Survival or Crisis? Funding Distribution from Grant-Making Foundations to Grassroots Social Organizations in China

The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake increased the need for disaster relief and reconstruction projects in China. This disaster created an upsurge of Chinese grant-making foundations, which then increased funding expectations. Many grassroots social organizations (SOs) in China believed that going forward, this level of funding would continue. However, the majority of grassroots SOs in China are currently facing an existential crisis. Their survival is being threatened by a shortage of funding from both local and foreign grant-making foundations. This research uses an empirical analysis of grant-making foundations and in-depth interviews, as well as observational evidence accumulated over a 10-year period, to explore the distribution of funding from foundations to grassroots SOs in China. The findings show that there are a limited number of Chinese grant-making foundations and that the foundations that exist do not include grassroots SOs in their funding scheme.

The Interdependence of Research Funding Concentration, Policy Priorities, and Problem Choice

The prioritisation of research funding towards a small elite of researchers and research topics of "strategic" importance are becoming a norm across national research systems. Researchers are increasingly worried that such steering hampers the diversity of scientific approaches and problems addressed. However, the effects of increased steering of who and what receives research funds are not well known. I use evidence from 65,000 research grants awarded by seven research councils in the United Kingdom and fifteen Danish research funders to investigate how strong funding concentration and thematic targeting leads to less topical diversity. Researchers in the very top of the funding distribution primarily investigate topics and disciplines with the most funding success, and research output form targeted funding schemes overlaps with that from investigatorledgrants. Moreover, priorities from private funders line up with the type of researchfunded by public research councils. The findings highlight how steering through funding decisions can multiply

Development of a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of higher education institutions departments

As a result of reviewing the scientific literature, studying the legal framework, analysis of socio-economic conditions, modern practice of higher education institutions management, a contradiction was found between the high requirements for free economic management and the lack of criteria for evaluating its effectiveness on the basis of innovative technologies. This contradiction can be resolved by developing appropriate models and methods for evaluating the work effectiveness of higher education institutions. In this case, the method should be based on the results of the basic structural unit of the institution of higher education, meaning the department. The purpose of the work is to increase the informativeness of assessing the effectiveness for departments of higher education institutions by determining comprehensive performance indicators through the methodology of public funding distribution. The methodology is based on the principles of financing higher education institutions introduced by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. In order to create a methodology for assessing the quality of a higher education institution functioning, a set of criteria for assessing the education quality in higher education institution, the quality of scientific and international activities and financial activities were considered. The developed methodology allows to determining complex performance indicators through the method of public funding distribution, which operates with the following data: indicator of the estimated contingent of higher education; indicators of average competitive scores of entrants to study at the bachelor's and master's levels of education; an indicator of the scale of a higher education institution activity; indicators of personnel of scientific and pedagogical workers; indicator of a money amount from scientific works; students-winners indicators of a student scientific works competitions and Olympiads; an indicator of the publications number and citations according to the scientometric databases Scopus and Web of Science, meaning the international recognition for employees of higher education institutions. The formed methodology can be used by the administration of a higher education institution to calculate possible funding for the next year, determine the amount of funding for its departments, and so on.

Towards inclusive funding practices for early career researchers

Securing research funding is a challenge faced by most scientists in academic institutions worldwide. Funding success rates for all career stages are low, but the burden falls most heavily on early career researchers (ECRs). These are young investigators in training and new principal investigators who have a shorter track record. ECRs are dependent on funding to establish their academic careers. The low number of career development awards and the lack of sustained research funding result in the loss of ECR talent in academia. Several steps in the current funding process, from grant conditions to review, play significant roles in the distribution of funds. Furthermore, there is an imbalance where certain research disciplines and labs of influential researchers receive more funding. As a group of ECRs with global representation, we examined funding practices, barriers, and facilitators to the current funding systems. We also identified alternatives to the most common funding distribution practices, such as diversifying risk or awarding grants on a partly random basis. Here, we detail recommendations for funding agencies and grant reviewers to improve ECR funding prospects worldwide and promote a fairer and more inclusive funding landscape for ECRs.

The Curious Case of the Missing Tail: Trends Among the Top 1% of School Districts in the United States, 2000–2015

This article investigates trends in the relative wealth of the richest school districts in the United States between 2000 and 2015. For the purposes of discussion, I focus on the top 1% of districts. I argue that trends in school funding for the richest districts deserve greater attention from education researchers. Districts in the top 1% of the cost-adjusted, national school funding distribution are disproportionately suburban, affluent, and White. The relative wealth of these districts increased sharply (31.59%) between 2000 and 2015. Disaggregating these trends reveals large variation between states. Nevertheless, resource concentration in the top percentile of school districts increased in a large majority of states. These findings cannot be explained by efforts to provide additional educational resources to students with the greatest needs, and they suggest the ways in which the concentration of affluence accompanying growing economic inequality may be changing school funding.

