More Than Euros: Exploring the Construction of Project Grants as Prizes and Consolations

In previous funding literature, ample attention has been devoted to the consequences of competition for project grants. These consequences tend to be fueled by status distinctions among grants, but scant attention has been directed toward how such distinctions are constructed. My aim with this paper is to develop new knowledge about the ways in which scientists ascribe meanings that construct status distinctions among grants. Employing qualitative data and a Bourdieu-inspired field per - spective, I analyze how early-career scientists in Sweden attributed meanings that constructed and distinguished the status of European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants (StGs) and Swedish Research Council (SRC) Reserve Grants (RGs), which were otherwise closely connected by common evaluation procedures and equivalent monetary amounts. My findings show how scientists – despite having received equivalent monetary amounts – ascribed starkly different meanings to ERC StGs and SRC RGs, building on perceptions of minimal, yet competition-grounded and expert-sanctioned, divisions introduced by panelists among top-graded applicants during the ERC’s evaluations. These divisions were amplified when scientists recast StGs as ‘prizes’ and RGs as ‘consolations’. Such recasting was largely un-altered by acknowledgments that ERC StGs generated much more administrative burdens and economic troubles than SRC RGs. Those burdens and troubles were approached by StG and RG recipients alike as the cost of status, and they believed universities adopted a similar approach. I use my findings to propose contributions, policy implications, and future inquiry avenues suggesting evaluation procedures may play a larger role than monetary amounts for the construction of status distinctions among grants.


Introduction: Constructing the Status of Project Grants in Academia
With this paper, my aim is to develop new knowledge about the ways in which scientists ascribe meanings that construct status distinctions among project grants.I am guided by two questions: How are meanings ascribed to construct the status of grants?And how is that status utilized to distinguish grants from one another?In brief, the findings of my paper contribute to extant funding literature by showing that preceding evaluation procedures may play a larger role than allocated monetary amounts when scientists construct status distinctions among grants.
My aim, questions, and findings should be placed against a backdrop of important science funding developments that have unfolded during the past three decades.In most research systems across Europe, the proportion of project grants allocated to scientists has become almost as large as the proportion of block grants allocated to universities (Gläser and Laudel 2016;Lepori et al. 2007;Skoie 1996).The allocation of project grants typically builds on research councils opening calls for applications, to which scientists respond by submitting proposals.Once calls close, councils deploy panelists to evaluate applications, and to allocate grants among the project proposals containing the most promising ideas (Langfeldt 2006;Lepori 2011).
In previous funding literature, ample attention has been directed toward the consequences of competition for project grants among scientists.Such consequences include expanded collaborations and increased publication rates, accruing to both successful and unsuccessful applicants after competing for grants (Ayoubi et al. 2019;Azoulay et al. 2011).But these consequences also encompass stark differences in the pace at which just successful and just unsuccessful applicants access future resources and positions throughout academic careers (Bloch et al. 2014;Bol et al. 2018;Thomas and Nedeva 2012).This differential access is not entirely -and, at times, not even primarily -driven by the quality of any research successful applicants may have conducted with their grants.Instead, this differential access to future resources and positions is partly -and, in many cases, largely -fueled by the status associated with receiving certain grants at the nation-and Europe-level (Bol et al. 2018).
Although ample attention has been devoted to the status consequences of receiving certain project grants, scant attention has been directed toward the distinctions among grants that fuel many of these consequences.Most funding literature on status consequences assumes that certain grants at the nation-and Europe-level command more status than others, without paying much attention to how such status distinctions are constructed in the very first place.That said, indications showing the attempts of research councils to infuse their grants with status can be found in extant funding literature.Such attempts include efforts to organize evaluations of project proposals and grant allocations that appeal to and align with prevailing norms and values in academia (Edlund 2020;König 2017).Despite indications pointing to the notion that "not all [research] resources are associated with the same reputation" (Musselin 2018: 667), we still command a thin understanding of how status distinctions are constructed among grants.And our knowledge about the role of other actors than councils is particularly sparse.This, for instance, implies we know little about the role played by scientists themselves in constructing distinctions among grants.Such sparsity is unfortunate because scientists would seem to be immediately influenced by the profound status consequences of competition for grants.In order to take measures that can ameliorate the undue influence exerted by certain grants on academic careers, we must augment our knowledge of how status distinctions are initially constructed among these grants.My paper seeks to initiate that knowledge augmentation.
I focus on scientists, but their ascription of meanings to grants unfolds in settings populated by further actors from academia, such as evaluation panelists, university vice chancellors, and research council directors.Such settings can be conceptualized as fields constituted by various actors seeking to gain -and to define what is worthy of -status in ways that are filtered through field-specific logics (Bourdieu 1985;Bourdieu et al. 1992).Inspired by a field perspective, I analyze 34 interviews with early-career scientists based in Sweden to explore how they ascribed meanings that constructed and distinguished the status of European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants (StGs) and Swedish Research Council (SRC) Reserve Grants (RGs), which are otherwise closely connected by common evaluation procedures and equivalent monetary amounts.
My findings show that scientists in Sweden's academic field -despite having received monetarily equivalent project grants -ascribed very different meanings to ERC StGs and SRC RGs, mainly rooted in how the two grants had respectively been obtained.These grants similarly target top-graded applicants who weather the ERC's multi-step, Europe-level evaluation procedures.But, in light of recurring ERC budgetary shortages, top-graded applicants are often ranked against one another, and such rankings create minimal divisions that ultimately channel StGs to priority-listed applicants and RGs to reserve-listed applicants (cf.Edlund and Lammi 2022).These divisions -however minimal -did not hinder scientists from constructing extensive boundaries between ERC StGs and SRC RGs.Such boundaries recast StGs as 'prizes' and RGs as 'consolations' that symbolized clear successes and utter failures among a select set of scientists.Although ERC StGs in Swedish universities were perceived as much more administratively burdensome for scientists to use, and as much more economically troublesome for departments to host, than SRC RGs, the boundaries constructed between these two grants largely remained unaltered.Such burdens and troubles were -if anything -approached by certain scientists as quasiinevitable bumps on the road toward gaining status, and these scientists generally believed their universities adopted a similar approach.The common evaluation procedures and equivalent monetary amounts characterizing StGs and RGs make them particularly appropriate for comparisons, but my findings should also be applicable throughout further settings where scientists ascribe meanings to and construct boundaries among grants that roughly approximate one another in terms of procedures and amounts.
I structure the remainder of my paper as follows.Next, I expand my theory.Then, I elaborate my method.After that, I flesh out my findings.Finally, I detail my contributions, and also formulate policy implications and future inquiry avenues that emanate from this paper.

