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Short abstract:

We analyze how researchers engage in practices of valuation as they apply for ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants. Drawing upon interviews with applicants, we present narratives of why researchers apply to the ERC and the importance they attribute to the ERC within European science.

Long abstract:

Practices of applying for research funding are omnipresent and highly important processes in academic work. Yet so far, there have been no systematic studies that analyze how researchers engage in these practices and how these practices impact their self-understanding and the orientation of their work. This constitutes a both significant gap in research in the social studies of science and in reliable knowledge for science policy making. In this paper, we convey two themes of insight emerging from a project that aims to address this gap by studying how researchers engage in practices of valuation while applying for European Research Council (ERC) grants. Drawing upon interviews with applicants for ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants across multiple German universities, we explore two themes related to high quality in research. First, we present why researchers apply to the ERC: we offer grounded-theory-derived insights about applicants’ motivations to pursue a favorable recognition by this evaluation process. Secondly, we explore the importance that researchers attribute to the ERC within European science: in what ways does the ERC itself represent high-quality science within Europe, to them? Within the larger project that offers these results, we aim to reconstruct the socio-epistemic practices by which researchers construct value in their applications, as well as the relationship between these practices and the emergent normative infrastructures that surround and advise them.