Research funding is a term generally covering any funding for scientific
researchResearch can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
, in the areas of both "hard"
scienceScience is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and
technologyTechnology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
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. Total research funding in most
developed countriesA developed country is a country that has a high level of development according to some criteria. Which criteria, and which countries are classified as being developed, is a contentious issue...
is between 1.5% and 3% of
GDPGross domestic product refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period. GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living....
; Sweden is the only country to exceed 4% .
Funding sources
Most research funding comes from two major sources, corporations (through
research and developmentThe phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
departments) and government (primarily carried out through universities and specialised government agencies). Some small amounts of scientific research are carried out (or funded) by charitable foundations, especially in relation to developing cures for diseases such as
cancerCancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
,
malariaMalaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
and
AIDSAcquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
.
In the OECD, around two-thirds of
research and developmentThe phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
in scientific and technical fields is carried out by industry, and 20% and 10% respectively by universities and government, although in poorer countries such as
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
and
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
the industry contribution is significantly less. 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
humanitiesThe humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
. Similarly, with some exceptions (e.g.
biotechnologyBiotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
) 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 commercialisation possibilities rather than "blue-sky" ideas or technologies (such as
nuclear fusionNuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...
).
| Country |
ISR&D 2006 (millions $ PPP) |
Intensity (ISR&D by % of GDP) |
% funded by |
% executed by |
| private sector (industry) |
government |
industry |
academia |
government |
 United States |
312535.40 |
2.68 |
63.7 |
31 |
70.1 |
13.6 |
12.2 |
 Japan |
118026.3 |
3.13 |
74.8 |
18.1 |
75.2 |
13.4 |
09.5 |
 Mainland China |
93992.00 |
1.23 |
65.7 |
26.6 |
66.8 |
10.2 |
23 |
 Germany |
59115.00 |
2.49 |
67.1 |
30.4 |
70.4 |
16.3 |
13.2 |
 Early Modern France |
38985.00 |
2.16 |
50.8 |
39 |
62.9 |
19.1 |
16.7 |
 United Kingdom |
33231.20 |
1.88 |
43.80 |
31.40 |
65.70 |
21.40 |
9.70 |
 Korea |
28288.30 |
2.85 |
75 |
23.1 |
76.7 |
09.9 |
12.1 |
 Canada |
21047.60 |
1.99 |
47.1 |
34.1 |
52.7 |
37.5 |
09.5 |
 Italy |
17505.50 |
1.11 |
43.00 |
50.80 |
47.30 |
33.90 |
17.50 |
 Russia |
16669.70 |
1.15 |
31.4 |
60.6 |
69.1 |
05.5 |
25.3 |
 Chinese Taipei |
14951.00 |
2.56 |
64.4 |
33.9 |
64.4 |
11.6 |
23.4 |
 Spain |
11801.90 |
1.07 |
48 |
41 |
54.4 |
29.5 |
16 |
 Sweden |
10440.90 |
3.95 |
65 |
23.5 |
74.1 |
22 |
03.5 |
 European Union-25 |
210167.90 |
1.81 |
53.7 |
35 |
63.3 |
22.1 |
13.4 |
| OECD |
729430.80 |
2.26 |
61.9 |
30.2 |
67.9 |
17.1 |
12.5 |
Government-funded research
Government-funded research can either be carried out by the government itself, or through grants to academic and other researchers outside the government.
Critics of
basic researchBasic Research is an herbal supplement and cosmetics manufacturer based in Salt Lake City, Utah that distributes products through a large number of subsidiaries. In addition, their products are sold domestically and internationally through a number of high-end retailers. Dennis Gay is the...
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 advantage to government sponsored research is that the results are publicly shared, whereas with privately funded research the ideas are controlled by a single group. Consequently, government sponsored research can result in mass collaborative projects that are beyond the scope of isolated private researchers.
