Research performance and scholarly communication profile of competitive research funding: the case of Academy of Finland

Abstract

The Academy of Finland (AKA), Finland’s major public research funding agency, uses a Web of Science (WoS) based bibliometric indicator to assess the performance of research it has funded. We use an alternative methodology to compare (1) the research performance and (2) the scholarly communication profile of AKA-funded research to the Finnish universities’ entire output across the major fields of arts and sciences. Our data consists of 142,742 publications (years 2015–2018) registered in the national information service, which integrates Current Research Information System (CRIS) data of 13 Finnish universities. Research performance is analyzed using the Finnish community-curated expert-based rating of publication channels (so-called JUFO). Our results show that compared to the Finnish universities’ entire output a larger share of AKA-funded research is published in leading JUFO rated journals and book publishers. JUFO and WoS-based indicators produced consonant results regarding the performance of AKA-funded research. Analysis of publication profiles shows that AKA-funded research is more focused than the universities’ output on using peer-reviewed publications, articles published in journals, English language, foreign publishers and open access publishing. We conclude that the CRIS-based publication data can support multidimensional assessments of research performance and scholarly communication profiles, potentially also in other countries and institutions. CRIS development and maintenance require multi-stakeholder commitment, resources and incentives to ensure data quality and coverage. To fully recognize diverse open science practices and to enable international comparisons, CRISs need further development and integration as data sources.

Going complex or going easy? The impact of research questions on citations

“…While complex and more narrow studies may be accessible to specialists in a particular field, this approach may alienate the broader and more generalist audience that might otherwise facilitate wider utilization of the research. More complex studies that test boundary conditions, while important for expanding the knowledge base of a specific field, may be of less interest to non-specialists, yielding lower impact, and potentially reducing the chances of obtaining grants from funders that value impact (Pölönen & Auranen, 2022). Adding a new boundary condition does not necessarily enhance applicability or help managers to find solutions to their business problems.…”

“…date, the focus of this literature has been largely on what theory is and how authors can make important contributions (e.g., Byron & Thatcher, 2016;Morrison, 2010;Murmann, 2017;Okhuysen & Bonardi, 2011). What is still missing, though, is a comprehensive treatment of how scholars can approach the task of developing, in a practical sense, research ideas that can yield strong theoretical contributions and impactful papers, while addressing the requests for impact that come from a multitude of stakeholders (e.g., Hicks, 2012;Pölönen & Auranen, 2022). In this paper, our focus is on how theory can be framed and operationalized, and how doing so more effectively can help authors to generate research questions that are important and impactful, and that contribute to the development and testing of theory.…”

Hedgehogs, Foxes, and the Global Science Ecosystem: Decoding Universities’ Research Profiles across Fields with Nested Ecological Networks.

“…Understanding what kinds of unique research profiles universities could develop and where the most innovative connections exist may help higher education institutions make strategic decisions about how to compete for attention in the global higher education market. For example, in Finland, universities can apply for competitive university profiling funding from the primary research funder (Academy of Finland) to strengthen and specialize in timely research areas and increase research quality (Pölönen and Auranen 2021).…”

Journal metrics as predictors of Research Excellence Framework 2021 results: Comparison of impact factor quartiles and Finnish expert-ratings

“…• The Julkaisufoorumi (JUFO) classification has four levels (1 = basic, 2 = leading, 3 = top, 0 = other) for domestic and foreign peer-reviewed publication channels (journals and book publishers) determined by Finnish experts in 23 field-specific panels (Pölönen & Auranen, 2022). We apply JIF Quartiles, JCI Quartiles and JUFO levels to 154,826 journal articles submitted to REF2021 to analyse their agreement with peer review results of REF panels at the aggregate levels of 34 Subject areas, 157 UK Higher Education Institutions (HEI), and 1,888 Units of Assessment (UoA).…”