Transforming excellence? From ‘matter of fact’ to ‘matter of concern’ in research funding organizations

‘Excellence’ is omnipresent in the research ecosystem but the focus on excellence is increasingly controversial. This paper contributes to the excellence debate through an empirical study of how notions of excellence are used in eight research funding organizations. Because research funding organizations are shaped by the excellence regime, and constrained by both governmental policy and scientific elites, funders cannot simply resort to a debunking critique and do away with excellence altogether. To navigate the ambiguous relationship to excellence, the approach to excellence is shifting from it being taken as a ‘matter of fact’ to a ‘matter of concern’ that needs to be unpacked and reconfigured. In mitigation strategies funders attempt to reconfigure excellence by patching, pluralizing and transforming their activities around excellence. We argue that a transformation of the research ecosystem is unlikely to happen when underlying assumptions about competition and meritocratic ideals are not also problematized.