interviews. Some 50 reviews on the applicants are currently being subjected to a content-based analysis. Finally, publication and citation analyses were carried out for the applicants in the fields medicine and physics with funding decision between 2000 and 2006. Publication lists were compiled for each applicant by using the Web of Science database as well as performing an internet search via Google and MSN. We covered a ten year period beginning four years before the application and ending six years after the application. The publication lists were presented to the applicants via an online database. The applicants corrected and completed these lists online to a total of 13,572 documents, 8859 for medicine and physics. Publications recorded in the Web of Science were then selected from this corrected list. In the fields of physics and medicine, this accounts for 86% (7597/8859) of all the documents compiled in the online database. Bibliometric publication data refer to the list of Web of Science-covered documents. For the citation analysis, however, we chose documents that had been published up to 2004 so that a

2 Changes to the programme mean that the details relate only to junior research group leaders. Up to 2005, financing was provided in two phases involving firstly a stay abroad and then – after a further review – the leadership of a junior research group. This leadership phase lasted 3 years up to 2003 and 4 years between 2003 and 2004. Since 2004/2005, when the first phase was abolished, financing was allocated solely to the leadership phase, lasting 5 years and, in exceptions, 6 years.



uniform citation window of 3 years for all chosen publications was possible. Citations were investigated at the Institute for Science and Technology Studies (IWT) of the University of Bielefeld.

Table 1.

N Respondents online survey

(N/%)

Number of publications (publication

list)

Number of publications covered in

Web of Science*

Number of citations**

Approved 68 44/65% 2103 1750 33,455 Medicine Rejected 99 55/56% 2936 2687 41,616 Approved 76 66/87% 2556 2140 30,766 Physics Rejected 51 34/67% 1264 1020 11,476

Medicine & Physics

294 204/69% 8859 7597 117,313

All fields Approved Rejected Sum

365 330 695

278/76% 184/56% 462/66%

– – –

* Publications in a ten year period; four years before and six years after funding decision. ** Three year citation window; publication year plus two subsequent years.

The evaluation of funding programmes focuses on two questions. The first asks

whether the programme goals were reached. The second looks at reasons, i.e. whether the goals were achieved because of the funding received or whether the goals were not achieved because of deficiencies in the programme. The first question can be answered by checking the programme goals (e.g. appointment to a professorship, production of excellent research findings). If a substantial proportion of the funded researchers were appointed to a professorship, then the programme goals had been reached.

The question as to the reasons is much more difficult to answer. Were the best individuals selected, i.e. individuals who would have made a career, even without the funding – albeit under worse conditions or in another country? Or is the subsequent superior success of approved applicants mainly a consequence of good research circumstances, made possible by the grant, indicating a Matthew effect [COLE & COLE, 1967; MERTON, 1968]? Was there a great demand for professors, so that a good chance of professorial appointment existed with or without funding? Did the funding provide working conditions so that the funded researchers had better or broader qualifications than their competitors during the selection process for professorship? Or is this a self-fulfilling prophecy? Because the programme enjoys a good reputation, is it not so much scientific performance but rather the fact of being funded that provided a reason for the appointment as professor?

These explanatory hypotheses are difficult to check because they, firstly, can arise in combination and, secondly, cannot in most cases be completely empirically modelled.



However, it is possible to gain a closer insight by using control groups. In the following, therefore, we will compare rejected applicants with approved applicants and will focus on the results of the bibliometric analysis in the subject areas of medicine and physics.

Besides the selection of applicants on the basis of peer review executed by the DFG, self-selection of the applicants also plays a major role. Results of other studies [MELIN & DANELL, 2006] support the impression that such postdoctoral programmes reveal a very high degree of self-selectivity. Since eligibility criteria (see above) are already given in the programme descriptions, it is easier for potential applicants to do a self-assessment than in funding programmes of students and doctoral students. This means that comparisons with similarly-structured comparative studies the performance of the approved and rejected applicants for doctoral or graduate fellowships are only possible to a very limited degree [BORNMANN & DANIEL, 2005; CHAPMAN & MCCAULEY, 1994].

