The impact of the science research council's policy of selectivity and concentration on average levels of research support: 1965–1974

Abstract

Use is made of the peer-adjudicated grants awarded by the Science Research Council (SRC) during the years 1965–1974 to examine the Council's policy of selectivity and concentration. The paper develops earlier work on the concentration of these resources in two ways, firstly, be exploring changes in the median levels of grants over the decade, and secondly, by correlating these changes with changes in the concentration of research funds. With regard to the first dimension the analysis revealed that in all but two committees of the Council, the median of the grant distributions remained constant or declined over time. In the second case, expensive areas of research - those exhibiting a high median grant - were found to exhibit the highest concentration index. Both of these results clarify the manner in which the SRC had responded to a perceived escalation in the costs of research and also provided a basis for examining the rationale for the SRC's adoption of an expanded policy of selectivity and concentration in which such escalation has forced the SRC to be both more selective in the research they support and to concentrate those limited resources in fewer groups in order that quality in research be sustained. The analyses presented in this paper raise certain questions over the extent to which these changes have occured in the area of peer-adjudicated grants.