Similar-to-me Effects in the Grant Application Process: Applicants, Panelists, and the Likelihood of Obtaining Funds

Qianshuo Liu, David Pérez-Castrillo, Ines Macho-Stadler and Albert Banal-Estañol
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: David Perez-Castrillo

No 1289, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: We analyse if and how the characteristics of grant research panels affect the applicants' likelihood of obtaining funding and, especially, if particular types of panels favor particular types of applicants. We use the award decisions of the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). We show that not only applicants' but also panels' characteristics matter. Panels of higher quality, in terms of prior research performance, for instance, as well panels that include more female members or members of Mongoloid origin, are tougher than others. Our main results indicate that panel members tend to favor more (or penalise less) applicants with similar characteristics to them, as the similar-to-me hypothesis suggests. We show, for instance, that the quality of the applicants is more critical for panels of the highest quality than for panels of relatively lower quality, that basic oriented panels tend to penalise applied-oriented applicants, and that panels with less female members tend to penalise teams with more female applicants.

Keywords: funding organization; scientific evaluation; similar-to-me; panel composition; research grants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sog
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Working Paper: Similar-to-me effects in the grant application process: Applicants, panelists, and the likelihood of obtaining funds (2021)
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