Finally, it is important for comparisons with other programmes to consider that a limited number of grants are usually offered and that a highly-selective choice is made [BORNMANN & DANIEL, 2007]. Such restrictions do not apply to the Emmy Noether Programme. In this programme, researchers can apply at any time of the year and no limitations exist in the form of a fixed number of fundable projects. The programme actually funds some 50% of all applicants.

Despite this high degree of self-selectivity, differences are seen between approved and rejected applicants as far as the assessment is concerned of what was particularly important in the review process. Although only 33% of the applicants report to feel well-informed about the criteria applied, both groups agree on the great importance of the number of publications and on the reputation of the journals in which these are published (Figure 1). By contrast, the rejected applicants assume that their previous research activities and stays abroad did not have any particular weight in the selection process. The two groups also differ in their assessment of the role of the innovative content and the conception of the proposed research project in the review process. Although it is possible that these details reflect later disappointment about the reviewers’ decision.

An analysis by subject areas3 and approval/rejection can, however, be misleading, especially in respect of measurable performance (publications and citations), if the publication and citation behaviour of the sub-disciplines varies strongly. Due to the low total number of cases, our sample cannot, however, be disaggregated down to subfield level.

3 Subject affiliation is specified by the DFG rather than by the frequently used ISI Subject Categories.



Figure 1. Perceived importance of various decision criteria – Applicants in medicine and physics

Table 2. Approved and rejected applicants by subfields

Medicine

Subfield (“Fachgruppe”) Med_approved 100% (n=68)

Med_rejected 100% (n=99)

Medicine 40 (58.82%) 57 (57.58%) Microbiology, virology, immunology 14 (20.59%) 15 (15.15%) Neuroscience 14 (20.59%) 27 (27.27%)

Physics

Subfield (“Fachgruppe”) Phy_approved 100% (n=75)

Phy_rejected 100% (n=52)

Astrophysics, astronomy 14 (18.67%) 9 (17.31%) Optics, quantum optics, physics of atoms, molecules and plasmas 12 (16.00%) 9 (17.31%) Condensed matter physics 25 (33.33%) 16 (30.77%) Statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics 3 (4.00%) 5 (9.61%) Particle and nuclear physics, physics of fields 21 (28.00%) 13 (25.0%)

Table 2 shows that across the subfields there are similar percentages of

approved/rejected applications. The subfields chosen for Table 2 are still somewhat large, especially in medicine, but further subdivision would have decimated the number of cases to such an extent that conclusions concerning percentages of approved/rejected applications would hardly be reliable. Within the verifiable range, the distribution of rejected and approved applicants is very similar. This is why we do not expect the comparison of the two applicant groups at field level to be distorted as a result of the differing distribution across subfields.



Results

Career and satisfaction

If we ask applicants whose funding decisions were made three or more years ago (with the funding already completed in these “older” cases) how satisfied they are with their career situation, we find the following picture (cf. Figure 2). In the subsample medicine/physics, a higher degree of satisfaction is reported by the approved applicants with respect to position, income and perspectives, although there are also field specific differences. However, these differences are only of a moderate nature and also the rejected applicants judgment of their career development prospects and income appear on a medium level, while their other answers even reach the “satisfied” range. RÖSSEL & LANDFESTER [2004] found similar levels of satisfaction of approved Emmy Noether applicants concerning aspects of budget and personnel.

Figure 2. Job situation – Applicants (medicine/physics, n = 38/34), approved group: 3 years after decision date and funding completed; rejected group: 3 years after decision date

The differences found in the career prospect and satisfaction can be explained by

considering the information on career positions given by respondents to the online survey. Some 23% of the rejected and around 22% of the approved medical scientists and physicists in the Emmy Noether Programme are abroad three years after funding decision. Most of them remained in the university sector; just between 23% (rejected)



and 12.5% (approved) of the applicants worked in non-university research. Pronounced differences exist in respect of the employment contracts they hold. A large majority of approved applicants hold a permanent full-time position (of which the majority work as professors), while three years after the decision on their application,4 the rejected applicants generally hold temporary (time-limited) employment contracts at a university.