Theory: Fields, Status Distinctions, and Monetarily Equivalent Project Grants
Status is regularly approached as the approximate standing of actors in hierarchical orders building on deference bestowed by other actors (Gould 2002).This deference is directed toward actors displaying objects, attributes, and/or behaviors that other actors see as worthy of recognition.Such recognition may -but need not -be associated with notions of quality (Lynn et al. 2009).
In fields, status constitutes a key concern for actors that not only seek to gain, but also to define what is worthy of, deference.This concern is filtered through field-specific logics that dispose actors' perceptions and practices toward certain grounds for status (Bourdieu 1985;Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992).The field of academia has traditionally revolved around a logic through which status is bestowed on scientists who present ground-breaking discoveries and, thereby, establish long-lasting paradigms (Merton 1957a).However, with the increasing significance of project grants allocated to scientists, another logic for status bestowal has also garnered considerable traction.This logic revolves around accessing prominent grants, and it implies that certain evaluations of project proposals at research councils have become core situations through which status is bestowed in the academic field (Edlund 2020;König 2017).
Here, the role of councils in status bestowal dovetails with insights from literature centered on evaluations throughout cultural fields beyond academia.This literature has documented how the current proliferation of ratings, reviews, rankings, and other similar evaluations is substantially driven by various intermediaries seeking to participate in status bestowal among actors (Best 2011;Blank 2007).Deploying intricately organized evaluations, intermediaries assess the objects, attributes, and/or behaviors displayed by multiple candidate actors, only to elevate and publicize a small selection as worthy of status from audience actors (Allen and Parsons 2006;Bourdieu 1993).
Although this literature on evaluations throughout cultural fields has provided us with important insights, the role played by intermediaries in status bestowal is only one aspect to consider.Intermediaries may nurture such bestowal through their evaluations, but status is ultimately constructed if -and, if so, when -these evaluations become grounds for deference among audience and candidate actors in fields (Kemper 2011;Sauder 2006).Hereafter, I conceptualize research councils as intermediaries to explore how their evaluations are utilized by scientists as candidate actors that help construct the status associated with certain project grants in the academic field.An important -and explicit or implicit -way in which scientists construct this status consists of ascribing various meanings to grants that generate distinctions among the monetary resources allocated by councils.Further literature from cultural fields has shown how actors regularly ascribe meanings to monetary resources by erecting symbolic boundaries that distinguish one set of resources from another (Lamont 1992;Lamont and Molnar 2002).These boundaries consist of socially constituted demarcations, and they largely build on the symbolic connotations evoked by certain monetary resources.Certain resources are, for example, allocated and obtained through procedures that may render resource recipients worthy of recognition in fields (Carruthers et al. 1998;Zelizer 1994).This suggests project grants can be understood as monetary resources to which scientists could ascribe various mean-ings that erect symbolic boundaries and, by extension, construct status distinctions.Such meanings and distinctions may partly rely on the resource amounts involved when certain grants are allocated and obtained.But these meanings and distinctions may additionally -and perhaps most importantly -rely on the symbolic connotations evoked by the allocation and obtention of certain grants (e.g., how are the associated evaluation procedures and outcomes perceived among scientists?).
I now deploy my theory on status, fields, meanings, boundaries, and distinctions to study early-career scientists who applied for StGs from the ERC while based at universities in Sweden.

Method: Project Grants and Early-Career Scientists in the Field of Swedish Academia
A few words on the ERC's background should be mentioned before proceeding.Founded in 2007, and financed by the European Commission (EC) since then, the ERC is a multidisciplinary basic research council that allocates project grants to scientists who lead groups of researchers1 .StGs are the ERC's flagship grants, and their eligibility rules state that scientists at any host organization and in any disciplinary domain can apply for this funding by submitting project proposals between two and seven years after PhD completion2 .When it comes to funding conditions, the ERC StG scheme provides grants featuring 1.5 million Euros for five years of research.Such rules and conditions are almost unique among early-career grants in Europe, and that could make StGs attractive for fledgling scientists who seek to obtain funding as well as to gain status.
This scheme is interesting to study in the field of Swedish academia because it houses several StG applicants who received top grades from the ERC during its inaugural budgetary period (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013).However, these applicants were -due to budgetary shortages -ranked, reserve-listed, and ultimately not funded with grants from the ERC's Europe-level StG scheme.These applicants were instead funded with closely connected and monetarily equivalent grants from the SRC's nation-level RG scheme.Besides the SRC, no other nation-level funder in Europe offered monetarily equivalent grants for top-graded StG applicants throughout the inaugural ERC period.This makes Sweden's academic field especially fitting for a study of how meanings are ascribed, symbolic boundaries are erected, and status distinctions are constructed among grants.It is, at the same time, pertinent to note that Swedish academia remains embedded in a transnational field of science.Such embeddedness is particularly important to note in my study because it concerns a Europe-level scheme within a national-level setting.

