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Paper short abstract

Analyzing Dutch grant applications before and after mandatory impact plans, this study shows how funding criteria shape promises of societal impact and reinforce a linear innovation imaginary that can incentivize systematic overpromising.

Paper long abstract

Across Europe, research funding systems are undergoing experimentation with new allocation mechanisms in response to critiques of traditional peer review and growing concerns about fairness, efficiency, and trust. One of the elements under consideration is the criteria used to evaluate research proposals, as they shape how scientists articulate the future value of their work. In many Anglo-Saxon funding regimes, applicants are required to specify scientific outcomes and societal or technological impacts in advance. These requirements encourage researchers to formulate promises about future benefits, often resulting in systematic overpromising.

This research examines how funding requirements shape such promises. I focus on the Dutch national research funder and analyze how researchers frame expected impacts in grant applications before and after the introduction of mandatory impact-plan frameworks. I argue that these requirements reflect and reinforce a linear innovation imaginary, in which scientific discovery leads predictably to societal impact, an assumption long criticized in the history and sociology of science for misrepresenting the uncertain and nonlinear nature of research and technological development.

By tracing changes in grant proposal language, the study shows how funding calls and evaluation criteria actively configure what counts as valuable research. In doing so, funding practices do not merely allocate resources but also shape collective visions of desirable scientific futures. I reflect on how funding agencies should balance legitimate expectations of societal relevance with the need to avoid incentivizing exaggerated promises. Designing more reflexive funding systems requires greater awareness of how evaluation criteria shape researchers’ narratives about future impact.