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The Domino Effects of Federal Research Funding.

ABSTRACT: The extent to which federal investment in research crowds out or decreases incentives for investment from other funding sources remains an open question. Scholarship on research funding has focused on the relationship between federal and industry or, more comprehensively, non-federal funding without disentangling the other sources of research support that include nonprofit organizations and state and local governments. This paper extends our understanding of academic research support by considering the relationships between federal and non-federal funding sources provided by the National Science Foundation Higher Education Research and Development Survey. We examine whether federal research investment serves as a complement or substitute for state and local government, nonprofit, and industry research investment using the population of research-active academic science fields at U.S. doctoral granting institutions. We use a system of two equations that instruments with prior levels of both federal and non-federal funding sources and accounts for time-invariant academic institution-field effects through first differencing. We estimate that a 1% increase in federal research funding is associated with a 0.411% increase in nonprofit research funding, a 0.217% increase in state and local research funding, and a 0.468% increase in industry research funding, respectively. Results indicate that federal funding plays a fundamental role in inducing complementary investments from other funding sources, with impacts varying across academic division, research capacity, and institutional control.

SUBMITTER: Lanahan L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4915724 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Domino Effects of Federal Research Funding.

Lanahan Lauren L Graddy-Reed Alexandra A Feldman Maryann P MP

PloS one 20160621 6

The extent to which federal investment in research crowds out or decreases incentives for investment from other funding sources remains an open question. Scholarship on research funding has focused on the relationship between federal and industry or, more comprehensively, non-federal funding without disentangling the other sources of research support that include nonprofit organizations and state and local governments. This paper extends our understanding of academic research support by consider ...[more]

PMID: 27327509

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Project description:ImportanceThe US leads the world in the raw number of incarcerated persons as well as the rate of incarceration, with detrimental effects on individual-, family-, community-, and population-level health; as such, federal research has a critical role in documenting and addressing the health-related impacts of the US criminal legal system. How often incarceration-related research is funded at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), and US Department of Justice (DOJ) levels has a direct association with the public attention given to mass incarceration as well as the efficacy of strategies to mitigate negative effects and poor health related to incarceration.ObjectiveTo understand how many incarceration-related projects have been funded at the NIH, NSF, and DOJ.Design, setting, and participantsThis cross-sectional study used public historical project archives to search for relevant incarceration-related keywords (eg, incarceration, prison, parole) since January 1, 1985 (NIH and NSF), and since January 1, 2008 (DOJ). Quotations and Boolean operator logic were used. All searches and counts were conducted and double verified by 2 coauthors between December 12 and 17, 2022.Main outcomes and measuresNumber and prevalence of funded projects related to incarceration and prison keywords.ResultsThe term incarceration resulted in 3540 of 3 234 159 total project awards (0.11%) and prisoner-related terms resulted in 11 455 total project awards (0.35%) across the 3 federal agencies since 1985. Nearly a tenth of all projects funded at NIH since 1985 related to education (256 584 [9.62%]) compared with only 3373 projects (0.13%) that related to criminal legal or criminal justice or correctional system and 18 projects (0.0007%) that related to incarcerated parents. Only 1857 (0.07%) of all NIH-funded projects have been funded related to racism since 1985.Conclusions and relevanceThis cross-sectional study found that a very low number of projects about incarceration have historically been funded at the NIH, DOJ, and NSF. These findings reflect a dearth of federally funded studies investigating the effects of mass incarceration or intervention strategies to mitigate adverse effects. Given the consequences of the criminal legal system, it is undoubtedly time for researchers, and our nation, to invest more resources into studying whether this system should be maintained, the intergenerational effects of mass incarceration, and strategies to best mitigate its impact on public health.

Project description:ImportanceBoth citation and funding metrics converge in shaping current perceptions of academic success.ObjectiveTo evaluate what proportion of the most-cited US-based scientists are funded by biomedical federal agencies and whether funded scientists are more cited than nonfunded ones.Design, setting, and participantsThis survey study used linkage of a Scopus-based database on top-cited US researchers (according to a composite citation metric) and the National Institutes of Health RePORTER database of federal funding (33 biomedical federal agencies). Matching was based on name and institution. US-based top-cited scientists who were allocated to any of 69 scientific subfields highly related to biomedicine were considered in the main analysis. Data were downloaded on June 11, 2022.Main outcomes and measuresProportion of US-based top-cited biomedical scientists who had any (1996-2022), recent (2015-2022), and current (2021-2022) funding. Comparisons of funded and nonfunded scientists assessed total citations and a composite citation index.ResultsThere were 204 603 records in RePORTER (1996-2022) and 75 316 US-based top-cited scientists in the career-long citation database; 40 887 scientists were included in the main analysis. The proportion of US-based top-cited biomedical scientists (according to career-long citation impact) who had received any federal funding from biomedical research agencies was 62.7% (25 650 of 40 887) for any funding (1996-2022), 23.1% (9427 of 40 887) for recent funding (2015-2022), and 14.1% (5778 of 40 887) for current funding (2021-2022). Respective proportions were 64.8%, 31.4%, and 20.9%, for top-cited scientists according to recent single-year citation impact. There was large variability across scientific subfields (eg, current funding: 31% of career-long impact top-cited scientists in geriatrics, 30% in bioinformatics and 29% in developmental biology, but 0% in legal and forensic medicine, general psychology and cognitive sciences, and gender studies). Funded top-cited researchers were overall more cited than nonfunded top-cited scientists (median [IQR], 9594 [5650-1703] vs 5352 [3057-9890] citations; P < .001) and substantial difference remained after adjusting for subfield and years since first publication. Differences were more prominent in some specific biomedical subfields.Conclusions and relevanceIn this survey study, biomedical federal funding had offered support to approximately two-thirds of the top-cited biomedical scientists at some point during the last quarter century, but only a small minority of top-cited scientists had current federal biomedical funding. The large unevenness across subfields needs to be addressed with ways that improve equity, efficiency, excellence, and translational potential.

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The Domino Effects of Federal Research Funding.

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The Domino Effects of Federal Research Funding.

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