Since this is only voluntary information provided by the participants of the online survey, we additionally carried out a web-based search to check the current career positions of applicants. To this end, we searched all the applicants’ names on the web with Google in July 2007. If this search was not successful, we repeated the search with Altavista.

The reasoning behind this kind of search is as follows: Nowadays, virtually all academic institutions have a website including information on staff and positions. So, if an applicant cannot be found, we assume that the applicant has left the academic sector. A source of uncertainty in such web searches lies in the time-lag between start date in a position and the website updates. Another difficulty lies in the fact that we cannot find the career path but just the present position with this kind of analysis. Furthermore, the details provided on the web are not sufficient for us to decide whether the current position is a tenured or temporary (time-limited) position.

Furthermore, it is difficult to compare German and foreign academic titles, just as it is not always possible to differentiate junior professorships unequivocally from tenured, regular professorships [COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, 2003; JANSON & AL., 2006].

Tables 3 and 4 present the results of the web search on the current positions (July 2007) held by the applicants. The categories “no longer in the academic sector” and “research associate” are empty for the approved groups in both medicine and physics. On the other hand, there are many more project leaders in the approved group from both research fields than in the rejected group.

22% of the approved group in medicine had been appointed to a professorship within three or more years after the funding decision in contrast to 10% of the corresponding group of rejected applicants. In physics, 41% of the approved applicants had been appointed to such a position compared with 13% of the rejected applicants. Similarly, the percentage of project managers in the rejected group in physics (17%) is much smaller than the number of project managers in the rejected group in medicine (31%).

We might conclude from Tables 3 and 4 that the Emmy Noether Programme virtually became the key opportunity for an academic career in physics, whereas in medicine other academic careers are quite common.

4 See footnote 3.



Scientific performance

Applicants’ publication activities change over time and are expected to be related to their application efforts and their outcomes. The following line charts illustrate this quite clearly. To this end the year of funding decision is named 0 for each candidate; years before funding decision are denoted by negative numbers and years after funding decision by positive numbers. Due to the funding decisions more recent than 2002, there is a smaller number of applicants to the right and therefore a larger statistical uncertainty indicated with error bars.

If we first consider the publication activity of the applicants (cf. Figure 4), clear differences can be identified between the two examined disciplines. In both disciplines, we find a pronounced increase in the annual publication figures before the application. In most cases, this period includes the doctoral phase and reflects the research activities during and after the doctorate. In the year of application, a slight decrease in activity is found in both disciplines and both groups, indicating that the application was made at a time of career change and professional reorientation.

In physics, we find a development that corresponds with our expectations. Prior to application, the group of approved applicants shows a stronger publication activity than the rejected applicants.

After the funding decision, the approved applicants managed to maintain or even improve that level slightly, while a clear decrease in the publication activity is seen for the rejected applicants.

The picture is completely different in the field of medicine. Virtually parallel curves are found in both groups in this field. Contrary to expectations, we can conclude for the period before decision that the rejected applicants produced more output than the approved applicants. After the decision on the application, the publication activity of the approved applicants rose and then stabilised at a similar level to the activity shown by the rejected group. It is also possible to see that significant differences between rejected and approved applicants only arise in physics around 3 years after the funding decision.

If the number of publications points to the quantity of the research work, the number of citations (per publication) indicates the quality. In medicine, comparison of the approved and rejected applicants in the period prior to the funding decision reveals that the greater publication activity of rejected applicants corresponds to a lower citation frequency per publication than found for approved applicants. The figures for the field of physics reveal more clearly that publications of successful applicants were also cited slightly more frequently before they applied for funding. Publications of approved applicants score around 2 to 3 citations more than publications by rejected applicants.



Figure 3. Characterisation of current position – Applicants in medicine and physics (Approved group: 3 years after decision date & funding completed; Rejected group: 3 years after decision date)

In medicine, however, the difference in citation frequency is not significant, neither

before nor after the funding decision. Interestingly enough, however, the citation frequencies for both groups decrease after the funding decision and are then approximately equal in both groups.

