Research funding is a term generally covering any funding for scientific research, in the areas of both "hard" science and technology and social science.
The term often connotes funding obtained through a competitive process,
in which potential research projects are evaluated and only the most
promising receive funding. Such processes, which are run by government,
corporations or foundations, allocate scarce funds.
Most research funding comes from two major sources, corporations (through research and development departments) and government (primarily carried out through universities and specialized government agencies; often known as research councils). Some small amounts of scientific research are carried out (or funded) by charitable foundations, especially in relation to developing cures for diseases such as cancer, malaria and AIDS.
According to OECD, more than 60% of research and development in scientific and technical fields is carried out by industries, and 20% and 10% respectively by universities and government.
Comparatively, in countries with less GDP, such as Portugal and Mexico the industry contribution is significantly lower. The US government spends more than other countries on military R&D, although the proportion has fallen from around 30% in the 1980s to under 20. Government funding for medical research amounts to approximately 36% in the U.S. The government funding proportion in certain industries is higher, and it dominates research in social science and humanities. Similarly, with some exceptions (e.g. biotechnology) government provides the bulk of the funds for basic scientific research. In commercial research and development, all but the most research-oriented corporations focus more heavily on near-term commercialization possibilities rather than "blue-sky" ideas or technologies.
Most research funding comes from two major sources, corporations (through research and development departments) and government (primarily carried out through universities and specialized government agencies; often known as research councils). Some small amounts of scientific research are carried out (or funded) by charitable foundations, especially in relation to developing cures for diseases such as cancer, malaria and AIDS.
According to OECD, more than 60% of research and development in scientific and technical fields is carried out by industries, and 20% and 10% respectively by universities and government.
Comparatively, in countries with less GDP, such as Portugal and Mexico the industry contribution is significantly lower. The US government spends more than other countries on military R&D, although the proportion has fallen from around 30% in the 1980s to under 20. Government funding for medical research amounts to approximately 36% in the U.S. The government funding proportion in certain industries is higher, and it dominates research in social science and humanities. Similarly, with some exceptions (e.g. biotechnology) government provides the bulk of the funds for basic scientific research. In commercial research and development, all but the most research-oriented corporations focus more heavily on near-term commercialization possibilities rather than "blue-sky" ideas or technologies.
History
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as the pace of technological progress increased before and during the industrial revolution, most scientific and technological research was carried out by individual inventors using their own funds. A system of patents
was developed to allow inventors a period of time (often twenty years)
to commercialise their inventions and recoup a profit, although in
practice many found this difficult. The talents of an inventor are not
those of a businessman, and there are many examples of inventors (e.g. Charles Goodyear) making rather little money from their work whilst others were able to market it.
In the twentieth century, scientific and technological research became increasingly systematised, as corporations developed, and discovered that continuous investment in research and development
could be a key element of success in a competitive strategy. It
remained the case, however, that imitation by competitors -
circumventing or simply flouting patents, especially those registered
abroad - was often just as successful a strategy for companies focused
on innovation in matters of organisation and production technique, or
even in marketing. A classic example is that of Wilkinson Sword and Gillette in the disposable razor market, where the former has typically had the technological edge, and the latter the commercial one.
By country
Different countries spend vastly different amounts on research, in both absolute and relative terms. For instance, South Korea and Israel spend more than 4% of their GDP on research while many Arabic countries spend less than 1% (e.g. Saudi Arabia 0.25%).
United States
The
US spent $456.1 billion for research and development (R&D) in 2013,
the most recent year for which such figures are available, according to
the National Science Foundation.
The private sector accounted for $322.5 billion, or 71%, of total
national expenditures, with universities and colleges spending $64.7
billion, or 14%, in second place.
Switzerland
Switzerland spent CHF 22 billion for R&D in 2015 with an increase of 10.5% compared with 2012 when the last survey was conducted.
In relative terms, this represents 3.4% of the country's GDP. R&D
activities are carried out by nearly 125,000 individuals, mostly in the
private sector (71%) and higher education institutions (27%).
