Comparing the evolution of national research policies: what patterns of change?

Abstract

This article presents a comparative analysis of the evolution of national research policies during the past three decades in six European countries (Austria, Italy, France, Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland), with a special focus on the changes of public project funding schemes. It systematically uses indicators on the volume of funding attributed by each instrument and agency, which have been developed in a project of the European network of excellence PRIME. A common model is identified in these countries, where project funding is the second main channel of public funding of research, but also there are considerable variations among them in the share of instruments and agencies, and in beneficiaries. There are three interesting commonalities: a strong increase of project funding volumes; a differentiation of instruments; and a general shift towards instruments oriented to thematic priorities. They also show that individual countries appear to follow quite distinct paths in the organisation setting of funding agencies, and that national differences in funding portfolios persist through time.

Comparing the organization of public research funding in central and eastern European countries

“…This includes the organization of funding agencies and instruments, looking for example for distinctions between categories of agencies, as well as types of instruments (core vs. project funding; Lepori et al, 2007a); it includes also specifying the role of different organizational levels for managing funding streams, between for example university directions and research units.…”

“…First, system-level studies of whole funding systems are relatively rare in the literature. Most studies in the field focus on individual funding schemes and agencies, with a focus on research councils (Van der Meulen, 2003;Slipersaeter et al, 2007), or on specific funding instruments, like recent work on public project funding (Lepori et al, 2007a). Looking to the main structural features might provide hints on some categorization of national systems towards the identification of some basic models and a categorization of funding systems (see Whitley, 2003).…”

“…Third, available empirical evidence shows that it is exactly at the level of institutional settings and organizational structures that differences between countries remain more important, and that there is evidence of influence of national contexts, as well as of path-dependency (Senker et al, 1999;Lepori et al, 2007a). Thus, the analysis of organizational structures is a relevant entry point to understand the impact of national cultures and histories on research policies and systems.…”

“…The topic is of interest for comparative research policy studies, where the issue of convergence and differences between national systems has been highly debated (Lepori et al, 2007a;Senker et al, 1999). CEECs represent an ideal laboratory to study the evolution of research funding, since changes are more rapid and profound than in western European countries and there is evidence of large differences between individual countries.…”

Supervision and Early Career Work Experiences of Estonian Humanities Researchers Under the Conditions of Project-based Funding

“…They date the shift in the Estonian funding system to [1997][1998], and the data presented by Masso and Ukrainski (2009, 688) make the scale of the shift visible: in 1997, project-based funding constituted 41% of the total public funding; in 1998, its share jumped to 83%. To put these numbers in perspective: according to the analysis of public research funding in six Western European countries by Lepori et al (2007), project funding is an important (from about a quarter to a third of total funding) but not the dominant form of funding in those countries.…”