Figure 1
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Research conducted by university researchers for industry constitutes one of the main channels through which knowledge and technology are transferred from science to the private sector. Since the value of such inputs for the innovation performance of firms has been found to be considerable, it is not surprising that firms increasingly seek direct a...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... our analysis aims to shed light on the effects of industry funding on scientific productivity. As potential effects are unlikely to show up immediately, we observe the scientific output up to eight years after the survey. We thus expect journal publication output and patent applications in the post-survey period 2000-2007 to be a function of the share of industry funding (INDFUND) and the share of public grants (GOVFUND) received by the research unit and the "heads'" past publication and patenting efforts (PUB1995-1999, PAT1995-1999) as past performance is likely to affect future performance due to a "cumulative advan-tage". Additionally, lab size (LABSIZE), experience (EXPERIENCE), and the skill composition at the lab in terms of the percentage of technical employees (TECHS) and post doctoral researchers (POSTDOCS) may affect scientific pro- ductivity. Finally, we consider attributes such as the research field, the type of institution and gender as control variables in the econometric models to be estimated. Figure 1 depicts the development of industry funding for all German higher education institutions in the period 2000-2007 that is not covered by the survey. Compared to the year 2000, the amount has increased by more than 40%. Remarkably, the institutions' core funding has been decreasing since 2002, while total budgets remained relatively unchanged. Concerns raised by Lee (1996) regarding the effects of industry involvement in science on long-term, disinter- ested, fundamental research in the light of 'declining federal R&D support' in the U.S. can thus be raised here as well. Unfortunately, the information on industry funding in the survey is limited to the year 1999. Data at the institutional level (as shown in Figure 1) documents an increase at the aggregate level in the post- survey years. This leads us to regard the survey-numbers for 1999 at the research unit level as "lower bound" of the industry funding received by the research unit in subsequent years. Public grants increased likewise which confirms findings by Auranen and Nieminen (2010), who report a development towards a more competitive funding structure. GOVFUND is included to control for a profes- sor's success in attracting public funds. Additionally, as publication or patent output may not only be affected in terms of quantity, but also quality, we estimate the effects on citation counts (CITPUB, CITPAT) and average citations per publication and patent (CITperPUB, ...
Context 2
... our analysis aims to shed light on the effects of industry funding on scientific productivity. As potential effects are unlikely to show up immediately, we observe the scientific output up to eight years after the survey. We thus expect journal publication output and patent applications in the post-survey period 2000-2007 to be a function of the share of industry funding (INDFUND) and the share of public grants (GOVFUND) received by the research unit and the "heads'" past publication and patenting efforts (PUB1995-1999, PAT1995-1999) as past performance is likely to affect future performance due to a "cumulative advan-tage". Additionally, lab size (LABSIZE), experience (EXPERIENCE), and the skill composition at the lab in terms of the percentage of technical employees (TECHS) and post doctoral researchers (POSTDOCS) may affect scientific pro- ductivity. Finally, we consider attributes such as the research field, the type of institution and gender as control variables in the econometric models to be estimated. Figure 1 depicts the development of industry funding for all German higher education institutions in the period 2000-2007 that is not covered by the survey. Compared to the year 2000, the amount has increased by more than 40%. Remarkably, the institutions' core funding has been decreasing since 2002, while total budgets remained relatively unchanged. Concerns raised by Lee (1996) regarding the effects of industry involvement in science on long-term, disinter- ested, fundamental research in the light of 'declining federal R&D support' in the U.S. can thus be raised here as well. Unfortunately, the information on industry funding in the survey is limited to the year 1999. Data at the institutional level (as shown in Figure 1) documents an increase at the aggregate level in the post- survey years. This leads us to regard the survey-numbers for 1999 at the research unit level as "lower bound" of the industry funding received by the research unit in subsequent years. Public grants increased likewise which confirms findings by Auranen and Nieminen (2010), who report a development towards a more competitive funding structure. GOVFUND is included to control for a profes- sor's success in attracting public funds. Additionally, as publication or patent output may not only be affected in terms of quantity, but also quality, we estimate the effects on citation counts (CITPUB, CITPAT) and average citations per publication and patent (CITperPUB, ...
Context 3
... we consider attributes such as the research field, the type of institution and gender as control variables in the econometric models to be estimated. Figure 1 depicts the development of industry funding for all German higher education institutions in the period 2000-2007 that is not covered by the survey. Compared to the year 2000, the amount has increased by more than 40%. ...
