Journal article
Effects of research funding on the academic impact and societal visibility of scientific research
Journal of informetrics, Vol.18(4), 101592
11/2024
DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2024.101592
Abstract
•Research papers supported by funding have lower societal visibility than those without funding.•Research papers supported by funding have higher academic impact than those without funding.•The societal visibility of research papers with low and medium numbers of grants is still lower than papers without funding support.•The higher the number of grants supporting a paper, the higher the academic impact of paper.•Research papers supported by industry grants have higher academic impact and societal visibility than those without funding.
Assessing the effectiveness of research funding is of significant value to policymakers. Previous studies have mainly concentrated on the academic impact of funded research, yet the exploration of how research funding affects the societal visibility of research has been significantly lacking. Thus, this study addresses this gap by examining papers published by Chinese scholars and compares the effects of funding on papers’ societal visibility (measured by Altmetric Attention Scores) with those for papers' academic impact (measured by citation counts). This study reveals several interesting findings: First, research supported by funding demonstrates a lower societal visibility, albeit a higher academic impact, compared to those without funding. Second, the societal visibility of research supported by small to moderate number of funding sources is still lower than those without research funding. In contrast, a paper's academic impact is higher if it has a higher number of research funding sources. Third, the effects of funding on papers’ academic impact and societal visibility differ by funding mechanisms—having industry funding significantly increases the societal visibility of research. These findings can aid research policymakers’ funding allocation decisions and inform better assessment of research outcomes.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Effects of research funding on the academic impact and societal visibility of scientific research
- Creators
- Guiyan Ou - Wuhan UniversityKang Zhao - University of IowaRenxian Zuo - Wuhan UniversityJiang Wu - Wuhan University
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of informetrics, Vol.18(4), 101592
- Publisher
- Elsevier Ltd
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.joi.2024.101592
- ISSN
- 1751-1577
- eISSN
- 1875-5879
- Grant note
- National Natural Science Foundation of China Key Program: 72232006 China Scholarship Council (CSC): 202206270068
This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Key Program [No. 72232006] and China Scholarship Council (CSC) [No. 202206270068] .
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 11/2024
- Academic Unit
- Business Analytics
- Record Identifier
- 9984721127502771
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