Fund or Flounder: What Shapes Competitive Funding Intentions in Emerging Research Systems? Evidence from Ukraine

Competitive funding is central to modern science, but most evidence on grant‑seeking comes from well‑resourced Western systems with dense institutional support. This study shifts attention to a post-Soviet context — Ukraine — where limited institutional scaffolding allows for a cleaner isolation of individual-level motivations from institutional incentives. Drawing on survey data from 287 Ukrainian researchers collected in 2025, we integrate economic factors (human and social capital, perceived benefits) with psychological determinants from the Theory of Planned Behaviour to model intentions to apply for competitive funding. Our results reveal that human capital is directly associated with these intentions. Notably, financial benefits showed no significant effects, suggesting that framing competitive funding primarily as a monetary incentive for researchers is not an effective policy lever. These findings suggest policy interventions should prioritise targeted upskilling and supportive measures for two key groups: researchers excluded from early grant-seeking opportunities and early-career scholars lacking application experience.