Context 4
... the information on industry funding in the survey is limited to the year 1999. Data at the institutional level (as shown in Figure 1) documents an increase at the aggregate level in the post- survey years. This leads us to regard the survey-numbers for 1999 at the research unit level as "lower bound" of the industry funding received by the research unit in subsequent years. ...
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Higher education research is a small field with fuzzy borderlines between those closely attached to this thematic focus and representatives of various disciplines touching this theme occasionally, as well as between researchers and other experts involved in knowledge production on higher education along other tasks. It is a sizeable field of resear...
This case study presents the tale of the academic discovery of a rare mutation for early-onset Alzheimer's disease that was patented by a sole inventor and licensed to a non-practicing entity (NPE), the Alzheimer's Institute of America (AIA). Our aims are (1) to relate this story about patents, research tools, and impediments to medical progress, a...
Citations
... However, for more established researchers, the impact of funding was less clear, suggesting that its effectiveness may vary by career stage. Similarly, Hottenrott and Thorwarth (2011) observed that public grants in Germany led to an increase in publications for engineering professors, with grants contributing to approximately one additional publication. ...
The primary objective of this study is to analyze the number of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)-sponsored papers published in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology (NSAP), the oldest pharmacology journal in the world. This is the first systematic investigation of DFG-sponsored research in NSAP. Using the Scopus database, which provides comprehensive citation data from 1969 onward (for NSAP), the study identifies DFG-sponsored publications in the fields of pharmacology, toxicology, and pharmaceutics. The analysis includes only peer-reviewed articles and reviews, excluding other document types such as conference proceedings or editorials etc. The results show that, out of 453,047 total DFG-sponsored publications from 1969 to the present, only 3.05% (13,847) are in the specialized fields of pharmacology, toxicology, and pharmaceutics. This is relatively low compared to other research areas such as biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biology (24.69%), and physics and astronomy (23.37%). The study further analyzes the yearly publication dynamics of DFG-sponsored papers in NSAP, revealing a concerning trend: between 2015 and 2023, fewer than 10 DFG-sponsored papers were published in each of these years, with the lowest being 2 publications in 2022. These findings raise questions regarding the visibility and contribution of DFG-funded research in NSAP and suggest that strategies could be developed to enhance the presence of DFG-sponsored research in this historically significant journal. The study does not aim to interfere with funding policies but encourages a discussion on ways to improve publication outcomes for DFG-sponsored projects, particularly in well-established journals like NSAP. Collaboration between researchers, universities, and funding bodies may be key to promoting the visibility and impact of DFG-funded research in relevant academic journals.
... Для университетов сотрудничество с бизнесом выступает источником дополнительного финансирования фундаментальных и прикладных исследований, открывает возможности для интеграции новых практических знаний в учебный процесс, а также создает положительный репутационный эффект, способствуя привлечению талантливых студентов и молодых исследователей (см. : Дежина, Симачев, 2013;Babina et al., 2020;Hottenrott, Thorwarth, 2011;Wang et al., 2016). ...
In this article, we analyze the policy of direct subsidizing of academia— industry cooperation projects in Russia. Using the difference in differences method and companies’ microdata, we assess the policy impact on the change in the revenue growth rates of 133 subsidy recipient companies in 2010—2022. It is established that subsidies have the most noticeable impact on small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) and companies from high-tech industries. Additionally, using logit regression based on surveys in 2017 and 2022, we determine that research organizations which have used this measure are characterized by the presence of young researchers, access to foreign scientific and technical information databases, and experience in academia—industry cooperation. At the same time, organizations are not interested in this subsidy if they already used other financial instruments (for example, grants from research foundations), had orders from state corporations, and a high level of international scientific interactions. Based on the results of the study, recommendations have been developed to improve public policy by differentiating mechanisms to support academia—industry cooperation for large companies and SMEs, concentrating resources on high-tech industries and strengthening universities’ access to young talent and global knowledge databases.
... Our results also confirm previous findings in the literature. Grant funding has been shown to benefit research outcomes in equipment-based disciplines such as Engineering and Nanotechnology (Hottenrott & Thorwarth, 2011;Beaudry & Allaoui, 2012;Wang & Shapira, 2015). Moreover, consistent with the previous literature, in a robustness check, we show that the effect of a competitive grant is higher when bundled with other grants from different funding agencies (Gök et al., 2016). ...