Privately funded research
Funding of research by private companies is mainly motivated by profit, and are much less likely than governments to fund research projects solely for the sake of knowledge. The profit incentive causes researchers to concentrate their energies on projects which are perceived as likely to generate profits. However, the rise of corporate responsibility as an important communication issue for larger corporation led to experiments in funding basic research by companies such as IBM (high temperature supraconductivity was
discovered by IBM sponsored basic experimental researchHigh-temperature superconductors are materials that have a superconducting transition temperature above . From 1960 to 1980, 30 K was thought to be the highest theoretically possible Tc...
in 1986), L'Oreal (which created the
L'Oreal-Unesco prize for women scientistsThe L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science aims to improve the position of women in science by recognizing outstanding women researchers who have contributed to scientific progress...
and finances internships), AXA (which launched a
Research Fund in 2008 and finances Academic Institutions such as advanced fundamental mathematics French Fundation IHES), e.g.
An often-quoted case study is the first sequencing of the
human genomeThe human genome is the genome of Homo sapiens, which is stored on 23 chromosome pairs plus the small mitochondrial DNA. 22 of the 23 chromosomes are autosomal chromosome pairs, while the remaining pair is sex-determining...
, which was simulataneously carried out in two competing projects, the United States government-managed
Human Genome ProjectThe Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...
(HGP) and the private venture capital funded
Celera GenomicsCelera Corporation was a business unit of the Applera Corporation, but was spun off in July 2008 to become an independent publicly traded company. In May 2011 Quest Diagnostics Incorporated completed the acquisition of Celera, which thus became a wholly owned subsidiary...
. Celera Genomics used a newer, albeit riskier technique, which some HGP researchers claimed would not work, although that project eventually adopted some of the same methods. However, it has been argued by some genomics researchers that a simple efficiency comparison for such programs is not apt. Much of the funding provided for the HGP served the development of new technologies, rather than the sequencing of the human genome itself. In addition, Celera started much later than the HGP and could take advantage of the experience gained by the HGP, which, as a publicly-funded project, made much of its work available as a basis upon which Celera could build. Though Celera's sequencing strategy allowed the sequencing of the majority of the human genome with much higher efficacy, the strategy used by the HGP allowed the sequencing of a higher percentage of the genome.
Research funding process
Often research funding is applied for by scientists and approved by a granting agency to financially support research. 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 granter and the grantee: the granter wants to choose the research that best fits their scientific principles, and the grantee wants to apply for research in which he has the best chances but also in which he can build a body of work towards future scientific endeavours. This interplay can be a frustrating and lengthy process.
However, 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.”
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.
Funding influence on research
A 2005 study in the journal
NatureNature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
surveyed 3247 US researchers who were all publicly funded (by the
National Institutes of HealthThe National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
). 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. In a contemporary study published in the
New England Journal of MedicineThe New England Journal of Medicine is an English-language peer-reviewed medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It describes itself as the oldest continuously published medical journal in the world.-History:...
, a similar proportion of the 107 medical research institutions questioned were willing to allow pharmaceutical companies sponsoring research to alter manuscripts according to their interests before they were submitted for publication.
History
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as the pace of technological progress increased before and during the
industrial revolutionThe Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, most scientific and technological research was carried out by individual inventors using their own funds. A system of
patentA patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
s 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 GoodyearCharles Goodyear was an American inventor who developed a process to vulcanize rubber in 1839 -- a method that he perfected while living and working in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1844, and for which he received patent number 3633 from the United States Patent Office on June 15, 1844Although...
) 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
corporationA corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
s developed, and discovered that continuous investment in
research and developmentThe phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
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 SwordWilkinson Sword is a brand name for companies that make gardening tools and razors. Wilkinson Sword's origins are in the manufacture of swords. The company was founded in London in 1772. The brand is currently owned by Energizer Holdings. Past product lines have included guns, bayonets, and other...
and
GilletteGillette is a brand of Procter & Gamble currently used for safety razors, among other personal care products. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, it was one of several brands originally owned by The Gillette Company, a leading global supplier of products under various brands, which was...
in the disposable razor market, where the former has typically had the technological edge, and the latter the commercial one.
External links