Public funding agencies aim to fund novel breakthrough research to promote the radical scientific discoveries of tomorrow. Identifying the profiles of scientists being financed to pursue their research is therefore crucial. This paper shows that the funding process is not always awarding the most novel scientists. Exploiting rich data on all applications to a leading Swiss research funding program, we find that novel scientists have a higher probability of applying for funds than non-novel scientists, but they get on average lower ratings by grant evaluators and have fewer chances of being funded. We discuss the implications for the allocation of scientific research spending.

中文翻译：

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做新科学值得吗？科学资助的选择性模式

公共资助机构旨在资助新的突破性研究，以促进未来的激进科学发现。因此，确定被资助进行研究的科学家的概况至关重要。本文表明，资助过程并不总是奖励最新颖的科学家。利用瑞士领先研究资助计划所有申请的丰富数据，我们发现新科学家比非新科学家申请基金的可能性更高，但他们获得资助评估员的平均评级较低，获得资助的机会也更少. 我们讨论了对科学研究支出分配的影响。