Policymakers are interested in assessing the effectiveness of the competitive grant funding model in producing impactful research. In the French context, we compare the impact of scientific articles supported by competitive grants with the impact of articles not supported by grants using a probabilistic matching procedure. We rely on publication acknowledgments to retrieve funding information and on citation data to assess the articles’ impact. We find that articles supported by competitive grants receive more citations than articles not supported by grants in the long run, while the difference is not significant in the short run. We find heterogeneity across fields.
... Studying the factors affecting productivity, DFG grants had a positive effect on the productivity for German political scientists . However, in some cases funding may produce fewer tangible outputs because of the need to collaborate with end users or conduct activities of value to them (Hottenrott & Thorwarth, 2011), or if the funding is for long-term high-risk investigations. In areas where funding is inessential or where or core/block funding provides some baseline capability, academics who choose not to apply for it can devote all their research time to research rather than grant writing, which may increase their productivity (Thyer, 2011). ...
Evaluating the effects of some or all academic research funding is difficult because of the many different and overlapping sources, types, and scopes. It is therefore important to identify the key aspects of research funding so that funders and others assessing its value do not overlook them. This article outlines 18 dimensions through which funding varies substantially, as well as three funding records facets. For each dimension, a list of common or possible variations is suggested. The main dimensions include the type of funder of time and equipment, any funding sharing, the proportion of costs funded, the nature of the funding, any collaborative contributions, and the amount and duration of the grant. In addition, funding can influence what is researched, how and by whom. The funding can also be recorded in different places and has different levels of connection to outputs. The many variations and the lack of a clear divide between “unfunded” and funded research, because internal funding can be implicit or unrecorded, greatly complicate assessing the value of funding quantitatively at scale. The dimensions listed here should nevertheless help funding evaluators to consider as many differences as possible and list the remainder as limitations. They also serve as suggested information to collect for those compiling funding datasets.
... Funding usually associates with (i.e., correlates with but does not necessarily cause) increased research productivity, as measured by journal articles, often even after the end of the funding period (Saygitov, 2018;Shimada et al., 2017;Hussinger & Carvalho, 2022;Chudnovskyet al., 2008;Godin, 2003;Defazio et al., 2009;Ebadi & Schiffauerova, 2016;El-Sawi et al., 2009) but commercial funding can slow academic publishing because of the need to write patents or produce other outcomes (Hottenrott & Thorwarth, 2011). A systematic attempt to track down all funding sources for research from one university suggested that funding increased productivity but not citation impact, although it would be difficult to disentangle disciplinary differences in funding value with this data (Sandström, 2009). ...
Whilst funding is essential for some types of research and beneficial for others, it may constrain academic choice and creativity. Thus, it is important to check whether it ever seems unnecessary. Here we investigate whether funded UK research tends to be higher quality in all fields and for all major research funders. Based on peer review quality scores for 113,877 articles from all fields in the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021, we estimate that there are substantial disciplinary differences in the proportion of funded journal articles, from Theology and Religious Studies (16%+) to Biological Sciences (91%+). The results suggest that funded research is likely to be higher quality overall, for all the largest research funders, and for 30 out of 34 REF Units of Assessment (disciplines or sets of disciplines), even after factoring out research team size. There are differences between funders in the average quality of the research supported, however. Funding seems particularly associated with higher research quality in health-related fields. The results do not show cause and effect and do not take into account the amount of funding received but are consistent with funding either improving research quality or being won by high quality researchers or projects.
Peer Review
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1162/qss_a_00254
... In conservative regimes, integration is influenced by the level of centralisation in the system, and the number state-level actors involved: Austria, Italy, and Portugal following a fragmented approach, while France, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland follow an integrated approach. Belgium is difficult to characterize since its research ecosystem is fragmented into language communities, yet both Wallonia and Flanders follow integrated approaches (Hottenrott & Thorwarth, 2011;Powell & Dusdal, 2017). Germany is also a federal system, but the central government has greater influence on RFP coordination through the intervention of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and the Expertenkommission für Forschung und Innovation (EFI), which, following a network-based model, increased partnerships between federal, provincial, and societal stakeholders (Christensen & Serrano Velarde, 2019). ...