Process
Often scientists apply for research funding which a granting agency may (or may not) approve to financially support. These grants
require a lengthy process as the granting agency can inquire about the
researcher(s)'s background, the facilities used, the equipment needed,
the time involved, and the overall potential of the scientific outcome.
The process of grant writing and grant proposing is a somewhat delicate
process for both the grantor and the grantee: the grantors want to
choose the research that best fits their scientific principles, and the
individual grantees want to apply for research in which they have the
best chances but also in which they can build a body of work towards
future scientific endeavors.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the United Kingdom has devised an alternative method of fund-distribution: the sandpit.
Most universities have research administration offices to
facilitate the interaction between the researcher and the granting
agency.
"Research administration is all about service—service to our faculty, to
our academic units, to the institution, and to our sponsors. To be of
service, we first have to know what our customers want and then
determine whether or not we are meeting those needs and expectations."
In the United States of America, the National Council of University Research Administrators
(NCURA) serves its members and advances the field of research
administration through education and professional development programs,
the sharing of knowledge and experience, and by fostering a
professional, collegial, and respected community.
Public funding
Government-funded research can either be carried out by the government itself, or through grants to researchers outside the government. The bodies providing public funding are often referred to as research councils.
Critics of basic research are concerned that research funding for the sake of knowledge itself does not contribute to a great return.
However, scientific innovations often foreshadow or inspire further
ideas unintentionally. For example, NASA's quest to put a man on the
moon inspired them to develop better sound recording and reading
technologies. NASA's research was furthered by the music industry, who
used it to develop audio cassettes. Audio cassettes, being smaller and
able to store more music, quickly dominated the music industry and
increased the availability of music.
An additional distinction of government-sponsored research is that the government does not make a claim to the intellectual property,
whereas private research-funding bodies sometimes claim ownership of
the intellectual property that they are paying to have developed.
Consequently, government-sponsored research more often allows the
individual discoverer to file intellectual property claims over their
own work.
List of research councils
Research councils are (usually public) bodies that provide research funding in the form of research grants or scholarships. These include arts councils and research councils for the funding of science.
An incomplete list of national and international pan-disciplinary public research councils:
Private funding
Private funding for research comes from philanthropists, crowd-funding, private companies, non-profit foundations, and professional organizations.
Philanthropists and foundations have been known to pour millions of
dollars into a wide variety of scientific investigations, including
basic research discovery, disease cures, particle physics, astronomy,
marine science, and the environment.
Many large technology companies spend billions of dollars on research
and development each year to gain an innovative advantage over their
competitors, though only about 42% of this funding goes towards projects
that are considered substantially new, or capable of yielding radical
breakthroughs. New scientific start-up companies initially seek funding from crowd-funding organizations, venture capitalists, and angel investors, gathering preliminary results using rented facilities, but aim to eventually become self-sufficient.
Examples of companies that fund basic research include IBM (high temperature superconductivity was discovered by IBM sponsored basic experimental research in 1986), L'Oreal (which created the L'Oreal-Unesco prize for women scientists and finances internships), AXA (which launched a Research Fund in 2008 and finances Academic Institutions such as advanced fundamental mathematics French Foundation IHES).
A company may share resources with a materials science society to gain proprietary knowledge or trained workers.
Hard money versus soft money
In academic contexts, hard money
may refer to funding received from a government or other entity at
regular intervals, thus providing a steady inflow of financial resources
to the beneficiary. The antonym, soft money, refers to funding provided only through competitive research grants and the writing of grant proposals.
Hard money is usually issued by the government for the
advancement of certain projects or for the benefit of specific agencies.
Community healthcare,
for instance, may be supported by the government by providing hard
money. Since funds are disbursed regularly and continuously, the offices
in charge of such projects are able to achieve their objectives more
effectively than if they had been issued one-time grants.
Individual jobs at a research institute may be classified as "hard-money positions" or "soft-money positions"; the former are expected to provide job security
because their funding is secure in the long term, whereas individual
"soft-money" positions may come and go with fluctuations in the number
of grants awarded to the institution.
