Is external research funding a valid indicator for research performance?

Abstract

Although 'research income' is one of the most common indicators for assessing research quality, its validity has never been systematically investigated. The conditions under which Australian and German physicists obtain external funding were analysed in a comparative qualitative study. The study demonstrates that success in obtaining external funding is only partly related to the quality of researchers and their proposals. Therefore, the validity of a straightforward counting of external funding must be assumed to be low. A comparison of external funding with citation indicators shows ways to improve the validity of indicators based on external funding. Show more