Transparency and Accountability in Research Funding Bodies: An Open Data Lacuna in Science Policy

Although research funders wield enormous power over knowledge production and science policy, their decision-making processes are opaque. The inner workings of funding agencies involve numerous stakeholders, processes, and data; like other complex institutions they rely on an evidence base that supports and reflects individual and collective decision-making and personal judgement, but little of this data is available for scrutiny and what is available internationally is uneven. To date, we have seen little scholarly or policy discussion on the intersection of research funding bodies, knowledge production, and transparency and accountability.