GRANTS, CONTRACTS AND NETWORKS: WHAT INFLUENCES BIOTECHNOLOGY SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION?

This study measures the impact of university-funded research and collaboration on scientific production of Canadian biotechnology academics. Using the information contained in Elsevier s Scopus scientific articles database and the Quebec Systeme d information sur la recherche universitaire (SIRU) which gives a detailed account of grants and contracts obtained by each researcher, we build a database of the funding received by individual academic researchers and their scientific publications. The selection criterion for an article or a patent to be extracted is that at least one Canadian scientist is a co-author. Using co-publication links, we then create the network of individual scientists. This paper then analyses a time-related model of the impact of academic research financing and network structure on research output measured by the number of papers. Results suggest that individual funding and a strong position in the past collaborative network has a positive effect on research output. In contrast to a number of studies, contracts are not found to have a negative influence on publication, quite the contrary.

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