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The purpose of this paper is to focus on examining the research impact of papers written with and without funding. Specifically, the citation analysis method is used to compare the general and funded papers published in two leading international conferences, which are ACM SIGIR and ACM SIGKDD.

The authors investigate the number of general and funded papers to see whether the number of funded papers is larger than the number of general papers. In addition, the total citations and the number of highly cited papers with and without funding are also compared.

The analysis results of ACM SIGIR papers show that in most cases the number of funded papers is larger than the number of general papers. Moreover, the total captions, the average number of citations per paper, and the number of highly cited papers all reveal the superiority of funded papers over general papers. However, the findings are somewhat different for the ACM SIGKDD papers. This may be because ACM SIGIR began much earlier than ACM SIGKDD, which relates to the maturity of the research problems addressed in these two conferences.

The value of this paper is the first attempt at examining the research impact of general and funded research papers by the citation analysis method. The research impact of other research areas can be further investigated by other analysis methods.

This paper's aim is to examine the citation impact of Iranian funded research publications and compare it with research which received no funding.

Using a bibliometric method, the study investigated 80,300 Iranian publications published from 2000 to 2009 in SCI‐EXPANDED to discover the percentage of funded publications and to determine the citation impact of these publications in comparison with unfunded ones.

The results of the study showed that around 12.5 per cent of Iranian publications were funded and the number of funded publications has increased dramatically over the last four years. The citation impact of funded publications was higher in almost all of the subject fields. The highest number of funded publications belonged to the universities subordinate to The Ministry of Science, Research and Technology.

The impact and quality of research is influenced by different factors, for instance receiving funding and research facilities. As this issue has not been previously examined in Iran, the present study determines whether funding can influence the impact of Iranian research.

The study showcases the social impact (online attention) of funded research compared to nonfunded for the BRICS nations. The key themes achieving online attention across the funded and nonfunded publications have also been identified.

A total of 1,507,931 articles published across the BRICS nations for a period of three (03) years were downloaded from the Clarivate Analytics' InCites database of Web of Science (WoS). “Funding Acknowledgement Analysis (FAA)” was used to identify the funded and nonfunded publications. The altmetric score of the top highly cited (1%) publications was gauged from the largest altmetric data provider, “Altmetric.com”, using the DOI of each publication. One-way ANOVA test was used to know the impact of funding on the mentions (altmetrics) across different data sources covered by Altmetric.com. The highly predominant keywords (hotspots) have been mapped using bibliometric software, “VOSviewer”.

The mentions across all the altmetric sources for funded research are higher compared to nonfunded research for all nations. It indicates the altmetric advantage for funded research, as funded publications are more discussed, tweeted, shared and have more readers and citations; thus, acquiring more social impact/online attention compared to nonfunded publications. The difference in means for funded and nonfunded publications varies across various altmetric sources and nations. Further, the authors’ keyword analysis reveals the prominence of the respective nation names in publications of the BRICS.

The study showcases the utility of indexing the funding information and whether research funding increases social impact return (online attention). It presents altmetrics as an important impact assessment and evaluation framework indicator, adding one more dimension to the research performance. The linking of funding information with the altmetric score can be used to assess the online attention and multi-flavoured impact of a particular funding programme and source/agency of a nation so that necessary strategies would be framed to improve the reach and impact of funded research. It identifies countries that achieve significant online attention for their funded publications compared to nonfunded ones, along with the key themes that can be utilised to frame research and investment plans.

The study represents the social impact of funded research compared to nonfunded across the BRICS nations.

The purpose of the study is to map the funding status of COVID-19 research. The various aspects, such as funding ratio, geographical distribution of funded articles, journals publishing funded research and institutions that sponsor the COVID-19 research are studied. To visualize the country collaboration network and research trends/hotspots in the field of COVID-19 funded research, keyword analysis is also performed. The open-access (OA) status of the funded research on COVID-19 is also discussed.

The leading indexing and abstracting database, i.e. Web of Science (WoS), was used to retrieve the funded articles published on the topic COVID-19. The scientometric approach, more particularly “funding acknowledgment analysis (FAA),” was used to study the research funding.

