IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/spmain/hal-03912647.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does grant funding foster research impact? Evidence from France

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Corsini

    (UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur)

  • Michele Pezzoni

    (UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur, OST - Observatoire des Sciences et des Techniques - HCERES - Haut Conseil de l'Évaluation de la Recherche et de l'Enseignement Supérieur, OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po, ICRIOS - ICRIOS, Bocconi University, Italy - Bocconi University [Milan, Italy])

Abstract

Over the last fifteen years, European countries have increasingly relied on competitive grants to allocate research funding, replacing the more traditional block funding model. Policymakers are interested in assessing the effectiveness of the grant funding model in producing impactful research. However, the literature aiming to quantify the effect of grants on the resulting research's impact is scant. In the French context, we compare the impact of scientific articles resulting from the support of competitive grants from the main national funding agency with the impact of articles not supported by grants. 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 statistically significant in the short run. We find heterogeneity in the effect of grant funding on citations across fields.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Corsini & Michele Pezzoni, 2022. "Does grant funding foster research impact? Evidence from France," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03912647, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03912647
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03912647
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-03912647/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cristian Mejia & Yuya Kajikawa, 2018. "Using acknowledgement data to characterize funding organizations by the types of research sponsored: the case of robotics research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 883-904, March.
    2. Aldo Geuna, 2001. "The Changing Rationale for European University Research Funding: Are There Negative Unintended Consequences?," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 607-632, September.
    3. Yaşar Tonta & Müge Akbulut, 2020. "Does monetary support increase citation impact of scholarly papers?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1617-1641, November.
    4. Wang, Jian & Veugelers, Reinhilde & Stephan, Paula, 2017. "Bias against novelty in science: A cautionary tale for users of bibliometric indicators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1416-1436.
    5. Paula Stephan & Reinhilde Veugelers & Jian Wang, 2017. "Reviewers are blinkered by bibliometrics," Nature, Nature, vol. 544(7651), pages 411-412, April.
    6. Nick Haslam & Lauren Ban & Leah Kaufmann & Stephen Loughnan & Kim Peters & Jennifer Whelan & Sam Wilson, 2008. "What makes an article influential? Predicting impact in social and personality psychology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 76(1), pages 169-185, July.
    7. Philippe Mongeon & Adèle Paul-Hus, 2016. "The journal coverage of Web of Science and Scopus: a comparative analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(1), pages 213-228, January.
    8. John Rigby, 2011. "Systematic grant and funding body acknowledgement data for publications: new dimensions and new controversies for research policy and evaluation," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(5), pages 365-375, December.
    9. Ashish Arora & Alfonso Gambardella, 2010. "The Impact of NSF Support for Basic Research in Economics," NBER Chapters, in: Contributions in Memory of Zvi Griliches, pages 91-115, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Liv Langfeldt & Carter Walter Bloch & Gunnar Sivertsen, 2015. "Options and limitations in measuring the impact of research grants—evidence from Denmark and Norway," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(3), pages 256-270.
    11. repec:nas:journl:v:115:y:2018:p:4887-4890 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Hottenrott, Hanna & Thorwarth, Susanne, 2010. "Industry funding of university research and scientific productivity," ZEW Discussion Papers 10-105, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    13. Beaudry, Catherine & Allaoui, Sedki, 2012. "Impact of public and private research funding on scientific production: The case of nanotechnology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(9), pages 1589-1606.
    14. Erjia Yan & Chaojiang Wu & Min Song, 2018. "The funding factor: a cross-disciplinary examination of the association between research funding and citation impact," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 369-384, April.
    15. Defazio, Daniela & Lockett, Andy & Wright, Mike, 2009. "Funding incentives, collaborative dynamics and scientific productivity: Evidence from the EU framework program," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 293-305, March.
    16. Jason Gush & Adam Jaffe & Victoria Larsen & Athene Laws, 2018. "The effect of public funding on research output: the New Zealand Marsden Fund," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(2), pages 227-248, May.
    17. Belén Álvarez-Bornstein & Fernanda Morillo & María Bordons, 2017. "Funding acknowledgments in the Web of Science: completeness and accuracy of collected data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(3), pages 1793-1812, September.
    18. Wang, Jian & Lee, You-Na & Walsh, John P., 2018. "Funding model and creativity in science: Competitive versus block funding and status contingency effects," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(6), pages 1070-1083.
    19. repec:adr:anecst:y:2005:i:79-80:p:04 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2012. "Causal Inference without Balance Checking: Coarsened Exact Matching," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.
    21. Weishu Liu & Li Tang & Guangyuan Hu, 2020. "Funding information in Web of Science: an updated overview," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1509-1524, March.
    22. Rachel Heyard & Hanna Hottenrott, 2021. "The value of research funding for knowledge creation and dissemination: A study of SNSF Research Grants," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-16, December.
    23. Rachel Heyard & Hanna Hottenrott, 2020. "The Impact of Research Funding on Knowledge Creation and Dissemination: A study of SNSF Research Grants," Papers 2011.11274, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2021.
    24. Ashkan Ebadi & Andrea Schiffauerova, 2015. "How to Receive More Funding for Your Research? Get Connected to the Right People!," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-19, July.
    25. Gregoire Mariethoz & Frédéric Herman & Amelie Dreiss, 2021. "The imaginary carrot: no correlation between raising funds and research productivity in geosciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(3), pages 2401-2407, March.
