Hypercompetition: Observations and Remedies
In response to the Te Ara Paerangi Future Pathways Green Paper Consultation, this paper reviews the case that the current funding environment is hypercompetitive, with negative implications on research and the well-being and diversity of the research workforce. Evidence for hypercompetition includes impacts on the workforce such as accumulating precarity across PhD student and post-doctoral funding, poor diversity outcomes that resist policies aimed at improvement, and funding rates in the 10% range for contestable proposal systems. It may be important to avoid positive feedback causing the rich-get-richer Matthew effect, such as avoiding overlap between funding mechanisms that can amplify a cycle of more researchers applying to contestable funding, undermining the potential to increase funding in response to low funding rates. Recommended solutions include well designed base funding, fellowships, reform of competitive funding mechanisms, and smaller funding packages, along with direct collaborative or international exchanges. Ensuring more effective and equitable future research funding through more anticipatory science policy may be achieved by improved monitoring focusing on the success, connectivity and responsiveness of independent research organisation and the early career tracks of researchers.
Link to full brief and citeable content: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6354888
Reference:
Patel, Sneh, Baisden, Troy, Stewart, Lucy, & Yee, Grace. (2022). 5. Hypercompetition: Observations and Remedies. Zenodo.
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