Jointly published by Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest Scientometrics, Vol. 79, No. 2 (2009) 341–349
and Springer, Dordrecht DOI: 10.1007/s11192-009-0422-2
Received December 5, 2007
Address for correspondence:
ULF SANDSTRÖM
E-mail: ulfsa@isak.liu.se
0138–9130/US $ 20.00
Copyright © 2008 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest
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Research quality and diversity of funding:
A model for relating research money
to output of research
ULF SANDSTRÖM
Linköping University, Dept. ISAK, SE-58183 Linköping, Sweden
We analyze the relation between funding and output using bibliometric methods with field
normalized data. Our approach is to connect individual researcher data on funding from Swedish
university databases to data on incoming grants using the specific personal ID-number. Data on
funding include the person responsible for the grant. All types of research income are considered
in the analysis yielding a project database with a high level of precision. Results show that
productivity can be explained by background variables, but that quality of research is more or less
un-related to background variables.
Introduction
Reviewing the literature on careers and innovation DIETZ & BOZEMAN [2005]
remark that there are two almost separated literatures on these issues – the management
of innovation studies on the one hand and the study of productivity by economists and
sociologist on the other hand. There are by tradition a number of studies that focus on a
single sector, either the industrial track or the academic. Many studies with an academic
focus have a tendency to favor measures of institutional and personal prestige (the
Mertonian tradition), the industrial track favors management aspects and innovative
capabilities (the innovation tradition). Some more integrative approaches like that of
STEPHAN & LEVIN [1992] have asked for a change in the discussion, but with few
exceptions [DIETZ & AL., 2000] theoretical and empirical discussions on this subject are
woefully compartmentalized.
Already the literature on faculty research productivity is voluminous. We refer to
articles by FOX [1983, 1992], TOUTKOUSHIAN & AL. [2003] and LEE & BOZEMAN
[2005] for overviews of the main research issues. Whatever type of research the focus
on productivity counted as number of articles or number of citations has created
methodological problems. Even if these studies are based on summative indices