The micro-dynamics of scientific choice: research project motivations among public affairs academics

Abstract Academic researchers’ choices about research projects to pursue are an important mechanism in societal allocation of research effort. It is unclear whether researchers’ criteria for project choice align with those articulated by policy scholars and philosophers. Many potential criteria for project choice are commonly discussed in scholarly and popular literature, but they have been little studied on the individual level. I review and catalog such potential criteria and then empirically explore researcher motivations for project choice through factor analysis of survey data from 409 authors of research articles in major public administration and public policy journals. I find empirical support for personal gain, societal importance, and intellectual interest as research motivations. These motivations do not neatly align with proposed ideal criteria for scientific choice. Thus, such criteria must be translated to speak to researchers’ personal interests to achieve expression in individual scientific choice.