Ranking Diseases

From the 1960s to the present, advocates have introduced various criteria to highlight their diseases’ impacts, from mortality to health spending. These competing claims encouraged policymakers to seek formal ways to rank and compare diseases, creating pressure to standardize the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget across disease categories. NIH officials worried that the pursuit of narrow, disease-specific goals would funnel resources away from basic science and untargeted research. But while the proportion of the NIH budget targeting these goals declined slightly, the overall amounts increased dramatically, suggesting that specialized campaigns do not draw resources away from broader goals. The push for disease data did change how the government distributes money, bringing the funding distribution more in line with mortality rates. The effects of advocacy go beyond securing funding or passing favorable laws; advocacy also changes how policymakers define issues and judge policies, with concrete effects on funding distributions.

How arbitrary are the weights assigned to books in performance-based research funding? An empirical assessment of the weight and size of monographs in Flanders

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical assessment of the weight assigned to monographs in the publication indicator of the performance-based research funding system (PRFS) in Flanders, Belgium. By relating publication weight to publication size the authors offer an alternative perspective on the production of scholars who publish monographs. This perspective on weights is linked to the aggregation level at which PRFS indicators are used: the national/regional one as opposed to the local one. In Flanders as elsewhere the publication indicator designed for funding distribution between universities has sometimes trickled down to institutions, their faculties and departments. Design/methodology/approach As an alternative indicator of scholarly production the authors propose the median number of pages of a publication type. Measuring the size of publications allows to compare the weight ratio between monographs and journal articles in the publication indicator to their size ratio in the VABB-SHW database. The authors compare two levels, one of four universities and one of 16 disciplines. Findings Median publication size differences between disciplines are much larger than those between universities. This indicates that an increase of monographs’ weight in the publication indicator would hardly affect funding distribution at the regional level. Disciplines with a relatively large share of monographs, however, would contribute more to the publication indicator. Hence an increase of monographs’ weight might provide a better balance between fields and between publication types. Originality/value This paper presents a thought experiment regarding the weight assigned to different publication types in the publication indicator of the Flemish PRFS: what would happen if this weight were replaced by the median number of pages of a publication type? In doing so, we highlight that such weighting schemes play an important role in finding a balance between fields of research. The sizeable differences between weight and size ratios offer a new and critical perspective on the weighting schemes currently used in PRFS, also in other countries.

SKIM PEMBIAYAAN UMKM DAN PENINGKATAN KINERJA UMKM FURNITURE JEPARA

The government has been doing a lot of efforts to help SMEs capitalisation, various schemes of credit and funding for SMEs were launched as KUR, PMT, Gapoktan, etc. In the middle of 2015, KUR could be just absorbed although the conditions have softened. This is because SMEs are unique, that is feasible but not bankable. In addition, the funding only limited on distributing capital, in fact the SMEs problems not only in the capital, but concerning the expertise in marketing, financing, and managing the company. It need deep research about how to formulate funding schemes that is considered attractive by the SMEs. This research used qualitative method with the interpretive paradigm fenomology approach, case study in PT Jepara Express International (furniture supplier). This research was conducted through interview, observation and documentation by using data analysis technique, Milles and Hubberman method. Credibility of data was tested by using triangulation techniques, data sources, and time. From research methods, SMEs furniture in Jepara intrepreting that funding considered attractive if using partnership type with cluster and profit-sharing systems are becoming solution for SMEs furniture’s funding distribution program. In addition, certain entities formed to become alternative distribution funding schemes. Through this entities, SMEs furniture in Jepara could access and also got assisstance in marketing, financing and managing the company. Finnally, SMEs furniture could increase its performance through assisstance program. In the future needs further research about appropriate entities to represent the SMEs needed in financing and assisstance

The Zimbabwean Film Industry

This article explores the state of affairs in Zimbabwe’s film industry. It addresses the question: does a Zimbabwean film industry exist? The complex answer depends on at least two parameters. The first is one’s chosen definition of a film industry. The second is the extent of one’s knowledge of realities on the ground. The article argues that the Zimbabwean film industry, like most in Africa, is necessarily a work in progress. That is, it is constantly adapting to social, political and economic conditions in the search for a sustainable model or growth. Since 1980, the industry has been in a prolonged search for itself. A general feature has been the search for ways with which to replace thirty-year old colonial heritages of filmmaking, distribution and exhibition. Today what was traditionally a minority activity is becoming open to broader participation. The future, though, remains an unknown x. Funding, distribution and profitability are still sore points. For the first time, however, what seem like true foundations are being laid.