A total of 5,546 publications of varied nature have been published on COVID-19, of which 1,760 are funded, thus indicating a funding ratio of 32%. China is the leading producer of funded research (760, 43.182%) on COVID-19 followed by the USA (482, 27.386%), England (179, 10.17%), Italy (119, 6.761%), Germany (107, 6.08%) and Canada (107, 6.08%). China is also in lead in terms of the funding ratio (60.94%). However, the funding ratio of the USA (31.54%) is at 11th rank behind Canada (40.68%), Germany (34.18%) and England (35.87%). The USA occupies a central position in the collaboration network having the highest score of articles with other countries (n = 489), with the USA–China collaboration ranking first (n = 123). National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) is the largest source of funding for COVID-19 research, supporting 342 (19.432%) publications, followed by the United States Department of Health Human Services (DHHS) and National Institute of Health (NIH), USA with 211 (11.989%) and 200 (11.364%) publications, respectively. However, China's National Key Research and Development Program achieves the highest citation impact (80.24) for its funded publications. Journal of Medical Virology, Science of the Total Environment and EuroSurveillance are the three most prolific journals publishing 63 (3.58%), 35 (1.989%) and 32 (1.818%), respectively, of the sponsored research articles on the COVID-19. A total of 3,138 institutions produce funded articles with Huazhong University of Science Technology and Wuhan University from China at the forefront publishing 92 (5.227%) and 83 (4.716%) publications, respectively. The funded research on COVID-19 is largely available in OA mode (1,674, 95.11%) and mainly through the Green and Bronze routes. The keyword clustering reveals that the articles mainly focus on the impact, structure and clinical characteristics of the virus.

The study's main limitation is that the results are based on the publications indexed by WoS, which has limited coverage compared to other databases. Moreover, all the funding agencies do not require or authors miss to acknowledge funding sources in their publications, which ultimately undermines the number of funded publications. The research publications on COVID-19 are also proliferating; thus, the study's findings shall be valid for a minimum period.

The funding of research on the COVID-19 is highly essential to accelerate innovative research and help countries fight against the global pandemic. The study's findings reflect the efforts made by nations and institutions to remove the financial and accessibility hurdles. It not only underscores the lead of the USA in the research on COVID-19, but also shows China as a forerunner in sponsoring the research, thus, helping to know the contribution of nations toward understanding the dynamics of pandemic and controlling it. The study will help healthcare practitioners and policymakers recognize the areas that remain the focus of sponsored research on COVID-19 and other left-out areas that need to be taken up and thus may help in policy formulation. It further highlights the impact of prolific funding agencies so that efforts may be initiated to increase the impact and thereby the returns of investment. The study can help to map the scientific structure of COVID-19 through the lens of funded research and recognize core inclinations of its development. Overall, a comprehensive analysis has been performed to present the detailed characteristics of sponsored research on emerging area of COVID-19, and it is informative, useful and one of its kind on the theme.

The study explores the funding support of research on COVID-19 and its other aspects, along with the mode of availability.

How prospective or emerging technologies can be supported through government-funded research projects has gradually received global attention. However, previous studies have primarily focused on the effects of government funding on subsequent technological development, the overall economy or social welfare of a country or corporate research and development (R&D) activities. These studies have not examined the technology distribution and development trends of government-funded research from a comprehensive technology perspective. In addition, previous measurements of the influence of government-funded R&D projects faced the difficulty of transferring the research achievements of government-funded research to the commercial market.

Patents can provide a preliminary understanding of the collaboration, development focus and status of market technologies. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to examine the development directions of patented technologies engendered from government-funded research projects. Analyzing the network of government-funded patented technologies helped identify the current status and location of specific technologies in a patent network as well as the hotspot technologies in government-funded research projects that correspond to the market.

The results of this study indicated that the technologies obtaining government-funded patents mainly consist of advanced materials and semiconductors and that the technological focus has shifted over the years. Nanotechnology, pharmaceutical technology and sanitary technology have gradually become the technologies receiving most of government-funded patents. The trend of development of these technologies also corresponds to the emerging technologies advocated by countries worldwide in recent years.

This study provided a comprehensive verification of the government-funded patented technologies from a macro perspective by identifying key technologies using technology network analysis. The findings of this study can serve as a reference for the allocation of governmental R&D resources and the promotion of novel technologies in the private sector.

