The Matthew effect and early-career setbacks in research funding - a replication study (RoRI Working Paper No. 16)

Research funding plays an important role in academic careers. Previous research showed that researchers who obtain early-career funding are more likely to obtain later-career funding, whereas researchers who do not obtain early-career funding show a higher citation impact when reapplying for later-career funding.

We replicate the so-called Matthew effect and early-career setback effect across fourteen different funding programmes from six research funders across Europe and North America.

Earlier studies rely on studying applicants close to the funding line, and the inferred effects are limited to this “grey zone”. We study the robustness and generalisability of both effects to the whole population, beyond applicants in the “grey zone”.

We find that the Matthew effect replicates, is robust across funders and model specifications, and generalises to the whole population. The early-career setback effect also replicates, but is not robust across funders and model specifications, and does not generalise to the whole population.

We suggest that the early-career setback observation is due to a selection effect of unfunded applicants being particularly more likely to reapply later if they have a high citation impact.

To address the Matthew effect, research funders and research organisations could consider stimulating promising rejected applicants to reapply. Another possibility would be to diminish potential deleterious effects of funding on academic careers.