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Short abstract:

Project-based research funding is presented as allowing better control of expenses and directing science towards a goal of social utility. This proposal examines this statement through two extreme French cases: scientific valorization and environmental interdisciplinary project.

Long abstract:

Project-based funding was essentially created in France in the 1960s to break up mandarinates into universities (Aust, 2014), but nowadays it has become a public policy instrument to govern research in two dimensions: controlling expenditure and directing priorities. This communication will examine the effects of project-based funding in two edge cases where project-based funding is the medium through which science creates social utility.

Firstly, we will look at industrial partnership and technology transfer projects in public research. These situations are diverse, ranging from small and successive projects with individual companies, to long-term collaborations with major industrial groups, to multi-year technology transfer projects whose success is very uncertain. What these projects have in common, however, is their promise to create economic value for society, through technological impact and contributions to national competitiveness.

Secondly, we will focus on Human-Environment Observatories (OHMs), a scientific policy tool of the French National Research Centre dedicated to studying socio-ecosystems heavily influenced by human activity. OHMs support small interdisciplinary research projects in collaboration with various non-scientific stakeholders, with the intention of promoting sustainable development of territories and gaining a better understanding of human-environment interactions to adapt more effectively to global changes.

We will conclude by highlighting the importance of comparing contrasted cases in order to understand the specificities of the project form in public research.