Factors affecting government-funded research quality

ABSTRACT

As the number of research grants distributed to academic research in science has been continuously increasing, it is necessary to examine various factors that affect research quality. While there have been a large number of studies on factors that affect research productivity or performance, their empirical results have been quite inconclusive and conflicting. We argue that one of the reasons for mixed results involves the measurement of research performance. To tackle the problem, we measure the quality of government-funded research through journal impact factors as well as journal rankings, considering the specific features of academic disciplines. We find that the magnitude and degree of factors vary depending on how research quality is measured. More interestingly, several variables including researchers’ ages, the number of authors, and international collaboration show completely different results according to the level of journal ranking. Based on the empirical results, we suggest policy interventions that can improve the quality of government-supported research.

KEYWORDS:

• Research quality
• journal impact factor
• journal ranking
• government-funded research
• Korea

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Hyejin Jung, Research Professor, the Center for Technology Innovation Management, Korea University of Technology and Education.

Dr. Inseok Seo, Assistant Professor, the Anyang University.

Mr. Jaesik Kim, Directorate for Administrative Management, National Research Foundation.

Dr. Byung-Keun Kim, Professor, the School of Industrial Management, Korea University of Technology & Education, Director for the Center for Technology Innovation Management, Korea University of Technology and Education.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government [NRF-2014S1A5B8061859].