Scientific Excellence and Extramural Research Grants: Beggars Can't Be Choosers?

Abstract

Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp10031.pdf Non-technical summaryIn the 1980s, the European Union (EU) started to develop its own technology policy independent from the member states. Since then the Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP) has become the major funding scheme in this policy field. With a budget of around 17 billion Euros, the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) provided funding for R&D projects in the years 2002 to 2006. Several attempts have been made recently to assess the impact of FP6 projects. A key interest of these reviews has been to analyse the structure of participation, i.e. who chose to participate and what these participants did achieve. One result is that FP6 projects involved the contribution of excellent scientists, measured in terms of publications and received citations. Another result is that participation seems to be widely regarded as a "quality seal" for the researchers involved. This paper focuses on public science and the role that FP6 played for financing research in relation to other grant sources available to the scientists. In fact, university scientists may typically consider four types of extramural funding schemes. Besides the FP, national governments, foundations, and -not least -industry grants can be significant sources. Although all funding bodies typically apply competitive, meritbased selection procedures, there may be different priorities and success criteria to award a grant. Hence, scientists can be assumed to select the funding source for which they expect the highest "return". More specifically, this paper investigates whether FP6 actually succeeded in attracting the scientific "A Team" given the variety of funding opportunities available to public science, and whether an FP6 participation complements or substitutes other types of grants. Based on a random sample of German scientists at universities and public research institutes, the paper links the scientist's excellence and productivity in terms of publication and patenting activities to the choice of a particular grant.The results indicate that highly credentialed scientists in fact prefer government, foundation and industry grants over FP6. Moreover, FP6 participation seems to substitute for other types of grants. These findings suggest that the FP is in fact the funding instrument for the scientific "B Team" which is in stark contrast to prior reviews of the FP. There seem...

The Role of Research Orientation for Attracting Competitive Research Funding

“…Grant programs by the German Research Foundation (DFG), on the other hand, may support rather basic research agendas as they attract applicants with particular high scientific excellence if measured in publications and citations (Grimpe 2010). Moreover, the result that private sector and public grants are subject to different criteria with respect to research orientation suggests that industry grants offer a additional source of competitive funding for research units that may not be willing or not be able to raise other types of grants.…”

“…That is which firms collaborate with universities, and what benefits emerge for these firms (Gambardella 1992, Cassiman et al 2008, 2010. Acquisition of scientific research has been shown to be beneficial for firms in many respects ranging from increased productivity of their own R&D efforts (Cockburn and Henderson 1998), to a reduction in labor cost (Stern 2004).…”

Industry Funding of University Research and Scientific Productivity

“…In Germany, as in many other countries, university scientists usually consider several funding types and the funding is often a mix of institutional core-funding and project-based grants (Stephan 1996, Geuna 2001, Schmoch and Schubert 2009. The latter usually stem from either the national government, the States (Bundesländer), grants from the European Union as well as from research foundations, or increasingly from the private sector (see Grimpe 2010). Auranen and Nieminen (2010) study the effects of recent science policies that strengthen the role of competitive funding to increase efficiency of university systems.…”