What difference does it make? Impact of peer-reviewed scholarships on scientific production

Adriana Bin (), Sergio Salles-Filho, Luiza Maria Capanema and Fernando Antonio Basile Colugnati
Additional contact information
Adriana Bin: University of Campinas
Sergio Salles-Filho: University of Campinas
Luiza Maria Capanema: Agronomic Institute of Campinas
Fernando Antonio Basile Colugnati: Federal University of Juiz de Fora

Scientometrics, 2015, vol. 102, issue 2, No 5, 1167-1188

Abstract: Abstract We investigated the extent to which different selection mechanisms for awarding scholarships varied in their short- and longer-term consequences in the performance of awardees in terms of scientific production. We conducted an impact evaluation study on undergraduate, master’s, and PhD research scholarships and compared two different financial sources in Brazil: in one, the selection mechanism was based on a peer review system; the other was based on an institutional system other than peer review. Over 8,500 questionnaires were successfully completed, covering the period 1995–2009. The two groups were compared in terms of their scientific performance using a propensity score approach. We found that the peer-reviewed scholarship awardees showed better performance: they published more often and in journals with higher impact factors than scholarship awardees from the other group. However, two other results indicate a different situation. First, over the long-term, awardees under the peer review system continued to increase their publication rate and published in higher-quality journals; however, the differences with the control group tended to diminish after PhD graduation. Second, the better performance of peer-reviewed scholarships was not observed in all subject areas. The main policy implications of this study relate to a better understanding of selection mechanisms and the heterogeneity regarding the relation between selection processes and scientific and academic output.

Keywords: Scholarships; Peer review; Scientific production; Impact; Evaluation; Propensity score; 62P25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-014-1462-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:102:y:2015:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-014-1462-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-014-1462-9

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().