Who Loses When Public Funding Declines?

In the current funding environment, academic scientists face choices in seeking external funding for their research from either government or foundation sources. We elicit scientists’ preferences between foundation and government funders over a number of dimensions related to the process of applying for, and using the grants requested, as well as in regard to possible implications for their research careers. Our analysis centered on three issues: researchers’ grant experiences, researchers’ perceptions of government and foundation funding bodies, and an experiment in which we randomly assigned respondents to make choices between potential research sponsors, under three scenarios which each had varied expected success rates. We provide evidence on the possible trade-offs made by scientists, and their responsiveness to changes in the availability of government funding.