University research funding: Why does industry funding continue to be a small portion of university research, and how can we change the paradigm?

2020 ◽  
pp. 095042222096228
Author(s):  
Behnam Pourdeyhimi
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Research Funding ◽  
University Research ◽  
Public Private Partnerships ◽  
External Funding ◽  
Industry Funding ◽  
Full Picture ◽  
The Usa

In the USA, the federal government is still the chief source of external funding for R&D across all industries and academia. Industry funding for universities continues to remain low. There have been many attempts to increase the interactions between industry and academia and, while there is a great deal of interest in building public–private partnerships, the results have not been promising. In this article, the author analyzes data from a number of government sources and other organizations to provide a full picture of the funding landscape in the USA. Some thought is given to why such interactions have not been successful and how we may be able to realign university activities and policies to embrace partnerships with industry.

scholarly journals Fast Professors, Research Funding, and the Figured Worlds of Mid-Career Ontario Academics

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Sandra Acker ◽  
Michelle K McGinn
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Research Funding ◽  
Figured Worlds ◽  
External Funding ◽  
Justice Research ◽  
Research Production ◽  
Social Justice Research ◽  
Research Accomplishment ◽  
The Way

Heightened pressures to publish prolifically and secure external funding stand in stark contrast with the slow scholarship movement. This article explores ways in which research funding expectations permeate the “figured worlds” of 16 mid-career academics in education, social work, sociology, and geography in 7 universities in Ontario, Canada. Participants demonstrated a steady record of research accomplishment and a commitment to social justice in their work. The analysis identified four themes related to the competing pressures these academics described in their day-to-day lives: getting funded; life gets in the way; work gets in the way; and being a fast professor. Participants spoke about their research funding achievements and struggles. In some cases, they explained how their positioning, including gender and race, might have affected their research production, compared to colleagues positioned differently. Their social justice research is funded, but some suspect at a lower level than colleagues studying conventional topics. In aiming for the impossible standards of a continuously successful research record, these individuals worked “all the time.” Advocates claim that slow scholarship is not really about going slower, but about maintaining quality and caring in one’s work, yet participants’ accounts suggest they have few options other than to perform as “fast professors.” At mid-career, they question whether and how they can keep up this pace for 20 or more years.

Federal Funds and University Research

1973 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-130
Author(s):  
Bernard S. Sheehan
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Education ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Research University ◽  
Operating Cost ◽  
University Research ◽  
Post Secondary Education ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Capital Costs ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Of Canada

The federal government withdrew from the field of direct financial support of universities in 1967 under provisions of the new Act. Along with the full responsibility for university finance, the federal government transferred to each province certain tax revenues and a post-secondary education adjustment payment to bring the total financial transfer to at least 50 per cent of the allowable operating cost of post-secondary education. Costs allowable under the Act exclude capital costs, federal grants, student aid, and income for assisted, sponsored, and contract research. The federal councils and agencies continue to be the primary contributors to university research funds. The purpose of this note is to determine the current financial contribution of the government of Canada to university research. Much of the problem is its definition. To establish the framework for this definition, three sets of ideas are explored. These are: direct and indirect costs of university research, university research as an embedded activity, and the problem of relating university activity costs to incomes received from specific sources. These notions lead to formulae which yield divergent alternatives of the federal contribution depending upon the set of assumptions deemed appropriate. Much of the data needed for these calculations were gathered from primary sources and illustrate the application of the formulae for the four-year period 1966–70.

Coalitions

2015 ◽  
pp. 240-255
Author(s):  
Erinn N. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Quality Care ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Healthcare Systems ◽  
Public Private Partnerships ◽  
Federal Grants ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Provide Quality Care ◽  
New Form ◽  
To Receive

Demands in healthcare have placed a strain on healthcare providers trying to provide quality care while maintaining accreditations and planning for the possibility of expansion of resources as well as patients. Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) have been used to help ease this strain and increase the capabilities of healthcare systems all over the country. In an effort to “level the playing field,” the federal government has recently decided to mandate the structure of these healthcare PPPs. That is, a new form of these partnerships (i.e. coalitions) has been designated the organizational model that healthcare PPPs must evolve into in order to receive certain types of federal grants. This chapter discusses these coalitions as well as challenges for PPPs that are just now in the process of forming. Also discussed is the increased effort required to form coalitions from PPPs that have already been in existence for any length of time.

Higher Education at a Crossroads

2016 ◽  
pp. 27-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela A. Lemoine ◽  
Thomas Hackett ◽  
Michael D. Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Research Funding ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
University Research ◽  
Public Higher Education ◽  
The Road ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The World ◽  
Quality Learning ◽  
The Impact

The leadership needs to develop new organizational structures and systems that will promote and encourage quality learning and the ability to assess the impact of the teaching. Governments across the world have steadily minimized their support for public higher education, and costs associated with gaining a degree have increased constantly over the last decade. Most universities are forced to adopt a restructuring model for commoditizing education to make a profit from large numbers of students. The road ahead for higher education is filled with challenges, risks and uncertainties that begin with education being valued as more than a simple commodity: education becomes a public good. Higher education is increasingly viewed as a major instrument of economic development. In order to hold universities accountable despite limited governmental budgets, many nations have adopted performance-based university research funding strategies for targeted programs.

scholarly journals Building internal capacity in pragmatic trials: a workshop for program scientists at the US National Cancer Institute

Trials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wynne E. Norton ◽  
Merrick Zwarenstein ◽  
Susan Czajkowski ◽  
Elisabeth Kato ◽  
Ann O’Mara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
National Cancer Institute ◽  
Research Funding ◽  
Cancer Control ◽  
Public Health Research ◽  
Funding Agency ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Pragmatic Trials ◽  
Pragmatic Clinical Trials ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Interactive Workshop

Abstract Background Building capacity in research funding organizations to support the conduct of pragmatic clinical trials is an essential component of advancing biomedical and public health research. To date, efforts to increase the ability to design and carry out pragmatic trials have largely focused on training researchers. To complement these efforts, we developed an interactive workshop tailored to meet the roles and responsibilities of program scientists at the National Cancer Institute—the leading cancer research funding agency in the USA. The objectives of the workshop were to improve the understanding of pragmatic trials and enhance the capacity to distinguish between elements that make a trial more pragmatic or more explanatory among key programmatic staff. To our knowledge, this is the first reported description of such a workshop. Main body The workshop was developed to meet the needs of program scientists as researchers and stewards of research funds, which often includes promoting scientific initiatives, advising prospective applicants, collaborating with grantees, and creating training programs. The workshop consisted of presentations from researchers with expertise in the design and interpretation of trials across the explanatory-pragmatic continuum. Presentations were followed by interactive, small-group exercises to solidify participants’ understanding of the purpose and conduct of these trials, which were tailored to attendees’ areas of expertise across the cancer control continuum and designed to reflect their scope of work as program scientists at NCI. A total of 29 program scientists from the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences and the Division of Cancer Prevention participated; 19 completed a post-workshop evaluation. Attendees were very enthusiastic about the workshop: they reported improved knowledge, significant relevance of the material to their work, and increased interest in pragmatic trials across the cancer control continuum. Conclusion Training program scientists at major biomedical research agencies who are responsible for developing funding opportunities and advising grantees is essential for increasing the quality and quantity of pragmatic trials. Together with workshops for other target audiences (e.g., academic researchers), this approach has the potential to shape the future of pragmatic trials and continue to generate more and better actionable evidence to guide decisions that are of critical importance to health care practitioners, policymakers, and patients.

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