Data collection
To collect data, I interviewed 34 early-career scientists between 2014-2016.They had all submitted top-graded StG project proposals while based at Swedish universities during the ERC's inaugural budgetary period.However, budgetary shortages meant that some of these scientists received StGs, whereas others received RGs.And a few scientists received both grants3 .My interviewees thus encompassed 24 ERC StG recipients; eight SRC RG recipients; and three scientists who initially received RGs, before re-applying, and subsequently receiving StGs4 .I interviewed scientists spread across the ERC's Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering, and Social Sciences and Humanities domains in fairly proportionate numbers.These scientists comprised a distributed, but also manageable, selection for in-depth interviews.
Throughout my interviews -which ranged between 60 and 180 minutes in length -, I followed a semi-structured pattern of questions to explore how scientists perceived their respective project grants; what other grants scientists compared their project grants with; and how scientists built their comparisons on perceptions of multiple grants 5 .

Data Analysis
My interview data are retrospective, and I analyzed them as such.Retrospective interviews imply individuals may employ sensemaking to transform diverse perceptions from the past into coherent reflections in the present (Weick 1995).My concomitant analysis of interview transcripts was guided by an abductive coding technique that allowed me to traverse back and forth between theories and empirics (Swedberg 2014;Tavory and Timmermans 2014).I commenced by extracting and categorizing all interview segments where scientists reflected on their respective project grants.Then, I continued my analysis by targeting the segments within which scientists reflected on their grants in comparison to other project grants.I finished by concentrating on interview segments where scientists explained how they compared multiple grants.As my analysis progressed, I gradually incorporated the concepts of status, meanings, boundaries, and distinctions in fields to move from more empirically anchored codes to more theoretically inspired codes.
That said, I now proceed to present my findings in full.

Findings: Meanings, Boundaries, and Distinctions among Two Project Grants
Ostensibly, the purpose of grants is to fund science.A dramatic increase of project grants, and a concomitant decrease of block grants, has implied that scientists seeking research time may experience more or less continuous pressure to apply for funding in individualized and quasi-entrepreneurial ways (Laudel 2006;Roumbanis 2019a;van Arensbergen et al. 2014).This pressure suggests many scientists would devote most -if not all -of their focus to the monetary amounts allocated through project grants.
And, indeed, a few early-career scientists I interviewed in Sweden's academic field restricted their perceptions to the large monetary amounts associated with ERC StGs and SRC RGs.As one of my interviewees put it, "I don't think having this [StG] gives you much else than a lot of financing to do science" (ERC StG recipient 8).Both StGs and RGs offered recipients generous possibilities to build research groups; to rent office and/or laboratory spaces; and to buy data, equipment and/or capacity time at science facilities.Such possibilities were regularly highlighted as important aspects when the scientists I interviewed described their respective grants.
But only a minority of my interviewees stopped there.A majority evoked meanings about the ERC's funding that starkly differed from the meanings evoked by the few interviewees who restricted their perceptions to monetary amounts.This implies a majority of my interviewees ascribed various meanings to StGs and RGs that stretched far beyond how much funding these monetarily equivalent grants featured.When such meanings were ascribed, scientists shifted focus from issues of how much funding the respective grants featured, to matters of how that funding had respectively been obtained.I explore this focus on obtention throughout the following sub-sections, showing how it ultimately served to erect symbolic boundaries and construct status distinctions among grants and, by extension, scientists.

Acknowledged Assessments
The ways that research councils evaluated project proposals before allocating grants were central matters when early-career scientists in Sweden's academic field discussed how ERC StGs and SRC RGs had been obtained.

Competition and Accuracy
To begin, my interviewees almost unanimously visualized the ERC's Europe-level StG assessments as featuring tough competition among thousands of anonymous scientists.And my interviewees regularly perceived such competition as a potent measure to reduce nepotism, cronyism, parochialism, and other bias-inducing -isms that supposedly affected nation-level assessments.These perceptions were closely aligned with how the ERC has sought to portray Europe-level competition as "a cardinal principle" (ERC 2007: 2) underlying credible evaluations of StG project proposals.Seen from a field perspective, this alignment of scientists with the ERC's principles can be understood as an indication that scientists themselves sought to legitimate how they had been assessed by the ERC.Such legitimation rests on actors being disposed "to know and recognize the institutional conditions of a valid ritual" (Bourdieu 1991: 125), including prominent evaluations in fields.
However, to continue, ERC StG assessments were not only visualized as featuring tough competition.Early-career scientists in the field of Swedish academia also perceived StG evaluations as generating accurate outcomes.It was clear that my interviewees did not regard the ERC's assessments as any panacea for all uncertainty characterizing science assessments.But StG evaluations were still regarded as procedures that generally generated accurate outcomes.Here, panelists seemed key.Luukkonen (2012: 52) argues that ERC assessments have, from the very beginning, involved "eminent scientists… chosen purely on their scientific and scholarly merits".In interviews, scientists similarly acknowledged the ERC's panelists as some of Europe's most lauded researchers.And the participation of such researchers on panels was regularly utilized by my interviewees to validate StG evaluations.One of these interviewees emphasized that "There were seven international experts involved in evaluating proposals, and, if those experts agreed on you… then people will think you are doing the right things...I could see that quite clearly" (ERC StG recipient 12).
Another one of my interviewees stressed how "Already from the start, me and many colleagues understood that they [international experts] kind of lent their names to the ERC's assessments...You know, these [experts] are people you have heard of" (SRC RG & ERC StG recipient 1).
From sociological literature on evaluations, we know that the involvement of expert panelists in assessments tends to engender associations with accurate outcomes (Allen and Parsons 2006).But a field perspective also entails that scientists may gain status when StG panelists are pictured as international experts.One way of gaining status in fields is namely for actors to be elevated by other actors that have already been elevated, such as experts (Bourdieu 1991(Bourdieu , 1993)).A field perspective, by extension, highlights how the status of StG panelists, and the status of scientists who were evaluated by these panelists, was mutually reinforced when my interviewees described ERC evaluations as "the best review there is in Europe" (SRC RG recipient 3).

