The Power of Nomination – EU Speech and the Language Games in Research Funding

The power of the European Union is a matter of controversy, and a large variety of dimensions and nuances of power are discussed in the literature. In the proposed paper we take up the issue of language and – by building upon Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of power of nomination – discuss how the specific language of EU funding shapes scholarly activities. Taking the example of program calls and successful applications from the area of “societal challenges” of “Horizon 2020”, we analyze the particular semantics of EU research funding as well as their usages by scholars. By drawing on quantitative text analysis of publication abstracts in the context of EU-funded research and qualitative interviews with researchers and specialized administrative personnel, we then show how different ways of dealing with the power of nomination in EU governance is related to different positions in the academic field (e.g. the academic age of a scholar or the geographical location of a research institute). Based on our findings, we argue that the EU’s particular power of nomination constitutes one of its central power resources, and thus knowing the rules of the “language game” of EU funding and using the EU vocabulary competently is crucial for gathering EU funds and successful project implementation. However, as our empirical data indicates, participating in the language game is not solely an issue of wording but also of adapting to the underlying concepts and ideologies, and can thus shape practices of scientific cooperation and have long-term effects on scholarly pathways.