How Does My Research Question Come About? The Impact of Funding Agencies in Formulating Research Questions

It is a widespread claim that the research question should primarily come from a careful literature analysis (Creswell, 2007). Actually, it is basically a good suggestion, mainly for novices, to avoid the mistake of choosing a research method only for ideological reasons, and far from the phenomenon that one is willing to explore. However, this idea does not take into account other complex phenomena involved in constructing a research question. First of all, the epistemological framework, which is never neutral and performs what I am supposed to investigate; second, the kind of funding agency, which has an indisputable impact not only on the ethical - political level, but also on the methodological choices. In this paper I will compare, in the light of the research that I have conducted thus far, the methodological impact of different types of funding agency, particularly on the formulation of the research question itself.