Marco Seeber

Professor

Department of Political Science and Management

Email: marco.seeber@uia.no
Phone: +47 38141843

Office HU026 (Universitetsveien 25, 4630 Kristiansand, Norway)

Research groups

Areas of responsibility

Curriculum Vitae

Research

Public policies, governance, and management/administration, with a focus on Higher Education and public science, and adopting multilevel, comparative, quantitative and mixed methods research designs. Key topics of interest: implementation and impact of policies and policy instruments (e.g. NPM, research metrics), science institutions (peer review), openness of HE and scientific system (internationalization, interdisciplinarity, academic careers).

Publication outlets - among others: Research Policy, Science and Public Policy, Public Management Review, Higher Education, Studies in Higher Education, Scientometrics, Research Evaluation, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. The work on self-citations has been featured in Nature Index , the London School of Economics impact blog a b , interviewed for Nature , Science and Physics Today . His co-authored paper on the competition for attracting talent won the Swiss Prize for Research in Education 2019. He is among the promoters and authors of the appeal to share peer review data featured in Nature. He collaborates with COST research funding agency since 2017. He is regularly invited as a speaker about academic publishing business, peer review, and research ethics (e.g., at Mahindra Center, Harvard University).

Co-Editor-in Chief of the European Journal of Higher Education with Manja Klemencic, co-founder and member of SQUARES - Support in quantitative research and statistics- at the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Selected publications

Google Scholar

Research Gate

Tuition

current

ORG 411 - Organizational Change and Change Management (MA)

IS 110 - Organizational Theory (BA)

ME 400 - Research Methodology and Statistics (MA)

ME 631 - Researching Social Sciences: Philosophical and Methodological Foundations - coordination and Quantitative research (PHD)

ME-413 - Research Methods in Development and Planning Studies (Quantitative) (MA)

ORG 447 - Governance and Networks in the Public Sector (Boundary spanners I, II, Public-private partnerships) (MA)

ST 423 - Research Design and Advanced Methods for the Social Sciences (How to write a Master Thesis, Quantitative Research) (MA)

past courses

ST 400 - Political Systems and Governance (Governance of public higher education and Science) (MA)

ORG 445-1 - Leadership in the Public Sector - (Leadership in Higher Education and Science; Strategic Leadership) (MA)

Short biography

Previous employers: University of Lugano (Switzerland) and Ghent University (Belgium)

PhD and research assistant (2006-2010): University of Chieti Pescara (Italy) and CNR- Rome (Italy)

