Is science driven by principal investigators?

Abstract

In this paper we consider the question what is the scientific and career performance of principal investigators (PI's) of publicly funded research projects compared to scientific performance of all researchers. Our study is based on high quality data about (i) research projects awarded in Slovenia in the period 1994-2016 (7508 projects with 2725 PI's in total) and (ii) about scientific productivity of all researchers in Slovenia that were active in the period 1970-2016-there are 19 598 such researchers in total, including the PI's. We compare average productivity, collaboration, internationality and interdisciplinarity of PI's and of all active researchers. Our analysis shows that for all four indicators the average performance of PI's is much higher compared to average performance of all active researchers. Additionally, we analyze careers of both groups of researchers. The results show that the PI's have on average longer and more fruitful career compared to all active researchers, with regards to all career indicators. The PI's that have received a postdoc grant have at the beginning outstanding scientific performance, but later deviate towards average. On long run, the PI's leading the research programs (the most prestigious grants) on average demonstrate the best scientific performance. In the last part of the paper we study 23 co-authorship networks, spanned by all active researchers in the periods 1970-1994, . . . , 1970-2016. We find out that they are well connected and that PI's are well distributed across these networks This a final preprint version; the final version of the manuscript can be found at https: //doi.2 Andrej Kastrin et al.forming their backbones. Even more, PI's generate new PI's, since more than 90% of new PI's are connected (have at least one joint scientific publication) with existing PI's. We believe that our study sheds new light to the relations between the public funding of the science and the scientific output and can be considered as an affirmative answer to the question posed in the title.

Network analysis to evaluate the impact of research funding on research community consolidation

“…[13] examines the role of funded researchers (“PIs”) in the collaboration network in Slovenia from 1970-2016. Part of their analysis focuses on the relationship among several statistics over overlapping time periods, including the fraction of nodes in the giant component, the mean fraction of each node’s neighbors who are PIs, the number of connected components when PIs are removed from the giant component, and the relative size of the largest component when PIs are removed.…”

“…All of these studies use dynamic analysis of coauthor networks to examine development and change in research communities over time. However, none of these studies is designed to examine the effect of a particular funding program on the research community, and only [13] situates the group of researchers of interest (“PIs” or funded researchers) in the context of their peers (i.e., authors who were not funded).…”

The role and function of cooperative research centers in entrepreneurial universities

“…Cunningham et al (2016, p. 72) defined PIs as “scientists who orchestrate new research projects, combine resources and competencies, deepen existing scientific trajectories or shape new ones that are transformative in intent, nature and outcome that can be exploited for commercial ends and/or for societal common good.” The growing body of empirical research on PIs at the micro level has focused on themes such as strategic behaviors, managerial challenges, technology transfer mechanisms, gender, time allocation, barriers, etc. (see Cunningham et al , 2018, 2019; Del Giudice et al , 2017; Kastrin et al , 2018; Kidwell, 2014; Mangematin et al , 2014; Menter, 2016; O’Kane, 2018; Romano et al , 2017). However, within this body of empirical research, there have been no studies in relation to how they understand the role and function of CRCs they are members of to support their expanded role as a PI.…”

“…The growing body of empirical research on PIs at the micro level has focused on themes such as strategic behaviors, managerial challenges, technology transfer mechanisms, gender, time allocation, barriers, etc. (see Cunningham et al, 2018Cunningham et al, , 2019Del Giudice et al, 2017;Kastrin et al, 2018;Kidwell, 2014;Mangematin et al, 2014;Menter, 2016;O'Kane 2018;Romano et al, 2017). However, within this body of empirical research, there have been no studies in relation to how they understand the role and function of CRCs they are members of to support their expanded role as a PI.…”

Domestic researchers with longer careers generate higher average citation impact but it does not increase over time

“…In Japan, senior researchers seem to write fewer articles because they need to spend more time on administrative tasks (Kawaguchi, Kondo, & Saito, 2016). In Slovenia, researchers that become Principle Investigators on public grants tend to be more productive, presumably due to the funding, but also have longer careers (Kastrin, Klisara, Lužar, & Povh, 2018).…”