This article presents a process for benchmarking scientific productivity fit for public policy purposes, in which quantitative indicators have the major role of initiating and focusing the discussions. It shows that the calculation of a research productivity indicator defined as the ratio of the...

This paper conceptualises networks of excellence (NoEs), a new funding instrument in the EU's Sixth Framework Programme for research, to propose how to monitor and assess the achievement of their objectives. It analyses the dynamics of NoEs and potential changes taking place in an NoE during its...

This paper investigates the developments of research councils in Austria, Norway and Switzerland, and analyses their responsiveness to government and science. By use of various data sources and indicators, our results suggest that councils are sometimes more responsive to the beneficiaries'...

In this paper, we critically assess the specificity of the French research system and of its funding mode, which is accepted in most of the literature on the subject. We show that this interpretation is largely a result of the use of categories for the analysis of public funding that are not...

This paper provides an account of the reform of the public research funding system in Poland between 1989 and 2007, a period which includes the dramatic change after the breakdown of the Communist regime with the creation of a completely new system of research funding, yet still characterized by...

In this paper, an analysis is proposed of the evolution of public research in Switzerland from World War II to the year 2000. Thanks to the combination of different data sources, we produce a set of indicators for the overall volume of funding, the share of projects funds, and the share of the...

Transformation of public research funding systems in central and eastern Europe (CEE) represent a natural experiment whereby different funding systems have developed from relatively common heritage of the socialist system. In this introduction that builds on the three papers of this thematic...