Physicists also experience a “citation gap” after funding decision. Presumably, approved applicants are strongly preoccupied with setting up the young researchers group, organising the new research project and establishing their group in the specific field of research in this phase, while the rejected applicants are busy searching for a new position or research project. If we ignore the final data point (four years after the funding decision) for the time being, since the absolute number of cases is very low here, both disciplines and both groups exhibit a period of “recovery” in the third year after the funding decision. In contrast to medicine, however, a (not significant) difference between approved and rejected applicants remains more or less stable in physics.

In a similar funding programme in Sweden (INGVAR), MELIN & DANELL [2006] found that both approved and rejected applicants did not differ in the number of publications at the time of the funding decision, but certainly did in respect of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) of the journals in which they published. We could, therefore, suppose that the reviewers, who at the time of the application cannot or only partly know the actual citations, of course, neither attached importance to the number of citations nor to the number of publications, but rather paid attention to the publication strategy [VINKLER, 2003], i.e. the Journal Impact Factor of the journals chosen, as a decisive element.



Figure 4. Number of publications per applicant in medicine and physics – Full counts

Figure 5. Citations per publication – Applicants in medicine and physics



Figure 6. Publication strategy (journal impact factor) of the applicants ín medicine and physics

Figure 7. Number of publications per applicant in medicine and physics – Fractional counts



Actually, our study also showed that the approved applicants published in journals with a higher JIF prior to the funding decision than did the individuals who had been rejected. This difference is much more pronounced in medicine than in physics. However, the pathway is also different. While the choice of journals remained relatively stable among physicists, the path taken by the observed medical scientists partly points to changes in the publication strategy. After the funding decision, the rejected applicants from the field of medicine published in similarly renowned journals, while the approved medical scientists choose journals with a slightly lower JIF in the period after funding decision.

Potential bias factors

The difference in the publication strategy (the JIF of the journals) could, in particular, be attributed to the fact that the applicants had unequal numbers of and/or unequally renowned co-authors. A check on the number of and reputation of the co-authors still needs to be carried out. However, we were able to check the influence of the number of co-authors on the publications. We did this by calculating a fractional count of the publications (1/number of authors).

A comparison between Figure 7 and the full counts in Figure 4 also shows no major differences. Rather, the above-outlined tendency becomes even more pronounced (no significant differences between rejected and approved applicants). Comparing the disciplines in our sample, we notice slightly lower fractional counts in medicine, implying larger research groups (more co-authors) than in physics.

A further factor of bias could be that the career position (especially staying in academia) opens up very different opportunities for research and publication.

In order to test this influence, we used the results of the web search to illustrate the effects of the careers on publication and citation performance. Figure 8 shows that the two comparable categories (professors and project leaders also reflect – as expected – similar publication behaviour in both the rejected and approved groups. But the two other categories in the rejected group (“research associate” and “no longer in the academic sector”), also show high numbers of publications. This illustrates why the publication output of the rejected and approved groups in medicine is virtually the same.

In physics, the approved group demonstrates a constant and elevated publication output after the decision. In contrast in the rejected group, either the number of class members is too small (less than four) or the corresponding publication numbers decreased, such as, for example, in the large category of research associates. The question remains open as to why the rejected class of research associates in physics published ever less in the post-decision years. The question also remains unanswered as to why the project managers in the rejected group published much less than in the approved group.



Figure 8. Applicants by position July 2007 – Publications per applicant – Medicine

Figure 9. Applicants by position July 2007 – Publications per applicant – Medicine



Figure 10. Applicants by position July 2007 – Citations per publication – Medicine

Figure 11. Applicants by position July 2007 – Citations per publication – Medicine



If we consider the citations per publication, we observe less data points to the right of the figure than in the corresponding figures on the number of publications. The explanation for this is that in some of the years no publications were produced by one or several researchers, reducing the number of publishing researchers (for which a citation rate can be calculated) below four.

If we consider the figures for medicine, we see very similar and elevated citation rates of both the rejected and approved groups. In physics, the difference in the citation rates of the approved and rejected groups can now be detailed in two factors, firstly the differences in the citation rates of the classes and secondly the differences in the number of members in the corresponding classes.