Influence on research
The source of funding may introduce conscious or unconscious biases into a researcher's work.
Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest (COIs) is used by
biomedical journals to guarantee credibility and transparency of the
scientific process. Conflict of interest disclosure, however, is not
systematically nor consistently dealt with by journals which publish
scientific research results. When research is funded by the same agency
that can be expected to gain from a favorable outcome there is a
potential for biased results and research shows that results are indeed
more favorable than would be expected from a more objective view of the
evidence. A 2003 systematic review
studied the scope and impact of industry sponsorship in biomedical
research. The researchers found financial relationships among industry,
scientific investigators, and academic institutions widespread.
Results showed a statistically significant association between industry
sponsorship and pro-industry conclusions and concluded that "Conflicts
of interest arising from these ties can influence biomedical research in
important ways".
A British study found that a majority of the members on national and
food policy committees receive funding from food companies.
In an effort to cut costs, the pharmaceutical industry has turned
to the use of private, nonacademic research groups (i.e., contract
research organizations [CROs]) which can do the work for less money than
academic investigators. In 2001 CROs came under criticism when the
editors of 12 major scientific journals issued a joint editorial,
published in each journal, on the control over clinical trials exerted
by sponsors, particularly targeting the use of contracts which allow
sponsors to review the studies prior to publication and withhold
publication of any studies in which their product did poorly. They
further criticized the trial methodology stating that researchers are
frequently restricted from contributing to the trial design, accessing
the raw data, and interpreting the results.
The Cochrane Collaboration, a worldwide group that aims to provide compiled scientific evidence to aid well informed health care decisions, conducts systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials of health care interventions and tries to disseminate the results and conclusions derived from them. A few more recent reviews have also studied the results of non-randomized, observational studies. The systematic reviews are published in the Cochrane Library. A 2011 study done to disclose possible conflicts of interests [COI] in underlying research studies used for medical meta-analyses
reviewed 29 meta-analyses and found that COIs in the studies underlying
the meta-analyses were rarely disclosed. The 29 meta-analyses
reviewed an aggregate of 509 randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Of
these, 318 RCTs reported funding sources with 219 (69%) industry funded.
132 of the 509 RCTs reported author COI disclosures, with 91 studies
(69%) disclosing industry financial ties with one or more authors. The
information was, however, seldom reflected in the meta-analyses. Only
two (7%) reported RCT funding sources and none reported RCT
author-industry ties. The authors concluded "without acknowledgement of
COI due to industry funding or author industry financial ties from RCTs
included in meta-analyses, readers' understanding and appraisal of the
evidence from the meta-analysis may be compromised."
In 2003 researchers looked at the association between authors'
published positions on the safety and efficacy in assisting with weight
loss of olestra, a fat substitute manufactured by the Procter & Gamble
(P&G), and their financial relationships with the food and beverage
industry. They found that supportive authors were significantly more
likely than critical or neutral authors to have financial relationships
with P&G and all authors disclosing an affiliation with P&G were
supportive. The authors of the study concluded: "Because authors'
published opinions were associated with their financial relationships,
obtaining noncommercial funding may be more essential to maintaining
objectivity than disclosing personal financial interests."
A 2005 study in the journal Nature surveyed 3247 US researchers who were all publicly funded (by the National Institutes of Health).
Out of the scientists questioned, 15.5% admitted to altering design,
methodology or results of their studies due to pressure of an external
funding source.
A theoretical model has been established whose simulations imply
that peer review and over-competitive research funding foster mainstream
opinion to monopoly.
Efficiency of funding
Most
funding agencies mandate efficient use of their funds, that is, they
want to maximize outcome for their money spent. Outcome can be measured
by publication output, citation impact, number of patents, number of PhDs
awarded etc. Another question is how to allocate funds to different
disciplines, institutions, or researchers. A recent study by Wayne Walsh
found that “prestigious institutions had on average 65% higher grant
application success rates and 50% larger award sizes, whereas
less-prestigious institutions produced 65% more publications and had a
35% higher citation impact per dollar of funding.”
