Evaluation of Research Proposals

'Past performance is no indication of future results,' the investment advertisements remind us. The same would seem to apply to grant applications for scientific research.
In 2007, the Rathenau Institute and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Social and Behavioural Sciences division) conducted a study of grant applications. The results revealed that past performance does very little to predict the success of the application.

This project focused on the social science sector in the Netherlands, although comparison with international data relating to another research area produced almost identical results. A report of the findings was published in late 2009.

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