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The dangers of performance-based research funding in non-competitive higher education systems

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanni Abramo

    (National Research Council of Italy
    University of Rome “Tor Vergata”)

  • Tindaro Cicero

    (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”)

  • Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo

    (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”)

Abstract

An increasing number of nations allocate public funds to research institutions on the basis of rankings obtained from national evaluation exercises. Therefore, in non-competitive higher education systems where top scientists are dispersed among all the universities, rather than concentrated among a few, there is a high risk of penalizing those top scientists who work in lower-performance universities. Using a 5 year bibliometric analysis conducted on all Italian universities active in the hard sciences from 2004 to 2008, this work analyzes the distribution of publications and relevant citations by scientists within the universities, measures the research performance of individual scientists, quantifies the intensity of concentration of top scientists at each university, provides performance rankings for the universities, and indicates the effects of selective funding on the top scientists of low-ranked universities.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Abramo & Tindaro Cicero & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo, 2011. "The dangers of performance-based research funding in non-competitive higher education systems," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(3), pages 641-654, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:87:y:2011:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-011-0355-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-011-0355-4
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Langford, Cooper H. & Hall, Jeremy & Josty, Peter & Matos, Stelvia & Jacobson, Astrid, 2006. "Indicators and outcomes of Canadian university research: Proxies becoming goals?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 1586-1598, December.
    2. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D'Angelo & Flavia Di Costa, 2008. "Assessment of sectoral aggregation distortion in research productivity measurements," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 111-121, June.
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    4. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo, 2011. "National-scale research performance assessment at the individual level," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 86(2), pages 347-364, February.
    5. Auranen, Otto & Nieminen, Mika, 2010. "University research funding and publication performance--An international comparison," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 822-834, July.
    6. Grit Laudel, 2006. "The art of getting funded: How scientists adapt to their funding conditions," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(7), pages 489-504, August.
    7. A Bhattacharya & H Newhouse, 2010. "Allocative Efficiency and an Incentive Scheme for Research," Discussion Papers 10/02, Department of Economics, University of York.
    8. Butler, Linda, 2003. "Explaining Australia's increased share of ISI publications--the effects of a funding formula based on publication counts," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 143-155, January.
    9. Lundberg, Jonas, 2007. "Lifting the crown—citation z-score," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 145-154.
    10. Franz Strehl & Sabine Reisinger & Michael Kalatschan, 2007. "Funding Systems and their Effects on Higher Education Systems," OECD Education Working Papers 6, OECD Publishing.
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    Cited by:

    1. Nicolás Robinson-García & Daniel Torres-Salinas & Emilio Delgado López-Cózar & Francisco Herrera, 2014. "An insight into the importance of national university rankings in an international context: the case of the I-UGR rankings of Spanish universities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1309-1324, November.
    2. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2015. "Evaluating university research: Same performance indicator, different rankings," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 514-525.
    3. Abramo, Giovanni & Cicero, Tindaro & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2013. "The impact of unproductive and top researchers on overall university research performance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 166-175.
    4. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Anastasiia Soldatenkova, 2016. "The dispersion of the citation distribution of top scientists’ publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 1711-1724, December.
    5. Lucas Jódar & Elena De la Poza, 2020. "How and Why the Metric Management Model Is Unsustainable: The Case of Spanish Universities from 2005 to 2020," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-19, July.
    6. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco D’Angelo, 2015. "An assessment of the first “scientific habilitation” for university appointments in Italy," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 32(3), pages 329-357, December.
    7. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Murgia, Gianluca, 2013. "The collaboration behaviors of scientists in Italy: A field level analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 442-454.
    8. Domenico A. Maisano & Luca Mastrogiacomo & Fiorenzo Franceschini, 2020. "Short-term effects of non-competitive funding to single academic researchers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(3), pages 1261-1280, June.
    9. Calabrese, Armando & Capece, Guendalina & Costa, Roberta & Di Pillo, Francesca & Giuffrida, Stefania, 2018. "A ‘power law’ based method to reduce size-related bias in indicators of knowledge performance: An application to university research assessment," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 1263-1281.
    10. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Flavia Di Costa, 2014. "Variability of research performance across disciplines within universities in non-competitive higher education systems," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 777-795, February.

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