    26. Franc Mali & Toni Pustovrh & Rok Platinovšek & Luka Kronegger & Anuška Ferligoj, 2017. "The effects of funding and co-authorship on research performance in a small scientific community," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 44(4), pages 486-496.
    27. Nicola Grassano & Daniele Rotolo & Joshua Hutton & Frédérique Lang & Michael M. Hopkins, 2017. "Funding Data from Publication Acknowledgments: Coverage, Uses, and Limitations," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(4), pages 999-1017, April.
    28. Jacob, Brian A. & Lefgren, Lars, 2011. "The impact of research grant funding on scientific productivity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1168-1177.
    29. Adam B. Jaffe, 2002. "Building Programme Evaluation into the Design of Public Research-Support Programmes," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 18(1), pages 22-34, Spring.
    30. Katz, J. Sylvan & Martin, Ben R., 1997. "What is research collaboration?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 1-18, March.
    31. Alis Oancea, 2019. "Research governance and the future(s) of research assessment," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-12, December.
    32. Abdullah Gök & John Rigby & Philip Shapira, 2016. "The impact of research funding on scientific outputs: Evidence from six smaller European countries," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(3), pages 715-730, March.
    33. John Rigby, 2013. "Looking for the impact of peer review: does count of funding acknowledgements really predict research impact?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(1), pages 57-73, January.
    34. Rajeev H. Dehejia & Sadek Wahba, 2002. "Propensity Score-Matching Methods For Nonexperimental Causal Studies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 151-161, February.
    35. Álvarez-Bornstein, Belén & Bordons, María, 2021. "Is funding related to higher research impact? Exploring its relationship and the mediating role of collaboration in several disciplines," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1).
    36. Leila Tahmooresnejad & Catherine Beaudry, 2019. "Collaboration or funding: lessons from a study of nanotechnology patenting in Canada and the United States," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 741-777, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alberto Corsini & Michele Pezzoni, 2022. "Does grant funding foster research impact? Evidence from France," Working Papers hal-03912647, HAL.
    2. Corsini, Alberto & Pezzoni, Michele, 2023. "Does grant funding foster research impact? Evidence from France," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).
    3. Belén Álvarez-Bornstein & Adrián A. Díaz-Faes & María Bordons, 2019. "What characterises funded biomedical research? Evidence from a basic and a clinical domain," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 805-825, May.
    4. Fernanda Morillo, 2019. "Collaboration and impact of research in different disciplines with international funding (from the EU and other foreign sources)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 807-823, August.
    5. Álvarez-Bornstein, Belén & Bordons, María, 2021. "Is funding related to higher research impact? Exploring its relationship and the mediating role of collaboration in several disciplines," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1).
    6. Daniele Rotolo & Michael Hopkins & Nicola Grassano, 2023. "Do funding sources complement or substitute? Examining the impact of cancer research publications," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 74(1), pages 50-66, January.
    7. Weishu Liu & Li Tang & Guangyuan Hu, 2020. "Funding information in Web of Science: an updated overview," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1509-1524, March.
    8. Rachel Heyard & Tobias Philipp & Hanna Hottenrott, 2021. "Imaginary carrot or effective fertiliser? A rejoinder on funding and productivity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(11), pages 9333-9338, November.
    9. Rachel Heyard & Hanna Hottenrott, 2021. "The value of research funding for knowledge creation and dissemination: A study of SNSF Research Grants," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-16, December.
    10. Zhou Mo & Zhang Yujie & Lei Jiasu & Tan Xiaowen, 2022. "Early firm engagement, government research funding, and the privatization of public knowledge," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4797-4826, August.
    11. Melika Mosleh & Saeed Roshani & Mario Coccia, 2022. "Scientific laws of research funding to support citations and diffusion of knowledge in life science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(4), pages 1931-1951, April.
    12. Sarah Guillou & Basheer Kalash & Lionel Nesta & Michele Pezzoni & Evens Salies & Marc-Antoine Faure, 2023. "Impact de la nature du financement de la recherche sur ses résultats," Working Papers hal-04026916, HAL.
    13. Ayoubi, Charles & Pezzoni, Michele & Visentin, Fabiana, 2019. "The important thing is not to win, it is to take part: What if scientists benefit from participating in research grant competitions?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 84-97.
    14. Charles Ayoubi & Michele Pezzoni & Fabiana Visentin, 2017. "The Important Thing is not to Win, it is to Take Part: What If Scientists Benefit from Participating in Competitive Grant Races?," GREDEG Working Papers 2017-27, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    15. Ryazanova, Olga & Jaskiene, Jolanta, 2022. "Managing individual research productivity in academic organizations: A review of the evidence and a path forward," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(2).
    16. Erjia Yan & Chaojiang Wu & Min Song, 2018. "The funding factor: a cross-disciplinary examination of the association between research funding and citation impact," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 369-384, April.
    17. Ghirelli, Corinna & Havari, Enkelejda & Meroni, Elena Claudia & Verzillo, Stefano, 2023. "The Long-Term Causal Effects of Winning an ERC Grant," IZA Discussion Papers 16108, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Annita Nugent & Ho Fai Chan & Uwe Dulleck, 2022. "Government funding of university-industry collaboration: exploring the impact of targeted funding on university patent activity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 29-73, January.
    19. Weishu Liu, 2020. "Accuracy of funding information in Scopus: a comparative case study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(1), pages 803-811, July.
    20. Lili Miao & Vincent Larivi`ere & Feifei Wang & Yong-Yeol Ahn & Cassidy R. Sugimoto, 2023. "Cooperation and interdependence in global science funding," Papers 2308.08630, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Competitive funding; Research impact; French funding agency;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03912647. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Contact - Sciences Po Departement of Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.