ABSTRACT
This chapter presents several scenarios, each one highlighting a particular modality of intermediary sponsorship in relation to changing contexts, and specifies implications for aggregation machines and peer review. It also gives us a better view of possible developments at the science-society interface. The structure of the aggregation machines will not change very much, and area panels or councils will remain important. Special programs, in response to external, political, and societal agendas, are instituted, and sometimes have their own type of review. The concept of "aggregation machine" derives its importance from the possibility to compare across funding agencies at the level of processes and mechanisms and to extrapolate to changed contexts. The spectrum of possibilities for institutional change of funding agencies is not unlimited. In particular, the shift toward relevance of science, and the partial lock-in into the regime of "Strategic Science" must be taken into account.
