Size, Accumulation and Performance for Research Grants: Examining the Role of Size for Centres of Excellence

Abstract

The present paper examines the relation between size, accumulation and performance for research grants, where we examine the relation between grant size for Centres of Excellence (CoE) funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF) and various ex post research performance measures, including impact and shares of highly cited articles. We examine both the relation between size and performance and also how performance for CoEs evolves over the course of grant periods. In terms of dynamics, it appears that performance over the grant period (i.e. 10 years) is falling for the largest CoEs, while it is increasing for those among the smallest half. Overall, multivariate econometric analysis finds evidence that performance is increasing in grant size and over time. In both cases, the relation appears to be non-linear, suggesting that there is a point at which performance peaks. The CoEs have also been very successful in securing additional funding, which can be viewed as a ‘cumulative effect’ of center grants. In terms of new personnel, the far majority of additional funding is spent on early career researchers, hence, this accumulation would appear to have a ‘generational’ dimension, allowing for scientific expertise to be passed on to an increasing number of younger researchers.

Conceptualising centres of excellence: a scoping review of global evidence

“…CoE is a team of specialised expertise2 7 17 24–47 or organisational environment2 5 24 30 35 36 48–56 that is established to provide outstanding healthcare,2 7 12 17 24–39 41 48 50 51 57–74 research,12 17 24 26–28 31 36 40 41 50 52 58 68 72 74–85 education and training,12 17 24 25 31 36 38 42 43 68 73 74 76 81–83 85–88 regulatory,57 83 89 policy,46 49 54 55 82 90 information technology45 53 91 or industrial44 92 93 services and support in high levels of efficient and effective performance. CoEs are geographically concentrated and focused on high potential in science and industry,46 as a world leader or a catalyst between neighbouring countries,60 72 82 anywhere from the local research and development (R&D) group up to a network of cooperative partners.…”

Using context-dependent DEA to analyze the efficiency of highly funded scientists in China

“…Focusing on improving the efficiency of the General Program of highly funded scientists may be helpful to improve their overall R&D efficiency. However, since the General Program, which always represents the small grants, always cares for better states for adventures and has a more considerable influence on research performance [4,5,13], relative policies must provide adequate room for the General Program like small grants possible playing a pivotal role in creative research actions. In a nutshell, we should balance the amount of funding across all grant types appropriately.…”

The effectiveness of Japanese public funding to generate emerging topics in life science and medicine

“…Another missing viewpoint in past studies is overall return on investment. Many studies have reported the average or median number of publications/citations per awarded researcher as well as correlations between funding and productivity per awarded researcher [19,20,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. While these analyses have clarified the effectiveness of funding on the awarded researcher side, the effect on all researchers remains unclear since it is well known that about 15% to 20% researchers produce 50% of publications, thus ignoring a significant portion of researchers with regard to total investment efficiency [34][35][36][37].…”