Public Project Funding of Research Activities: National Differences and Implications for the Creation of a European Research Council Michael Dinges Benedetto Lepori Plattform fteval Conference: New Frontiers in Evaluation Vienna, April 25 th 2006

Topics  To analysie differences between countries in the composition of project funding instruments and discusses their implications for the impact of the future European Research Council (ERC)  A simple framework for analysing the impact of the ERC on national research policies and national research systems.  Analyze project funding in Austria, Italy, and Switzerland  Level of project funding and its composition  Evolution of project funding over the last 20 to 30 years  Draw some hypothesis upon possible implications of an ERC on national research policies:  Complementarities and additionalities of European funds  Need for cooperation  Differential impact of ERC according to national specificities

ENIP Project Funding Activity  The paper is based upon the results of an activity in the European Network of Indicator Producers project of ENIP-Prime:  ENIP project funding activity  An exploratory activity inside the European Network of Indicator Producers (PRIME)  Test the feasibility of producing some indicators for the analysis of project funding  Set up a common methodology for analysing project funding  Eight countries involved  Austria, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland)

Hypothesis  European funding through the European Framework Programmes has occupied a specific niche – largely complementary to national funding - focusing on the promotion of research in key technologies and on their economic and social application (Caracostas and Muldur 2001; Larédo and Mustar 2001).  The ERC will be active in a domain – support to academic research of individual groups - belonging to the core national funding activities, at least in countries possessing their research council, and thus is likely to interfere stronger with national policies (ERCEG 2003).  Thus, our hypothesis is that the impact of the ERC both on national policies and on research performers could be quite different according to the specificities of the national funding systems.

A framework for the Analysis I  Bases on the classical distinction between institutional and project funding (Millar and Senker 2000), but includes the existence of different funding agencies located at different institutional levels and playing different roles  National States or Regions are main provider of HE funding  International Organisations agencies account for significant share of project funding, but do not provide general funds (except e.g. ESA)  The management of project funding is either delegated to largely independent funding agencies, or administered by ministries directly  Any new funding scheme – as well the creation of a new funding agency like the ERC – will insert in this multi agent and multilevel structure.  We could expect that its effects will be to a large extent due to the interaction with existing funding schemes and agencies rather than to the direct impact of allocated funds on research activities.

A framework for the Analysis II

Differential Access and Interaction with National Research Policies  Differential access is likely to be a much more important issue for ERC than for other international funding instruments  ERC will mostly fund individual teams; thus, levelling-off effect of large European consortia by adding partners from less-advanced countries based on political pressure, are likely to disappear  Selection processes will be based on academic peer review of proposals and thus rely largely on the international scientific reputation of the applicant  As national funding systems dramatically differ in their ability to fund academic research cumulative effects between national systems will be most likely at place  On the average, it should be easier to reach a sufficient high level of international reputation to access to ERC funds for research teams in countries with strong academic project funding

National Differences in Research Project Funding (2002) ATITCH Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (million current PPP $) GERD as a percentage of GDP % GERD financed by Government GERD GOV as a percentage of GDP Researchers (FTE) Total project funding, mio current PPP $ Total national project funding as % of GERD GOV* Project funding per FTE researcher

Project Funding – The public Sector ATITCH GOVERD+HERD (million current PPP $) GOVERD+HERD as a percentage of GDP GOV + HE researchers 2002 (FTE) Total project funding to GOV + HE mio current PPP $ Total project funding to GOV+HE as % of GOVERD+HERD Project funding per FTE researcher GOV + HE

Project Funding: Beneficiaries Source: ENIP Project funding reports (2005)

Agencies… … and Instruments

Project funding: Systems description

Some preliminary results:2002  Some preliminary results: 2002  The level/share of project funding seems to be rather similar for the three countries considered (Austria, Italy, Switzerland)  Is it true also for other countries  Differences are much more profound concerning  the role of PF in public research funding  the managing agencies  the beneficiaries  the portfolio of instruments

Implications for ERC  There are very large difference in academic project funding in the three consided countries  In Italy, the ERC will enter a quite void domain in project funding with only very limited instruments directly geared at academic research. Thus limited interactions with national policies.  In Switzerland academic funding is very strong and the research council dominates national project funding. Thus ERC could weaken the position of the SNF in the repartition of national funding.  In Austria academic research project funding is dominated by the FWF. However, compared to Switzerland, Austria still has a significantly lower share of project funding in the public sector. ERC could be seen as an instrument to increase this share.

Implications for ERC  Hence we expect quite different beahviours of researchers:  In Italy given the comparatively poor project funding per FTE researcher in the public sector, we could expect that very good research teams will seek very actively ERC funds. However, given the limited project funding basis for the public sector, the access is likely to be very concentrated.  In Switzerland since academic funding is relatively abundant in Switzerland, especially in natural sciences, and acceptance rates are high in international comparison, we expect that there will be rather limited incentives to go the ERC with its more risky applications exept for newcomers (for example from abroad) and for very specific domains. To the other side, the high level of reputation of Swiss academic research (as shown by bibliometric indicators) and the pervasiveness of academic project funding should make access easier.  In Austria the significantly lower share of project funding in the public sector and institutional changes in the framework organisation of universities (e.g. the new autonomy of university as regards internal distribution of funds) might further provide incentives to actively seek to apply for funding at the ERC, seeking for stronger specialisation and also higher international visibility.

Funding Levels (% of GDP)

The role of international funds: the case of Austria Source: Dinges (2006)

Evolution and Impact of International Instruments  Growth for all countries, but starting with a quite different level in the ’70  Different paces of increase and building-up takes place in different periods in the three countries  It seems thus that international project funding, especially the European Framework Programs, was to a large extent additional to national funding  For Austria and Switzerland it accounted to a large part of the increase in the ‘90  In these terms it seems very likely that the increase of the budget of FP and the launch of the ERC will further increase the role of project funding in public research funding  Especially where academic funding is relatively limited

Conclusions and Agenda  Discussion presented is preliminary, and arguments are to some extent speculative – need to further develop the theoretical framework focussing on interdependencies etc.  More disaggregated data considering for instance indicators of concentration of funding and of sectoral specialization.  The complexity of multi-level funding systems has to be taken into account to analyse interactions between funding, research activities, and research performance  For research policy the data presented already in this analysis show that – at the difference of the USA -, European funding instruments enter in a very complex and fragmented landscape.  Their design should carefully take into account also these indirect effects due to the interactions with national context.