Abstract

Notions of ‘excellence’ underpin a huge swathe of research funding schemes, evaluation frameworks and publishing decisions. Yet it remains a fuzzy and contested concept, which has been critiqued by some for incentivizing and rewarding undesirable behaviours, including hyper-competition; chasing of high-impact papers at the expense of rigorous, reproducible research; exaggerated claims; and ‘Matthew effects’, which concentrate ever-greater funding in places and people who are already well-resourced. With panellists from Australia, Canada, Europe and South Africa, this session will debate whether ‘excellence’ is still a useful concept in research policy and funding, and if so, how it should be defined and operationalised? Or, if excellence is no longer fit for purpose, what should we put in its place?