Evaluations and Divisions
Both StG and RG recipients in Sweden's academic field had weathered the ERC's entire set of StG assessment procedures.This set of procedures encompassed three steps during the inaugural ERC budgetary period (Luukkonen 2012;Schreck 2007).The first step featured panelists reading and reviewing synopses of StG project pro-posals.Among thousands of submitted synopses6 , 20-25 percent were typically retained.Throughout the second step, ERC panelists engaged with full StG proposals.But this step also comprised on-site appointments at ERC headquarters, located in Brussels.All StG applicants qualified to the second step attended individual meetings that consisted of presenting proposals for panelists (Edlund and Lammi 2022).Several early-career scientists I interviewed endorsed the ERC's meetings by celebrating them as relevant -albeit pressing and stressful -ways to assess proposals.These meetings allegedly involved panelists providing detailed comments and meticulous queries after all presentations, "trying to challenge you to see whether you got defensive or unsure" (ERC StG recipient 31) 7 .
When the ERC's Brussels appointments had concluded, panelists continued by rating proposals and presentations to create composite grades for StG applicants.These rating exercises rendered 'A's and 'B's.While 35-40 percent of the applicants who had been evaluated during the second ERC step received top grades, 'A's did not constitute any guarantee for funding (Luukkonen 2012).Typically, more StG applicants than those who could be funded received top grades, and this implied the ERC's panelists often invoked a third step during which they resorted to ranking 'A's against one another (Thomas and Nedeva 2012).Such rankings were ultimately compartmentalized through cut-off points that produced tiers grounded in minimal divisions among quasi-homogenous applicants.'A1's included first-ranked applicants that panelists priority-listed for StGs from the ERC.'A2's instead encompassed second-ranked applicants that panelists reserve-listed for StGs from eventual budgetary enlargements.These were occasional enlargements supplied by the EC to cover unexpectedly high numbers of top-graded applicants (Schreck 2007).When such enlargements did not materialize (or could not cover all top-graded applicants), the SRC automatically allocated RGs to StG applicants who obtained 'A2's while based at Swedish universities (Svenningsson 2008).This suggests the SRC's RG funding can be interpreted as organizational efforts to attenuate divisions in fields.That is, by funding 'A2's, the SRC sought to broaden what objects, attributes, and/or behaviors were considered as worthy of recognition (cf.Piezunka et al. 2018).
Organizational efforts constitute attempts at reforming fields in certain ways.However, these efforts can also generate various unintended results, as organizing constitutes attempts that cannot be fully controlled (Brunsson 2009).Below, I explore how top-graded, Sweden-based applicants ascribed meanings to and erected boundaries among StGs and RGs that did not attenuate -and instead reinforced -the divisions previously created by panelists during the ERC's third evaluation step.

Magnified Divisions
In the field of Swedish academia, early-career scientists constructed ERC StGs and SRC RGs as two very different grants, even as these respective grants built on shared assessments, equivalent monetary amounts, and minimal divisions among applicants.Such divisions were -despite being minimal -recurrently deployed by a wide range of my interviewees to construct the different status they associated StGs and RGs with.This construction was largely connected to what the obtention of these two grants supposedly symbolized.

Grants as Prizes
Beginning with StGs, the ERC's top managers have, since day one, emphasized that ERC funding would solely be allocated to select scientists, who were profiled as Europe's most talented (Enserink 2007;Griffiths 2007).These emphases were taken seriously by both StG and RG recipients in Sweden's academic field.An interviewee claimed that " [Applicants] who make it all the way there [at the ERC's evaluations] typically have a great thing going...There are not many researchers who would doubt that" (ERC StG recipient 22).
And another interviewee similarly affirmed that "The ERC's primary concern is that all research they fund should be very, very good, which means it's strictly for the top tier at the European level" (SRC RG recipient 5).
The ways in which various actors -including StG recipients themselves -discussed ERC funding certainly bolstered StG recipients.Their grants were repeatedly profiled as successes that consisted of funding targeted to scientists who had first been positively assessed across three evaluation steps, and then been favorably ranked in the uppermost ERC tier, which was allegedly closed for all but Europe-level research talents.This type of bolstering is not unusual in fields, where actors care much about being recognized.However, for actors to credibly bolster themselves, they also need help from legitimated assessments (Heinich 2009).From a field perspective, the ERC's evaluations were thus of help for scientists who had been positively assessed and favorably ranked because they could indirectly bolster themselves by bolstering these evaluations.
Throughout interviews, StG recipients from various disciplinary domains also built on the profile that hovered above ERC grants (i.e., funding for Europe-level research talents) to stress how these grants provided immediate career boosts.Before applying for StGs, many would-be recipients sensed they were marginally situated within their respective disciplines.Such sense of marginalization was supposedly removed by the ERC's funding.This is because, after obtaining StGs, recipients perceived they were suddenly being catapulted to the core of their respective disciplinary domains.One of my interviewees likened the ways that ERC funding boosted careers to "getting some sort of medieval accolade", and to "being a soccer talent who the coach and the public directly moved up as a first-class player" (ERC StG recipient 13).
These recipients drew on the notion of StGs as career boosters to erect considerable symbolic boundaries among early-career scientists, over and above how much funding other grants -including SRC RGs -provided.Another one of my interviewees thus described the field of Swedish academia as "congested", and emphasized how "ERC funding separates you from the crowd if you have it" (SRC RG & ERC StG recipient 2).Similar emphases were voiced by several StG recipients I interviewed.They would typically portray their grants as "judgment devices" (Karpik 2010) that actors in Sweden's academic field utilized to separate certain scientists from numerous others who sought the same career opportunities and advancements.Such portrayals, by extension, highlighted how several StG recipients also believed their own obtention of ERC funding separated them from numerous other scientists.This could be noticed in the colorful metaphors many of my interviewees assigned to their StGs: "feathers in the cap" (ERC StG recipient 1), "ribbons" (ERC StG recipient 4), and "badges" (ERC StG recipient 19).These metaphors were common, but the most common was "prizes".
The 'prize' metaphor is revealing here because, analytically, prizes and grants constitute quite different ways of allocating funding.That is, prizes typically comprise allocations of funding built on performances in the past -such as already conducted research -, whereas grants usually comprise allocations of funding built on promises for the future -such as planned, but not yet conducted, research (Arora-Jonsson et al. 2023).The metaphor of prizes assigned to StGs is thus attuned with Sandström and van den Besselaar's (2018: 380) argument that "getting a prestigious grant is already seen as a performance, through its symbolic value".This metaphor is, by extension, also attuned with Franssen et al.'s (2018: 13) observations on "highly prestigious project grants that are more similar to prizes than most available project grants".

