The economics of SSHRC research grants III: Research in Buzzword Studies

When SSHRC replaced the old Standard Research Grant (SRG) program with the Insight Grant (IG) program, it did more than simply increase the budget for research grants. It also introduced "priority research areas" (see Frances on this here) that would receive special attention. It turned out that the amounts allocated to these new research areas would account for all of that grant increase, and more.

The one are that made - and makes - the most sense is the Aboriginal/Northern communities field. This is a clear policy priority (it's worth remembering that these decisions were made when the Conservatives were in power), and it's an area that is at best a minor niche in any of the traditional research disciplines. I don't have any problem with this choice.

But two other areas - "Digital economy" and "Innovation, learning and prosperity" were - not to put a too fine point on it - a joke. These aren't fields of scholarly research so much as they are the names of sections in an airport bookstore. If we have learned one thing during the transition to the Insight Grant program, it's that SSHRC is alarmingly prone to being suckered into throwing money at Research in Buzzword Studies.

"Research Creation" was introduced in the second year of the IG program. I'm still not sure what it is - here's the description - and it was folded in with Fine Arts last year.

These areas were generously funded in the first couple of years of the IG program:

 

SSHRC Insight Grants: Total awards

2015 dollars

(Per cent of total)

Field	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
Aboriginal/Northern		11,740,825 (13.6)	9,756,480 (10.9)	11,417,610 (11.7)	4,525,127 (5.7)
Digital economy		14,464,856 (16.7)	7,461,665 (8.4)	7,369,209  (7.6)
Innovation, leadership and prosperity		6,936,612 (8.0)	6,488,021 (7.3)	6,333,180  (6.5)
Research creation			4,955,294 (5.6)	4,254,334  (4.4)	2,676,907 (3.3)
Other		53,300,407 (61.7)	60,500,693 (67.9)	68,213,252 (69.9)	74,693,248 (91.2)
Total	77,583,235	86,442,700	89,162,153	97,587,586	81,895,282

 

In 2012-13, the "Digital economy" budget was more than four times the size of the budget allocated to the entire economics committee.

I'm going to say that again:

 

IN 2012-13, THE "DIGITAL ECONOMY" BUDGET WAS MORE THAN FOUR TIMES THE BUDGET ALLOCATED TO THE ENTIRE ECONOMICS COMMITTEE.

 

I'm still seething at this.

Even though the total budget envelope increased during the transition from SRG to IG, the budget for the 'traditional' fields was much less under IG than it had been under SRG. All the extra money - and more - went to these new areas.

You see the same pattern for individual grant sizes. Again, I'm using annual averages, so that the 5-year IG grants can be compared directly to the 3-year SRG grants.

SSHRC Insight Grants: Average annual awards

2015 dollars

(Per cent of total)

Field	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
Aboriginal/Northern	46,963 (132.0)	54,203 (140.1)	58,552 (148.2)	60,335 (171.7)
Digital economy	49,879 (140.2)	53,298 (137.8)	58,954  (149.2)
Innovation, leadership and prosperity	38,537 (108.3)	41,858 (108.2)	38,382  (97.2)
Research creation		55,059 (142.3)	60,776  (153.8)	53,538 (152.3)
Other	31,170 (87.6)	34,771 (89.9)	35,620 (90.2)	33,874 (96.4)
Total	35,573	38,682	39,509	35,148

 

The new committees awarded grants systematically greater than in the traditional fields. Again, I don't have a problem with the size of the grants in the Aboriginal/North field. Travel costs alone would make this field an expensive area to work in.

I don't know what the story has been inside SSHRC over the past few years, but I like to think that SSHRC has learned from its mistakes: Research in Buzzword Studies has been wound down, freeing up money for other fields. Perhaps a broader lesson is that SSHRC isn't very good at 'directing' research, and should avoid trying to do so.

But that's not the whole story, either. Success rates remain low, even after the unlamented demise of Research in Buzzword Studies.

Update: On twitter, David Graham offers another interpretation: 'investing in buzzwords' was SSHRC's way of trying to persuade its masters that the research it was funding had practical, real-world applications. I think I like his story better than mine.

 

This is the third of a four-part series:

I - Why are success rates so low?

II - Cutting and restoring budgets

IV - A collective action problem

 

Comments

[Frances Woolley]

Steve, great post. I'd have been interested in seeing economics broken out from that "other" number, but perhaps I'll have to wait until tomorrow.

On this: "Perhaps a broader lesson is that SSHRC isn't very good at 'directing' research, and should avoid trying to do so."

To reach that conclusion, wouldn't we need to look at the research funded under the buzzword studies categories - the volume, the quality, the impact, etc - and compare it to research funded under traditional categories. It could be that these funding envelopes did indeed promote path-breaking research. I share your scepticism about the value of, say, leadership research, but I'm sceptical about the value of lots of traditional SSHRC-funded research too. What is the reason to believe that the projects funded under these envelopes were of lower quality than the typical SSHRC-funded research project?

[Bartbeaty]

Enjoying the series.

In a nutshell, Research Creation is the form of research in which the primary outcome is a creative work: a novel, a collection of poetry, a play, a musical composition, a dance performance, and so on. Essentially, the category allows SSHRC funding for colleagues in Faculties of Fine Arts and for people in Creative Writing programs.

[Livio Di Matteo]

"These aren't fields of scholarly research so much as they are the names of sections in an airport bookstore."
Great line.

[Stephen Gordon]

Bartbeaty - thanks. Given that it was coupled with Fine Arts in last year's competition, that's sort of what I was guessing.

[David Wolfe]

Stehen, as SSHRC rep for a major Canadian university I have struggled long and hard for the past three years to understand the trend lines in the level of IG funding in comparison to the old SRG program. Your four part analysis certainly sheds a lot of light on what has happened since the transition. However, the only one I disagree with is Part III. I have repeatedly asked SSHRC staff about the relevance of the five priority areas for scoring of proposals in both the IG program and the partnership grants and they have insisted that proposals referencing these priority areas were not given any special credit in their evaluations. I agree with the suggestion that focus on the five priority areas was largely part of a defensive tactic by SSHRC with those holding the purse strings to maintain overall levels of funding for their programs. Nonetheless, thanks for the very helpful analysis you have provided for all of us working to improve the quality of support for social science and humanities research in Canada.

[Stephen Gordon]

David - All I know from the SSHRC spreadsheets is that these areas had/have their own committees and budgets.