Research councils facing new science and technology

This paper addresses the question how research councils respond to emerging fields of science. Taking nanotechnology as its case, we compare the cases of responses of research councils in Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland during the period 1990 - 2008. The case studies are based on extensive document study and 25 in depth interviews with relevant actors. The analysis is framed by Resource ependence Theory, which is found to overlook aspects related to long term changes and interactions between organizations and their environment. But when this dimension is added, it provides an explanation for the observed conservative response of research councils: research councils are constrained by a web of resource dependencies as it slowly develops over time and gets embedded in national research landscapes, in part as a result of research councils' own actions. We identify a four stage pattern which describes their conservative response.