Grants as Consolations
Now continuing with SRC RGs, early-career scientists in Sweden's academic field generally saw it as a major feat to have been second-ranked and reserve-listed by ERC panelists after three Europe-level evaluation steps.Indeed, throughout interviews, several RG recipients sought to underline that the divisions panelists created among applicants during the ERC's third StG evaluation step should be understood as minimal.Such divisions would, nonetheless, be used by SRC RG recipients to construct the status of their grants.This status tended to be anchored in perceptions about the general accuracy of ERC evaluation outcomes.And these perceptions, in turn, led RG recipients to regard the ERC's assessment outcomes as generally accurate reflections of scientific quality among applicants.
Once again, without regarding ERC evaluations as any panacea for all uncertainty characterizing science assessments, SRC RG recipients suggested quality differences -even if minimal -would often be reflected in the divisions created by StG panelists between first-ranked, priority-listed applicants and second-ranked, reserve-listed applicants.The perceptions of RG recipients in relation to ERC evaluation outcomes demonstrate how panelists -after having been elevated as international experts -can exert extensive authority throughout fields.Expert actors may even command author-ity among and avoid criticism from actors that are demoted on the basis of minimal divisions (Piezunka et al. 2018).
Building on perceptions that pictured ERC assessment outcomes as generally accurate reflections of scientific quality, SRC RG recipients in Sweden's academic field magnified -and, thus, reified -the minimal divisions created by panelists among applicants.Such magnifying regularly transformed RGs into failures, and typically constructed these grants as inferior in status to StGs.This was, for example, noticeable when one of my interviewees mentioned how "The ERC's evaluation is seen as the best in Europe, so, if you fail to pass that evaluation, people will see you as a second-order pick -regardless of how much money you receive" (SRC RG recipient 7).
It is important to note that this interviewee approached top-graded ERC project proposals -required for both StGs and RGs -as 'fail[ing] to pass'.But such an approach was not uncommon among my interviewees.Another one of them mentioned how "There is an, you know, obvious prestige difference in being able to write 'ERC Starting Grantee' on your CV, instead of 'Receiver of National Funding in Support of an Almost Successful ERC Starting Grant Application'" (SRC RG recipient 4).
Although this 'prestige difference' was described as 'obvious' by certain interviewees, it was not obvious in any sense.Such difference formed part of organizational efforts by prominent field actors at the Europe-level to create divisions through assessments of proposals.And other field actors at the nation-level now validated this difference by constructing grants as successes and failures.These constructions exemplify how "social difference[s]" come into existence by being "known and recognized as such by the agent[s] invested" (Bourdieu 1991: 119).
Just as StG recipients, RG recipients in the field of Swedish academia assigned status to their grants by deploying metaphors.However, SRC RGs were not metaphorized as 'feathers in the cap', 'ribbons', 'badges', or 'prizes'.The SRC's grants were instead metaphorized as "consolations".This latter metaphor indicated that many of my interviewees perceived RGs as "compensations for European applications that were not funded" (SRC RG recipient 1).In being perceived as compensations, RGs were also taken to include a dimension of inequity.Certain interviewees -and particularly StG recipients -stressed that "The SRC does a nice thing, but maybe it is not completely fair because these [RG] grants are actually rewards for not having been the best -at least not according to the ERC's evaluation" (ERC StG recipient 6)8 .
One of my interviewees ventured further than that, emphasizing how 'not having been the best' could even transform RGs into liabilities.This interviewee emphasized that "Swedish funders may actually become suspicious, like 'Why did this [application] not receive an StG?Is there something wrong with the project?What happened?'"(SRC RG & ERC StG recipient 3).
Such suspicions are associated with Merton's (1968: 59) "double injustice", whereby certain scientists first gain lower status than others, and then also face harsher evaluations than others.
The inferior status of RGs, by extension, led their recipients in Sweden's academic field to claim these grants did not provide immediate career boosts.Such boosts were supposedly absent, and this was, in turn, connected with perceptions of the SRC's RG funding as constituting semi-invisible grants that most scientists, vice chancellors, and other field actors knew little about.Although any immediate boosts may have been absent, RG recipients still perceived this SRC funding had advanced their careers in a gradual manner.With 1.5 million Euros for five years, these recipients enjoyed ample possibilities to conduct more and better science than before.And such gradual career advancements may, in terms of status consequences, produce considerably less social and cultural disruption than immediate career boosts (Merton 1957b).One of my interviewees underlined the gradual advancements enabled by RGs when stating that "With this [SRC] funding, I was able to start a group, do independent research, publish, and really become a name, and all that was important, but there was no sudden jump...And that is probably a difference [in relation to StGs]" (SRC RG recipient 4).
In what follows, I explore how my interviewees ascribed meanings to and erected boundaries among ERC StGs and SRC RGs that these interviewees backed up even as their respective grants were associated with starkly dissimilar administrative requirements for research group leaders and starkly dissimilar economic demands for university departments.