Reports a survey which investigated the funding of library research in six federal government owned universities in Nigeria, and the impact of research funding on the publication output of librarians. Findings indicate that research is either self‐funded, or funded by the respondents’ employers, and an insignificant number have been funded by international agencies. Grants are given for postgraduate degree and personal research. About half the respondents see the research grants they receive to be either fairly adequate or adequate: but the majority expressed dissatisfaction with their research allowances. All agreed that enhanced research grants and allowances would lead to a greater research output. Most publications produced by the respondents resulted from self‐funded research, followed by research sponsored by grants from employers, and lastly from researches funded by foundations, agencies and associations.

Scientists are known for their good ideas, but packaging those ideas into a commercial format requires skills, funding, and processes for which many scientists and their research institutions are all too often not equipped. The Victorian Government of Australia has developed a successful initiative designed to facilitate and commercialise scientific innovations. The purpose of this paper is to document the processes and the lessons drawn from the establishment of the Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) Initiative.

This case study describes the Australian state of Victoria's STI Initiative over a four year period from its inception. The program was designed to enhance the ability to compete globally through commercialisation of Victoria's science capability and to facilitate greater industry innovation through collaboration with the science community.

The STI case demonstrates how the program has exceeded expectations with proven return on investment in less than four years. The case describes the STI's history, structure, strategies, processes, and methods of monitoring and evaluation. It also describes problems and difficulties that have occurred and how these were overcome. One of the major findings of the STI Initiative concerns the development of governance structures for each project. Rather than introducing rigidity and decision speed‐bumps, the introduction of well‐designed governance structures provides rapid and useful feedback and favourable control measures.

A large part of managing STI projects involves the establishment of funded grants and the development and management of commercial objectives and cooperation between the science and commercial sectors. It is argued that this successful format for commercialising science and facilitating innovation can be templated and therefore duplicated by governments almost anywhere in the world.

The lessons from this case study support the argument that there is a need for structure to formalise a successful relationship between industry, science, government, and investors. The paper provides a format for such a structure based on the experiences of the STI Initiative based in Victoria, Australia.

Academic citation and social attention measure different dimensions in the impact of research results. The authors quantify the contribution of funding to both indicators considering the differences attributable to the research field and access type.

Citation and social attention accumulated until the year 2021 of more than 367 thousand research articles published in the year 2018 are studied. The authors consider funding acknowledgments (FAs) in the research articles. The data source is Dimensions, and the units of study are research articles in the United Nation (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Most cited goals by researchers do not coincide with those that arouse greater social attention. A small proportion of articles accumulates a large part of the citations and most of the social attention. Both citation and social attention grow with funding. Thus, funded research has a greater probability of being cited in academic articles and mentioned in social media. Funded research receives on average two to three times more citations and 2.5 to 4.5 times more social attention than unfunded research. Moreover, the open access (OA) modalities gold and hybrid have the greatest advantages in citation and social attention due to funding.

Specific topics were studied in a specific period. Studying other topics and/or different time periods might result in different findings.

When funding to publish in open or hybrid access journals is not available, it is advisable to self-archiving the pre-print or post-print version in a freely accessible repository.

Although cautiously, it is also advisable to consider the social impact of the research to complement the scientific impact in the evaluation of the research.

The joint evaluation of the effect of both funding and OA on social attention.

This paper aims to shed light on the linkage between research and development (R&D) networks and public funding presented in a given period by using network-based evaluation tools as a means of exploring the relational dimension in public projects designed to foster technology R&D activities.

This research uses co-occurrence network analysis of relevant public projects to assess how technological associations might occur within the R&D activities of given publicly funded projects as well as conducts correlation analysis to understand the extent to which linkages of R&D activity in technology fields are related to public expenditure.

Core technology fields, regarded as eligible to receive continued public funding, are critical for enhancing competitiveness and sustainable growth at the nationally strategic technology level. Thus, the relationship between R&D and the level of government funding for these fields is generally perceived as strong. However, a few technology fields, which did not actively form specific network relationships with other technology fields, are considered to exceptionally drive the largest government support. This trend indicates that the government-funded R&D should be designed and managed not only to curb the inefficiencies existing in the current funding programs but also to achieve the appropriateness for further technology development.