... For Lissoni and Montobbio (2015), the Dutch universities outperform their French and Italian counterparts in terms of producing patents, as they can more easily network with local firms and manage more effectively intellectual property matters and patent portfolios. Hottenrott and Thorwarth (2011) found that, in Germany, an increase in funding from industry is linked to a decrease in publication and citations. Many countries of conservative regimes, however, have a separate sector for applied research and teaching, and it could be that this sector responds more easily to economically oriented RFP than traditional universities, especially since performance funding and excellence initiatives have highlighted the prioritizing of internationally recognized academic research. ...
... In particular, regarding research funding, policy makers and industry (factor (i) with mean 3.50/5), Pachter et al. (2007), who reported a presidential task force established by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2003, concluded that corporate funding can pose challenges that can affect the integrity of APA and individual psychologists. Also, Hottenrott and Thorwarth (2011), who analyzed a sample of 678 professors at 46 higher education institutions in Germany, showed that industry funding of a professor's research resulted in lower publication records both qualitatively and quantitatively, thus leading to lower knowledge sharing. ...
Science studies natural phenomena or uses laws, theories, models and mechanisms to explain them, which are revised when new evidence emerges. However, Science cannot give answer to all questions that may arise. The benefits of science are well known and there is no reason to expand on them. It is of interest though to examine the structure and factors that influence the scientific world and may hold it back from offering greater benefits to mankind. The current study is concerned with the question whether or not Science is independent and reliable. Social and political reasons can direct substantive research in specific areas, but they can also encourage the promotion of unfounded theories. External factors such as prejudice against new ideas and understanding of natural happenings can negatively affect the objectivity of Science. Such factors examined in this paper and influence Science are: Research funding, policy makers and industry; Journal editors; Dogma; Theories declared as Conspiracies; Mutual interests in Academia; Knowledge control, cover ups and war superiority. The above factors can be used negatively to restrain serious scientists from expressing educated opinions and publishing them in scientific journals. In this way healthy discussions between ‘opposing parties’ are restricted, with Science being the victim as no sound conclusions and consensus on important subjects are reached. To check how the above positions are perceived by the scientific community, a questionnaire was circulated among scientists in 11 countries. Analyzing the 106 responds that were anonymously received, indicated that the respondents were largely in line with the expressed positions of the present paper. It is proposed that the real answer to minimize the effect of the factors that influence Science negatively, is educating people’s critical abilities and considering nothing for granted—especially under the influence of powerful Media—unless its validity is independently checked and verified.
... A systematic attempt to track down all funding sources for research from one university suggested that funding increased productivity but not citation impact, although it would be difficult to disentangle disciplinary differences in funding value with this data (Sandström, 2009). In contrast, commercial funding can slow academic publishing because of the need to write patents or produce other outcomes (Hottenrott & Thorwarth, 2011). ...
The search for and management of external funding now occupies much valuable researcher time. Whilst funding is essential for some types of research and beneficial for others, it may also constrain academic choice and creativity. Thus, it is important to assess whether it is ever detrimental or unnecessary. Here we investigate whether funded research tends to be higher quality in all fields and for all major research funders. Based on peer review quality scores for 113,877 articles from all fields in the UK's Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021, we estimate that there are substantial disciplinary differences in the proportion of funded journal articles, from Theology and Religious Studies (16%+) to Biological Sciences (91%+). The results suggest that funded research is likely to be higher quality overall, for all the largest research funders, and for all fields, even after factoring out research team size. There are differences between funders in the average quality of the research they support, however. Funding seems particularly beneficial in health-related fields. The results do not show cause and effect and do not take into account the amount of funding received but are consistent with funding either improving research quality or being won by high quality researchers or projects. In summary, there are no broad fields of research in which funding is irrelevant, so no fields can afford to ignore it. The results also show that citations are not effective proxies for research quality in the arts and humanities and most social sciences for evaluating research funding.
... Engineering is the only field of research where publications are more impactful when supported by competitive grants also in the short run (+8.15% in the short run). This result is in line with previous studies that evidence a beneficial effect of grant funding on research outcomes in Engineering and Nanotechnology (Hottenrott and Thorwarth, 2011;Beaudry and Allaoui, 2012;Wang and Shapira, 2015;Tahmooresnejad and Beaudry, 2019). The finding suggests that high-quality research in Engineering is grant funding dependent, probably due to the additional resources from the grants that allow researchers in engineering to buy state-of-the-art equipment needed to carry out impactful research. ...
