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A basic paradox in funding policy is that policy-makers want to guarantee maximum welfare benefits without violating the independence of scientists and their organisations. This article contends that this problem can be adequately conceptualised in terms of delegation and principal-agent theory. In the past, blind delegation and incentives were used to resolve the tension: more recently, efforts have been in quite a different direction. The ‘steady state’ succeeds in realising more society-oriented research but fails to reduce the tensions. ‘Delegation by contract’ and ‘delegation to networks’ attack the estimation of costs by scientists linked to the efforts in politically or user-inspired research and can thus reduce the likelihood of moral hazard by scientists. They are ‘opening up’ the scientific system to user systems by changing the functioning of the basic structures of science whilst embodying two very different solutions. ‘Delegation by contract’ maintains a strong belief in the rationalisation of funding policy and in political guidance, while ‘delegation to networks’ makes the state a ‘facilitator’ helping scientists and their institutions to self-organise networks of co-operation with user systems.

Lasting tensions in research policy-making — a delegation problem