Possibilities and limits in the appropriation of neoliberal research funding models: Social Sciences and Humanities funding in the Baltics

The article analyses the international circulation of competitive funding devices on the example of three post-communist countries’ – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – social sciences and humanities funding from 1989 to 2015. While studying the utilisation of project funding instruments by national reform actors in conjunction with other public funding devices, the article shows that the shares of funding (project vs base-line), as well as orientations (international vs national), emerged more from power struggles than from specific pre-existing funding models. Thereby, substantial policy changes took place only if these were led by the group of actors with former international socialisation. Also, not only the European Union, but also other countries such as the US, UK, Denmark and Finland were determinants in this process.