The reviewers’ dilemma

As the bibliometric analyses showed, it is very difficult to make predictions on an applicant’s later development on the basis of publication activity, chosen journals or actual citations.

The high degree of self-selectivity leads to both the finally approved as well as the eventually rejected applicants demonstrating impressive research performance. This effect is much more pronounced in medicine than in physics. As this analysis of 50 randomly chosen applicant reviews shows, the reviewers do not only use the research performance documented in publications as a basis for assessing the applicant. In their assessments, reviewers always face the dilemma of “admitting too much or allowing too little” [EISENHART, 2002; CAMPANARIO, 1998]. The DFG-reviewers generally consider 3 aspects: the applicant’s “excellence”, the project’s quality and the application itself, thereby demonstrating attention to similar criteria of assessment as found in comparable funding programmes [LANGFELDT & SOLUM, 2007].

Besides publication performance as such, a key role in judging the applicant’s suitability is played by the applicant’s personal research profile and independence. Great value is attached to the ability of applicants to clearly free themselves from the ideas of their mentor or from the research profiles pursued at their home university. The assessment of research experience places great emphasis on the reputation and achievements of the research groups in which the applicant has already worked. In addition, the decision considers experience in project and human resources management.

The assessment of the proposed research project generally plays a very central role when applications are reviewed. Besides weighing up the project’s innovative force and its risk potential, the relevance of the expected results for the subject is also important. Furthermore, the chosen working methods are critically discussed. An unexpectedly high degree of importance is played by the choice of host institution. Since applicants are able to choose a university or a non-university research institution at which they



would like to base the project and their group, the reviewers weigh up very carefully whether the ideal location was chosen or whether, possibly, an institution was chosen at which the applicant had already been working or had been otherwise integrated. So independence and emancipation also play a key role at the level of the research project itself.

Beyond the previously described decision-making dimensions, formal features of the application are discussed as well. In particular, the reviewers also study the conception of the work plans and timetables. But a comprehensive presentation of the “state of the art”, coherent and clear lines of argument and, last but not least, a full set of application papers are also expected.

Conclusions

First of all, we can confirm that the DFG and the Emmy Noether Programme reviewers indeed selected successful individuals and that a gratifyingly high number of the approved individuals were appointed to a professorship or had found a career position in research that they themselves described as satisfactory, either during the programme itself or after the funding had ended. It was also seen that the reviewers tended to select applicants with slightly higher citation rates and, in particular, successfully identified highly-productive young researchers. Similar results for comparisons of approved and rejected applicants were obtained by previous studies [BORNMANN & DANIEL, 2007; BORNMANN & DANIEL, 2006]. More detailed analyses on the predictive validity of the panel decisions remain to be done. Peer review decisions have been subject to questions for a long time [ROY, 1985; FINN, 2002].

It is much more difficult to judge to what extent the programme or the selection decision were involved in this success. The analyses have shown that although the group of rejected applicants does not manage to occupy professorships to the same extent, their research achievements are nevertheless certainly comparable with those of the group of approved applicants. In medicine, in particular, no more differences between approved and non-approved applicants can be found just a few years after the funding decision. The career position and the positioning in or outside academic research do not result in clear differences in research performance. The situation in physics is slightly clearer. Here, a relatively constant difference (albeit not very large) remains between those who received funding and those who did not. More detailed analyses will have to answer the question of to what extent just the participation in the highly-renowned Emmy Noether Programme represented an advantage in gaining appointment to a professorship.

In view of the debate that is not only going on in Germany about specifically targeting funding for scientific excellence, our results give plenty of cause for thought and deliberation to the extent that they very clearly show that young scientists and



researchers who do not bear the label “excellent” certainly are capable of achieving comparable and in some cases even better results than those who have been certified as “excellent”. Fortunately, the young researchers funded under the Emmy Noether Programme are themselves aware of this and see their funding as an outstanding opportunity to address their research topics, and not as a social labelling process.

*

We thank Dr. M. Winterhager, Institute for Science and Technology Studies (IWT), University of Bielefeld for the investigation of the citations , upon which our calculations were based.

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Funding of young scientist and scientific excellence

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