Despite the comprehensive findings, this study has several limitations. First, it is difficult to control any confounding factors, such as the determinants and constraints of the government budget allocation and expenditure decisions over S&T areas, strategic frameworks for public investment and evolving policy landscapes in technology sectors, which lead to bias in the study results. Second, this study is based on a narrow, single-year data set of a specific field of projects supported by the Korean government’s R&D program. Therefore, the generalization of findings may be limited. The authors assumed that influences caused by confounding variables during the initial phase of the public funding schemes would not be significant, but they did not take into account possible factors that might arise coincident with the subsequent phase changes. As such, the issue of confounding variables needs to be carefully considered in research design to provide alternative explanations for the results that have been ruled out. The limitations of this study, therefore, could be overcome by comparing the outcome difference between subsidized and non-subsidized R&D projects or evaluating targeted funding schemes or tax incentives that support and promote various areas of R&D with sufficiently large, evidence-based data sets. Also, future research must identify and analyze the R&D activities concerning public support programs performed in other countries associated with strategic priorities to provide more profound insight into how they differ. Third, there are some drawbacks to using these principal investigators-provided classification codes, such as subjectivity, inaccuracy and non-representation. These limitations may be addressed by using content-based representations of the projects rather than using pre-defined codes. Finally, the role that government investment in R&D has played in developing new science and manufacturing technologies of materials and components through network relationships could be better examined using longitudinal analysis. Furthermore, the findings suggest the need for further research to integrate econometric models of performance outcomes such as input–output relations into the network analysis for analyzing the flow of resources and activities between R&D sectors in a national economy. Therefore, future research would be helpful in developing a methodological strategy that could analyze temporal trends in the identification of the effects of public funding on the performance of R&D activity and demand.

Public funding schemes and their intended R&D relationships still depend on a framework to generate the right circumstances for leading and promoting coordinated R&D activities while strengthening research capacity to enhance the competitiveness of technologies. Each technology field has a relatively important role in R&D development that should be effectively managed and supervised to accomplish its intended goals of R&D budgeting. Thus, when designing and managing R&D funding schemes and strategy-driven R&D relations, potential benefits and costs of using resources from each technology field should be defined and measured. In this regard, government-funded R&D activities should be designed to develop or accommodate a coordinated program evaluation, to be able to examine the extent to which public funding is achieving its objectives of fostering R&D networks, balancing the purpose of government funding against the needs of researchers and technology sectors. In this sense, the examination of public R&D relations provides a platform for discussion of relational network structures characterizing R&D activities, the strategic direction and priorities for budget allocation of the R&D projects. It also indicates the methodological basis for addressing the impact of public funding for R&D activities on the overall performance of technology fields.

The value of this work lies in a preliminary exploratory analysis that provides a high-level snapshot of the areas of metallurgy, polymers/chemistry/fibers and ceramics, funded by the Korean Government in 2016 to promote technological competitiveness by encouraging industries to maintain and expand their competencies.

This paper aims to determine the mediating effects of government-funded research and development (R&D) projects in the relationship between the competence factors of universities and the performance of university–industry cooperation.

This study has been conducted to analyze the mediating effect of government- and enterprise-funded R&D projects in consideration of the performance during university–industry cooperative projects. In this study, a three-step analysis of the mediating effects (Baron and Kenny, 1986) and Sobel Test are taken for the empirical analysis.

In the result, R&D funding from the central government partially mediates the performance of university–industry cooperation when the research capacity of the full-time faculty and the size of the Technical Licensing Office (TLO) are taken as independent variables. R&D funding from the central government does not mediate university–industry cooperation when the size of the center for university–industry cooperation is an independent variable. However, R&D funding from a local government does not mediate the performance of university–industry cooperative projects for any chosen independent variables. The results of this study suggest a direction for governmental funding in R&D projects to promote performance during university–industry cooperation. Another requirement is for universities to expand their research capacity and the operations of their TLO.

The majority of former research studies on university–industry cooperation and its performance have focused on the university’s research capacity, the competence of the TLO and the traits of the university.