Number of universities by funding phase.

We investigate the selection of subject fields in Germany’s “excellence initiative,” a two-phase funding scheme administered by the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 2005 to 2017 to increase international competitiveness of scientific research at German universities. While most empirical studies have examined the “excellence initiative’s” effects at the university level (“elite universities”), we focus on subject fields within universities. Based on both descriptive and logistic regression analyses, we find that the “excellence initiative” reveals a stable social order of public universities based on organizational size, that field selection is biased toward those fields with many professors and considerable grant funding, and that funding success in the second phase largely follows decisions from the first phase. We discuss these results and suggest avenues for future research.本研究聚焦德国“卓越计划（Excellence Initiative）”框架下的学科领域遴选问题。该计划是德国研究基金会（German Research Foundation, DFG）于2005年至2017年间实施的两阶段资助方案，旨在提升德国高校科研的国际竞争力。既往多数实证研究均围绕卓越计划在高校层面（即“精英高校”）的实施效果展开探讨，而本研究则将目光投向高校内部的学科领域维度。基于描述性分析与逻辑回归（logistic regression）分析，本研究发现：卓越计划呈现出基于组织规模形成的公立高校稳定层级秩序；学科遴选偏向于拥有大量教授与充足科研拨款的领域；且第二阶段的资助成功很大程度上延续了第一阶段的决策结果。本文对上述研究结果展开深入讨论，并为未来研究指明了可行方向。