Evaluation studies of application-based funding programmes often raise the question of whether the 'best' applicants (in terms of ex-ante and ex-post publication performance) are selected for funding. For this reason actual applicants seem to be a well-studied group. However, for a comprehensive...

As in other societal realms also in research, science, and development governments and parliaments increasingly have to legitimize their actions and want to base their future activities on informed decisions. Consequently, performance measures, benchmarking, comparative analysis, “foresight...