Disregarded Properties
Early-career scientists in the field of Swedish academia appeared acutely aware that StGs generated practical complications not generated by RGs.But such complications were largely disregarded, and -bar a few exceptions -my interviewees still constructed the status of ERC StGs as much superior to that of SRC RGs.This disregard can be taken as a demonstration of the importance both StG recipients and RG recipients placed on gaining status.Seeking status, these recipients not only seemed to downplay the monetary amounts allocated through grants, but also many of the practical properties associated with grants.

Administrative Aspects
The ERC's grants were, for instance, described as being associated with heavy administrative requirements.Scientists leading StG-funded groups in Sweden's academic field, nonetheless, seemed quite willing to accept the administrative requirements that supposedly came with ERC grants.Such requirements constituted properties pertaining to the ERC's funding that most of my interviewees had either experienced (as StG recipients claimed) or noticed (as RG recipients asserted)."Wow", as stressed by a scientist I interviewed, "the ERC is really strict on you following your budget... they [EC accountants] go down to like the cents" (ERC StG recipient 20)."If you buy a chair", as another one of my interviewees emphasized, "the ERC will most likely want to know how much that chair is sat on" (ERC StG recipient 22).Several StG recipients thus highlighted how they allegedly filled detailed timesheets to account for the activities of research group members.The ERC's grants were, in light of their administrative requirements, described as being allocated by a rather paranoid and persnickety research council that appeared to mistrust the scientists it funded.
These requirements are interesting to consider in terms of how the ERC has, since its founding, expended extensive organizational efforts to portray StGs as easily administered grants (Antonoyiannakis et al. 2009;Heldin 2008).But such efforts are perhaps best understood by juxtaposing the ERC's grants with other grants allocated through the EC's Framework Programs (FPs), which merge all EU-related R&D funding into multiannual packages.FP funding has been criticized for being riddled with bureaucratic controls, not least by basic researchers who have scorned how the EC supposedly expects continuous reports, milestones, and deliverables from its funded scientists (Breithaupt 2003;Schiermeier 2001).
StG recipients in the field of Swedish academia may have perceived ERC grants as blessings compared to other FP-related funding.But, compared to SRC RGs, the properties of ERC StGs were not perceived as administrative blessings anymore.The heavy requirements my interviewees associated with StGs stood in stark contrast to the light administrative requirements that scientists described as properties of RGs.This was a contrast both StG recipients and RG recipients pointed to during interviews.An interviewee thus highlighted how "The SRC won't allow you to buy a car or a house, but, other than that, I felt completely free… There was zero administration" (SRC RG & ERC StG recipient 1).
Although 'zero administration' presumably constituted an exaggeration, it shows how the SRC's funding was perceived to require little reporting throughout RG-financed projects.RGs were seen as grants affording large flexibility because the SRC supposedly allowed for ample deviations from the budgets scientists had submitted with their original StG proposals.Such deviations could, for instance, include unexpected costs generated by new methods or recruitments during the course of RG-funded projects.This suggests the SRC's funding -in terms of flexibility -was more similar to prizes than grants, seeing as prizes typically comprise funding infused with considerable freedom (Franssen et al. 2018)."Let's just say, they [SRC accountants] trust the principal investigator" (ERC StG recipient 16).Altogether, the little reporting required and the large flexibility afforded by RGs signified most of my interviewees perceived these grants as considerably easier to use and handle than StGs.Capturing a general perception, an interviewee mentioned that the SRC's RG funding implied "you get a wad of cash to dispose how you want, and then you call back after five years to tell what you have done" (SRC RG & ERC StG recipient 3).This is aligned with the notion of desired funding being that which is easy to use and handle (Laudel 2006).Throughout my study, however, the funding that generated most desire did not appear to coincide with the funding that required least administration.

Economic Aspects
My interviewees in Sweden's academic field not only appeared willing to accept the heavy administrative requirements that StGs generated for scientists leading ERC-funded research groups.Several interviewees also perceived Swedish universities were willing to accept the significant economic demands that StGs generated for departments hosting ERC-funded scientists.It may seem like a contradiction to describe the ERC's project grants as economically demanding, considering how these grants provided recipients with 1.5 million Euros for five years of research.
The entry of such monetary resources into departments should be welcome additions toward covering overhead (OH) costs in Sweden's universities, which increasingly rely on funding from project grants (Benner and Sandström 2000;Hallonsten and Hugander 2014).
RGs covered all mandated OH costs in the departments where my interviewees were hosted; StGs constituted a different story, however.Throughout interviews, scientists repeatedly underscored the financial challenges associated with covering mandated OH costs in university departments that sought to host ERC StG recipients.These challenges primarily concerned gaps between what proportions of ERC grants were earmarked for OH costs (20 percent), and what proportions departments extracted from all incoming grants to cover such costs.One subset of scientists I interviewed were hosted in university departments that extracted approximately 20 percent.Small -if any -StG-related OH challenges surfaced in these departments.Another subset of scientists I interviewed were, however, hosted in university departments that extracted 30-40 percent from all incoming project grants to cover OH costs.Faced with such costs, department heads were -as claimed by my interviewees -usually hard pressed to find ways of covering the missing 10-20 percent before StG recipients could be hosted.And heads who attempted to cover these missing percentages with monetary resources from department-level budgets engendered considerable resentment and contempt among non-ERC financed colleagues.
Both StG recipients and RG recipients stressed how the ERC's project grants generated OH challenges that ultimately tended to be resolved by vice chancellors, who could -and often would -step in with monetary resources from university-level budgets.As argued by many of my interviewees, StG-related OH cost gaps were "gladly covered by vice chancellors because ERC funding is considered to be so important" (ERC StG recipient 21).The scientists I interviewed regularly perceived that Swedish universities accepted the economic demands associated with hosting 1 3 StG recipients in departments as a price to pay for gaining status.This perception is supported by literature from cultural fields and beyond showing how organizations often incur steep economic costs when seeking to gain status (Menter et al. 2018;Moore et al. 2019).

