ABSTRACT
This chapter compares research in three disciplines of sociology, history and physics, exemplifying different scientific domains, while particular emphasis is laid on the field of sociology. Mobility experience during researchers' graduate study seems to positively influence grantees' capacity to contribute to knowledge production relevant in the framework of European 'excellence'. As an instrumental tool for realizing the ERA's hopes of enforcing competitiveness by 'excellence', it is led by a particular belief in large scales and scopes of research, favouring comparative research across different research sites, countries and disciplinary stocks of knowledge. Scientific growth, inter-disciplinarity and meanings of risks exemplify dimensions of 'frontier knowledge' that the European Research Council (ERC) is looking for. These are empirically analysed by applying bibliometrics, analysing interviews with ERC grantees and extensive reading of their ERC-funded project publications. Decoupling sociological research from its socially embedded, local contexts of relevance at worst might entail the societal irrelevance and political de-legitimation of publicly funded social science altogether.
