Dependency and compliance in academic research infrastructures

The article explores the process by which academic research settings become influenced by external funders upon whom they depend for vital resources. The emerging resource relations between university research and external funders give rise to an academic infrastructure that deviates from the traditional model of autonomy and freedom of science, and increasingly comes to resemble the context of nonacademic research settings. Based on data collected in Israel, it was found that externally funded academic research shows a low degree of autonomy, a high degree of structural formalization, and low influence of the scientific literature on problem-choice processes. External control affects the nature of the research product as well. Whereas the rate of published papers (articles) declines, the rate of unpublished papers (technical reports) increases with external funds. These observations suggest that the distinction between academic and nonacademic research settings is inappropriate for explaining the variance among different research infrastructures. Rather, the nature of the dependency situation accounts for their specific characteristics. The results have implications for the study of stratification in science and the growth of scientific and technological knowledge.