Grants in Hierarchies
By and large, the administrative and economic matters I have detailed did not appear to affect how early-career scientists in Sweden's academic field drew boundaries among grants to construct the superior status of StGs and the inferior status of RGs.Such boundaries ultimately placed the ERC's StGs and the SRC's RGs within science funding hierarchies that encompassed numerous nation-and Europe-level project grants.
A defining aspect of these funding hierarchies was that the monetary amounts provided by grants played a secondary role.Certain Swedish funding schemes that my interviewees placed within such hierarchies -for example, the SRC Distinguished Young Researchers (DYRs) and the Wallenberg Foundation Academy Fellows (AFs) -actually provided grants featuring larger monetary amounts than the StG and the RG schemes (cf.Hallonsten and Hugander 2014).But, even so, monetary amounts remained secondary as my interviewees constructed funding hierarchies within which the status associated with various schemes played a primary role.The DYR and the AF schemes featured proposal evaluations conducted by locally renowned panelists and grant allocations decided through nation-level competition among applicants.Such evaluations and allocations were typically infused with lower status -and, thus, lower placements in funding hierarchies -than schemes featuring evaluations conducted by globally renowned panelists and allocations decided through Europe-level competition among applicants.My interviewees incorporated ERC StGs and SRC RGs among the latter schemes.
With the prize metaphor hovering above, most scientists I interviewed situated StGs in top placements.RGs were instead situated in mid-placements, with the consolation metaphor looming large.This implied SRC RGs were placed among several nation-level project grants that had been obtained under what my interviewees perceived as lesser demanding conditions than RGs.One of my interviewees eloquently summed up how funding hierarchies were constructed in stating that "If you get the same -or maybe even more -money from another funder, you can do similar things, but there is this ladder in funding, it has to do with other things than money, like who is giving it, and how it was evaluated" (ERC StG recipient 11).
I have now presented my full findings from the field of Swedish academia.Below, I continue by discussing these findings.

Discussion: Allocating Project Grants and Legitimating Status Distinctions
My aim in this paper has been to develop new knowledge about the ways that scientists construct status distinctions among project grants.Analyzing interviews with 34 early-career scientists who had received ERC StGs and/or SRC RGs in the field of Swedish academia, I explored how my interviewees ascribed meanings to these two closely connected grants.My findings from this exploration show that the two focal grants -despite sharing StG evaluation procedures and featuring equivalent monetary amounts -were assigned starkly different meanings.To ascribe such meanings, scientists drew on what they perceived as minimal, yet competition-grounded and expert-sanctioned, divisions that ERC panelists had previously inserted among topgraded applicants during the final StG evaluation step.However minimal, scientists still infused these panelist divisions with status distinctions by recasting ERC StGs as prizes and SRC RGs as consolations, and then placing the two grants in higher and lower positions, respectively, throughout broad funding hierarchies where monetary amounts played a secondary role.Such hierarchies were largely unaltered by the perception that StGs generated much more administrative burdens and economic troubles than RGs.

