The Interaction between Young Scientists and Funders: Professionalism and Mobility in the Field of Biomedicine

Abstract

This study is focused on the interaction of young scientists (biomedical) and state and non-state funds within research projects’ funding. Biomedicine is a complex of sciences, which possesses (1) a high status due to three factors. Firstly, is consists of 'useful' and 'important' activities undertaken for the good of humanity; secondly, it offers potential commercial benefits from scientific research, and, finally, it is viewed as a priority area of funding by the Russian state, according to special documents on this topic. All these features form the specific operating conditions for the professional field of biomedicine. Under conditions where social policy is changing toward scientists as a professional group, two aspects are problematized in this article. Firstly, funds tend to favour scientists with a good reputation and high level of symbolic capital, while imposing severe formalization of the application procedure and also creating a huge number of rules required to be followed by applicants. The latter raises the risk that only projects loyal to the rules will be selected, rather than giving original, creative and promising approaches a chance to flourish. Secondly, the structure of biomedical professional field is problematized. The grant system implies competition not only between projects, but also between the characteristics of the projects’ authors (e.g, their scientometric indicators). This creates barriers for young scientists wishing to obtain funding to conduct their research projects. Unlike colleagues with more experience, young scientists have accumulated insufficient amounts of different types of capital to be credible enough to receive funding. The focus of this research is on the actions taken by young scientists to overcome the situation. Referring to de Certeau’s theoretical framework, the situation can be conceptualized as confrontation of the 'strong' strategies of funding bodies and the ‘weak’ tactics of young scientists. As a result of a series of interviews with young scientists and funding experts it is revealed that the 'strong' strategies confront three types of 'weak' tactics: (1) constructing the research project, (2) constructing the significance of scientific symbols, and finally (3) employing the help of lobbying organizations.