The study of factors influencing scientific knowledge production and the design of financial incentives that may stimulate it have become increasingly relevant among scholars and policymakers (Stephan, 2012). This thesis focuses on the role played by three of the key actors in knowledge production: Ph.D. students, researchers, and universities. First, I investigate how the Ph.D. students' scientific production and network are associated with the characteristics of the training environment, including funding availability. Then, I quantify how a government funding program addressed to promote university excellence (IDEX) affects researchers' outcomes. Finally, I compare the effects of competitive grant funding versus block funding on the impact of the resulting researchers' articles. The empirical analyses of the whole dissertation are based on the French case.In the first chapter, I ask: what makes a productive Ph.D. student? Specifically, I investigate how the social environment to which a Ph.D. student is exposed during her training relates to her scientific productivity. I focus on how supervisor and peers' characteristics are associated with the student's publication quantity, quality, and co-authorship network. Unique to my study, I cover the entire Ph.D. student population of a European country for all the STEM fields analyzing 77,143 students who graduated in France between 2000 and 2014. I find that having a productive, mid-career, low-experienced, female supervisor who benefits from a national grant is positively associated with the student's productivity. Furthermore, I find that having few productive freshman peers and at least one female peer is positively associated with the student's productivity.In the second chapter, I estimate the impact of the initiative of excellence (IDEX) funding program on a broad set of French researchers' outcomes such as publication productivity, collaboration networks, research interdisciplinarity, patenting, mentoring of Ph.D. students, and fundraising. Relying on a panel of 32,947 researchers in STEM disciplines observed between 2006 and 2015, I investigate the effect of being affiliated with universities that applied for IDEX and universities that were awarded IDEX. Moreover, I investigate the indirect effect of IDEX on researchers in non-applicant universities who collaborate with researchers in awarded universities. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I find that both applying for IDEX and being awarded IDEX enlarge the researchers' collaboration networks. Being awarded IDEX is particularly beneficial for boosting collaborations with other French universities and international collaborations. I also find positive indirect effects of IDEX on the collaboration networks of researchers in non-applicant universities.In the third chapter, I compare the effectiveness of two research funding models: block funding and competitive funding. EU governments are increasingly relying on competitive grants to allocate research funding, complementing the traditional block funding used to support research. The literature aiming at quantifying the impact of funding models has not yet answered the question: is grant-funded research more impactful than block-funded research? In the French context, I compare the impact of 6,441 scientific articles resulting from competitive grants with that of 6,441 similar articles resulting from block funding. I rely on publication acknowledgments to retrieve the funding information and on citation data to assess publications' impact. I apply a probabilistic matching procedure to compare similar articles. I find that publications receiving the support of competitive grants obtain significantly more citations than those supported by block funding in the long run, while the difference is not statistically significant in the short run.My dissertation offers important insights to policymakers in designing effective training and financing policies for science.
... These arguments would suggest a negative relationship between scientific quality and university interactions. There is some evidence supporting a negative relationship between scientific quality and interactions channels, for example, spin-off creation (Buenstorf, 2009;Toole & Czarnitzki, 2010), consulting (Fudickar et al., 2018) or industry funding (Hottenrott & Thorwarth, 2011) and, especially, if combined with public funding (Hottenrott & Lawson, 2017), and in basic sciences (Scandura & Iammarino, 2021). ...
Academic artists are researchers who create artistic work. They form part of the cultural life of cities and contribute to welfare not only through research but also through art. They may commercialise their art or use it to engage in scientific knowledge diffusion. We seek to understand the relationship between art, academic commercialisation and engagement, and detect barriers to academic art. The resources needed to develop and diffuse art in addition to conducting research may be incompatible with a career focused on science quality or an organisational logic based on teaching and pure basic research. We study the responses to a survey of some 7,000 Spanish academics and compare university researchers to other researchers. More than half of the researchers surveyed create artistic work; however, whereas engagement is the norm rather than the exception, commercialisation is rare. Working in a university and producing good quality science run counter to being an artist. The detrimental effect of science quality on being a commercial or engaged artist turns positive after a certain threshold, which suggests polarisation among academic artists. Among commercial artists, this polarisation seems to apply specifically to university researchers. We discuss the implications for the valorisation of art across knowledge transfer channels and in research evaluations.