Seeber, Marco; Svege, Ida & Hesselberg, Jan Ole (2024). Improving the efficiency of research proposals evaluation: A two-stage procedure. Research Evaluation. ISSN 0958-2029. doi: 10.1093/reseval/rvae020.
Seeber, Marco (2024). Changes in scientific publishing and possible impact on authors’ choice of journals. ChemTexts. doi: 10.1007/s40828-024-00190-3.
Seeber, Marco (2024). Changes in scientific publishing and possible impact on authors’ choice of journals. ChemTexts. 10(3). doi: 10.1007/s40828-024-00190-3.
Piro, Fredrik Niclas; Seeber, Marco & Wang, Lili (2024). Regional and sectoral variations in the ability to attract funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program and Horizon 2020. Scientometrics. ISSN 0138-9130. 129, p. 1493–1521. doi: 10.1007/s11192-024-04942-3. Full text in Research Archive
Debernardi, Carlo; Seeber, Marco & Cattaneo, Mattia (2024). Thirty years of climate change research: A fine-grained analysis of geographical specialization. Environmental Science and Policy. ISSN 1462-9011. 152. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2023.103663.
Seeber, Marco; Alon, Ilan; Pina, David G.; Piro, Fredrik Niclas & Seeber, Michele (2022). Predictors of applying for and winning an ERC Proof-of-Concept grant: An automated machine learning model. Technological Forecasting and Social Change. ISSN 0040-1625. 184. doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2022.122009. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Research often fails to be translated into applications because of lack of financial support. The Proof of Concept (PoC) funding scheme from the European Research Council (ERC) supports the early stages of the valorization process of the research conducted by its grantees. This article explores the factors that predict who will apply for ERC grants and which grant proposals will prove successful. By combining information from two datasets of 10,074 ERC grants (representing 8361 individual grantees) and 2186 PoC proposals, and using automated machine learning, we can identify the main predictors of the propensity to apply and to win. Doing so fills a void in the literature on likelihood to apply. The results reveal major differences between potential and actual beneficiaries, due to decisions about applying for a grant and evaluations of the proposals. The decision to apply is affected by the interaction between the characteristics of the PoC funding scheme, the ERC grantee, and his/her environment. Grantees in countries that invest little in innovation, with low cost of personnel, and strong collaboration in innovation are more likely to apply. Male grantees are more likely to apply but have similar chances of winning as women.
Seeber, Marco; Vlegels, Jef & Cattaneo, Mattia (2022). Conditions that do or do not disadvantage interdisciplinary research proposals in project evaluation. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. ISSN 2330-1635. doi: 10.1002/asi.24617. Show summary
Despite interdisciplinary research playing a pivotal role in modern science, interdisciplinary research proposals appear to have a lower chance of being funded. Scholars suggested that interdisciplinary research may be disadvantaged in the evaluation and should be earmarked specific resources and evaluated by specific panels. However, empirical evidence is limited regarding the conditions under which interdisciplinary proposals are disadvantaged. We explore this issue in the context of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) research funding framework, which, contrary to the common practice, does not organize the evaluation process around disciplinary panels, but with a panel-free system. The sample includes data from five calls, from March 2015 to September 2017, for a total of 1,928 proposals, and 5,330 evaluations conducted by 3,050 reviewers. We find that the effect of a proposal’s degree of interdisciplinarity is negligible and not significant. We found no variation in this result across scientific fields and disciplinary expertise of reviewers, and no evidence of disciplinary “turf wars.” These results suggest that factors assumed to disadvantage interdisciplinary proposals, such as being inherently more challenging to be evaluated and being riskier, are less problematic when the evaluation is not organized around disciplinary panels but rather with a panel-free system.
Seeber, Marco; Vlegels, Jef; Reimink, Elwin; Marušić, Ana & Pina, David G. (2021). Does reviewing experience reduce disagreement in proposals evaluation? Insights from Marie Skłodowska-Curie and COST Actions. Research Evaluation. ISSN 0958-2029. doi: 10.1093/reseval/rvab011. Full text in Research Archive
Seeber, Marco & Horta, Hugo (2021). No road is long with good company. What factors affect Ph.D. student’s satisfaction with their supervisor? Higher Education Evaluation and Development (HEED). ISSN 2514-5789. 15(1), p. 2–18. doi: 10.1108/HEED-10-2020-0044. Full text in Research Archive
Seeber, Marco & Mampaey, Jelle (2021). How do university systems' features affect academic inbreeding? Career rules and language requirements in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Higher Education Quarterly. ISSN 0951-5224. doi: 10.1111/hequ.12302. Full text in Research Archive
Huisman, Jeroen; Vlegels, Jef; Daenekindt, Stijn; Seeber, Marco & Laufer, Melissa (2021). How satisfied are international students? The role of town, gown and motivations. Compare. ISSN 0305-7925. doi: 10.1080/03057925.2020.1867826.
Civera, Alice; Cattaneo, Mattia; Meoli, Michele; Paleari, Stefano & Seeber, Marco (2020). Universities’ responses to crises: the influence of competition and reputation on tuition fees. Higher Education. ISSN 0018-1560. doi: 10.1007/s10734-020-00622-2. Full text in Research Archive
Squazzoni, Flaminio; Ahrweiler, Petra; Barros, Tiago; Bianchi, Federico; Birukou, Aliaksandr & Blom, Harry J. J. [Show all 28 contributors for this article] (2020). Unlock ways to share data on peer review. Nature. ISSN 0028-0836. 578(7796), p. 512–514. doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-00500-y.
Seeber, Marco (2020). How do journals of different rank instruct peer reviewers? Reviewer guidelines in the field of management. Scientometrics. ISSN 0138-9130. 122, p. 1387–1405. doi: 10.1007/s11192-019-03343-1. Full text in Research Archive
Seeber, Marco (2020). Framework and operationalisation challenges for quantitative comparative research in higher education. Higher Education Quarterly. ISSN 0951-5224. 74(2), p. 162–175. doi: 10.1111/hequ.12245. Full text in Research Archive

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Seeber, Marco; Piro, Fredrik Niclas & Debernardi, Carlo (2023). Winning an ERC grant: country and institutional variations in success rate and their causes.
Seeber, Marco; Klemenčič, Manja; Meoli, Michele & Sin, Cristina (2023). Publishing review reports to reveal and preserve the quality and fairness of the peer review process. European Journal of Higher Education. ISSN 2156-8235. doi: 10.1080/21568235.2023.2192549.
Piro, Fredrik Niclas; Seeber, Marco & Wang, Lili (2022). Regional and sectorial variations in attractiveness of funding from the European Union’s Framework Programs: evidence of increasing divergence .
Seeber, Marco & Wang, Lili (2022). Regional and sectorial variations in attractiveness of funding from the European Union’s Framework Programs: evidence of increasing divergence.
Seeber, Marco; Debacker, Noëmi; Meoli, Michele & Vandevelde, Karen (2022). Correction to: Exploring the effects of mobility and foreign nationality on internal career progression in universities (Higher Education, (2022), 10.1007/s10734-022-00878-w). Higher Education. ISSN 0018-1560. doi: 10.1007/s10734-022-00944-3.
Seeber, Marco; Debacker, Noemi; Meoli, Michele & Vandevelde, Karen (2022). Exploring the effects of mobility and foreign nationality on internal career progression in universities. Higher Education. ISSN 0018-1560. doi: 10.1007/s10734-022-00878-w.
Seeber, Marco (2022). Efficacy, efficiency, and models of journal peer review. The known and unknown in the social sciences. In Engels, Tim & Kulczycki, Emanuel (Ed.), Handbook on Research Assessment in the Social Sciences. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISSN 9781800372542. doi: 10.4337/97818003725. Show summary
This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of current developments, issues and good practices regarding assessment in social science research. It pays particular attention to the challenges in evaluation policies in the social sciences, as well as to the specificities of publishing in the area.

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Published Apr. 16, 2024 10:51 AM - Last modified June 17, 2024 3:12 PM