Contributions
The shared evaluation procedures and equivalent monetary amounts characterizing ERC StGs and SRC RGs suggest they constitute a quite specific setting.However, more broadly than this, I propose my findings can contribute to our understanding of several settings where scientists ascribe meanings to and construct status distinctions among project grants that roughly approximate one another in their evaluation procedures and monetary amounts.
My paper shows the many ways that scientists may draw on competition and expertise when ascribing different meanings to grants.In the academic field, competition and expertise can be understood as eminent examples of "travelling concepts" (Flink and Peter 2018) that scientists regularly associate with fairness, thoroughness, and other moral dimensions across various settings within which research is evaluated.Such concepts tend to provide actors and/or activities with different degrees of acceptance (Lamont 1992), and this is also how scientists in my paper drew on competition and expertise when ascribing meanings that differentiated among grants.The moral dimensions associated with competition and expertise can, by extension, help garner legitimacy for research evaluations that scientists perceive as being connected to these dimensions (Edlund and Lammi 2022;cf. Lamont 2009).When it comes to science funding, applicants may thus support the legitimation of project proposal evaluations by approaching them as competition-grounded and expert-sanctioned procedures.Such an approach could also help legitimate the research councils conducting these evaluations as well as the resulting divisions leading applicants to receive different grants or no grants at all.
Here, I note how one of the ERC's earliest goals was to garner legitimacy for StG evaluations as research performance benchmarks among scientists across 1 3 Europe (Edlund 2020;König 2017).These evaluations have subsequently come to be regarded as a prominent "Champions League" (Morgan 2016) for upcoming research talents.My findings suggest the legitimation of ERC StG evaluations can partlyor, perhaps, largely -be understood by considering how scientists ascribe meanings to evaluations.The notion of StG evaluations as competition-grounded and expertsanctioned was central for their legitimation among my select set of interviewed scientists.And this became particularly clear as minimal divisions were transformed into status distinctions that gained acceptance and garnered legitimacy among the scientists I interviewed in Sweden's academic field.
From previous funding literature, we know that legitimated evaluations of project proposals can be highly consequential (Bloch et al. 2014;Bol et al. 2018;Thomas and Nedeva 2012).Such evaluations may generate impactful divisions among "losers and winners" (Langfeldt 2006: 32) -even when actors perceive the underlying divisions as minimal.That said, extant literature has focused on divisions engendered through the monetary amounts connected to grants.Extending this literature, my paper features a setting that allows me to demonstrate how impactful divisions can also be generated among grants featuring no differences in terms of monetary amounts.The distinctions StG and RG recipients constructed between monetarily equivalent grants instead concerned "differences of all or nothing" (Bourdieu 1991: 120) in terms of status.And such differences may be just as consequential as divisions based on access to monetary resources.In the field of academia, status distinctions can engender differential access to attention and validation among scientists (Lamont 2009) as well as to employments and promotions -which may indirectly involve monetary resources -within universities (Cruz-Castro et al. 2016;Edler et al. 2014;Edlund 2020).
My findings are important because legitimated research evaluations can, by extension, generate legitimated consequences in the academic field.Such evaluations may, for instance, lead scientists to legitimize that small proportions of applicants recurrently 'win' most project grants, while large proportions typically 'lose', even though we know how various aspects beyond merit and quality influence who 'wins' and 'loses' (Lok 2016;Yu 2014).Bourdieu's (1996: 230) illusio -denoting "a collective belief in the game" -is telling here: by believing in certain evaluations, scientists help legitimate many consequences emanating from these evaluations.My paper does not enable any far-reaching conclusions regarding illusio, but I show how a set of scientists collectively believed in the competition-grounded and expert-sanctioned aspects surrounding ERC evaluations, and, thereby, helped legitimate what these scientists themselves perceived as starkly divergent career consequences (e.g., whether grants provided immediate career boosts or resources for gradual career developments) among applicants displaying minimal differences in merit and quality.

Policy Implications
Research councils possess limited funding budgets, and this requires panelists to create certain divisions among grant applicants.My findings can, however, assist councils in implementing policies that may alleviate many divergent and disproportionate career consequences among applicants displaying minimal differences in merit and quality during prominent evaluations of project proposals.These policies would be particularly directed toward providing further, yet relatively costless, support for just unsuccessful applicants.
In supporting such applicants, research councils could expend various organizational efforts to recognize and elevate just unsuccessful grant applicants for their noteworthy performances during prominent evaluations.These efforts can encompass -but need not be restricted to -offering grants through specific funding schemes.Other organizational efforts may also be targeted at generating awareness about and visibility for the performances of just unsuccessful applicants through various communication channels, including websites, newsletters, and press releases.Such efforts could become efficient ways to emphasize the merit and quality of just unsuccessful applicants who may soon face decisive career situations again (e.g., future grant applications).In emphasizing the merit and quality of these applicants, their previous grants for having been just unsuccessful may turn into assets -and not liabilities (as perceived by certain interviewees in my paper) -among future evaluation panelists9 .
The EC's Seal of Excellence (SoE) initiative is an example of ongoing organizational efforts to recognize and elevate just unsuccessful applicants.SoEs are widely broadcasted and easily verifiable labels allocated by the EC to project proposals ranked above "predefined quality thresholds", but not funded because of "budgetary constraints" (EC 2023).It is hoped such labels can encourage other science funders to make use of the EC's evaluation outcomes.
Although organizational efforts to recognize and elevate just unsuccessful grant applicants are underway, such efforts could create new status distinctions that inadvertently differentiate these applicants from others who were rejected earlier on during evaluations.This would be counterproductive indeed.In attempting to avoid creating new distinctions, my suggested efforts could be implemented where there already exist clear and substantial divisions between just unsuccessful applicants and other applicants who were rejected earlier on during evaluations.

Future Inquiry Avenues
I finish my paper by highlighting limitations that simultaneously serve to open intriguing avenues for future inquiries into how status distinctions are constructed among project grants throughout the field of academia.
One avenue would be for scholars to venture beyond the role of successful and just unsuccessful applicants as actors that may construct distinctions among grants.I based my findings on data collected through interviews with early-career scientists who had applied for StGs and weathered the ERC's entire set of Europe-level evaluation procedures.But these applicants only comprise a select set, and many other scientists may construct status distinctions among grants throughout the academic field.This suggests scholars could benefit from expanding their horizons to encompass further applicants than those who have weathered entire evaluations.How do applicants who have been rejected early on during evaluations construct distinctions?
And what about the many early-career scientists who have not applied for grants (but perhaps plan on doing so)?
Another avenue would be for scholars to not only venture beyond the role of successful and just unsuccessful applicants, but to venture beyond the role of applicants altogether.Scholars could, in this sense, benefit from fully incorporating the role of peers, department heads, and university vice chancellors as additional actors that may construct status distinctions among project grants throughout the field of academia.I briefly explored these additional roles in my paper, and only as they surfaced through the perceptions of ERC StG and SRC RG recipients.What distinctions -if any -do peers, department heads, university vice chancellors, and other actors in research milieus construct among grants?Insofar as these additional actors construct status distinctions; how are they constructed?What aspects do these actors draw on?And what are the consequences of distinctions constructed by peers, department heads, university vice chancellors, and other actors in research milieus?
My suggested avenues for future inquiries may be approached through interviews, but also through carefully designed surveys that could capture a large number of respondents.Combinations of interviews and surveys would perhaps constitute the most promising ways to continue exploring several remaining questions about how actors construct status distinctions among project grants throughout the academic field.