Pensare per bandi: alcune considerazioni sulla ricerca finalizzata in ambito giuridico

The Italian university system has progressively replaced ordinary funding with competitive, grant-based mechanisms. This article asks whether competitive research actually improves scientific quality, and how its consolidation affects researchers’ freedom and university autonomy, with particular attention to legal scholarship. It argues that a model born in the United States amid expanding resources operates, in the Italian context of structural underfunding, as a device for rationing scarcity. The presumption of excellence underlying competitive calls remains unproven, while the concentration of funds exposes research to political capture. A stable funding base is the precondition for the non-instrumental research the Constitution requires.