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The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which academic staff members in tertiary institutions in Nigeria access research grants, and to bring to light the factors that hinder their effort to accessing research grants.

An online questionnaire was designed using the SurveyMonkey software to collect the qualitative data from academic staff in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

The study revealed that only a few number of academic staff members in the tertiary institutions in Nigeria have received research grants. The study also revealed that a large number of research works carried out by academic staff are funded by themselves from the meager salary they receive. It also emerged that Tertiary Education Trust Fund is the highest funding body that academic staff have received research grants from. Different research funding agencies/organizations both local and international that support studies in Nigeria were also mentioned to create awareness for others to utilize. Politics in the selection of research proposals, inadequate publicity/advertisement for research grants applications and lack of knowledge about funding agencies/organizations were identified as the most mentioned hindrances to accessing research grants in Nigeria.

A limitation of this study is the low response rate obtained, considering the number of tertiary institutions in Nigeria which does not permit generalization. The low response rate suggests that responding to an online questionnaire is not high on the agenda of academic staff members in tertiary institutions in Nigeria, and this is a major challenge for researchers undertaking evidence-based research considering the number of institutions.

The findings will provide academic staff with important data and insight into the various local and international research funding agencies/organizations that support research in Nigeria.

Academic staff members receiving research grants will enable them find a solution to societal problems through evidence-based research. The findings of this study will inform other academic staff of the various research funding agencies/organizations that support research in Nigeria. This will create awareness for them to access such grants.

The work is an original research work conducted by the researchers. The findings will add to the body of knowledge on the area of research funding in Nigeria.

This paper aims to look at the implementation of project-funded research governance and its potential to induce organisational learning on responsible research and innovation (RRI). This paper analysed what types of organisational learning and change can take place within organisations of an Europe-funded project and to what extent. This paper examined whether and how change occurs and how it is shaped and co-produced with other orderings.

The paper is based on materials and evidence collected while working on the internal evaluation of a Horizon 2020-funded project. Analysis of the results of the mixed methods evaluation design was used to characterise occurrences of organisational learning and change.

The authors identified different forms of learning (single-loop learning, double-loop learning, reflexive and reflective learning and situational learning). The extent of learning that could lead to long-lasting organisational change was limited. This was due to the project-based and organisational design, the key-based definition of RRI and the indeterminacy of what constitutes learning and change – both at the level of funding and performing the project. For organisational change to occur, the authors argue for governance mechanisms based on reflexive learning that consider a range of structural conditions and measures.

Organisational learning plays an important role in change processes, which has so far been given too little consideration concerning the governance and implementation of RRI through project-based funding. The authors argue for a restructuring of governance and funding mechanisms to create more space for reflexivity and learning.

University governance is constantly challenged by changing expectations and contexts. New, prestigious and well-endowed funding schemes are one possible source of pressure for change of university governance. This article analyses the impact of one such scheme, the grants of the European Research Council (ERC), on the governance of European universities. After outlining a model of how this impact on universities can be expected to occur, we present the results of an exploratory study at a very early stage of the ERC’s existence (2010–2011). The empirical analysis is based on an investigation of 11 universities in eight countries, which shows that different kinds of universities are affected in varied and often unexpected ways, with particular differences arising at different levels within the universities.

Research-funding organisations (RFOs) and research-performing organisations (RPOs) are in a privileged position to significantly reshape the research and innovation landscape – not only by implementing gender equality plans (GEPs) as institutions but also in terms of the relationship and potential impact of these plans on the institutional context in which they are embedded. This paper reflects on the content and methodology of the GEP implementation at two RFOs and one non-university RPOs. Grounded in the knowledge base of each organisation, the analysis provides insights and expert feedback in order to understand to what extent and under which conditions GEPs are a systematic and comprehensive policy in promoting structural change that has a high potential impact on research policy definition and funding. Reviewing the internal assessment phase, the preliminary steps in the design process as well as the implementation and monitoring phase, the analysis detects both the strengths and challenges or resistance connected to external and internal factors as well as the specific strategies that small organisations employ to promote and sustain organisational and cultural change.

This paper analyses French and US universities’ organizational responses to the more or less explicit pressures they face to go interdisciplinary. Defining universities as pluralistic organizations, I show that the implementation of interdisciplinary research does not result in well-integrated institutional strategies, but rather combines initiatives from the scientific community and from university leaders. Based on case studies conducted on the development of interdisciplinary nanomedicine in five leading French and US research universities, I identify three settings where the implementation of interdisciplinarity involves shifts in organizational structure – in principal investigator-based research teams and scientific networks, in departmental boundaries, and in institutional structures, and question issues of governance, leadership and resource allocation arising from those shifts. We see similarities between the two countries in terms of how initiatives by “entrepreneurial academics” – searching for funds for interdisciplinary research – and by the university leadership – also searching for funds, and redefining institutional projects around interdisciplinarity – complement each other. We also identify one major difference – with French pro-interdisciplinary university policies being strongly influenced by a political impetus from the French ministry of higher education and research.

This paper aims to examine when and how the main management paradigms have emerged and prevailed in Finnish management research. It seeks to offer a country‐specific case on the diffusion of management paradigms in the field of management research.

This paper is a historical study that uses quantitative content analysis as a methodology. The data consist of research proposals funded by eight of the largest Finnish funding agencies during the period 1937‐2007. The results obtained from these data are compared to the emergence and prevalence of the paradigms in Finnish academic management education, as depicted by course descriptions obtained from the study guides of eight main Finnish academic institutions that provide graduate level education in management.

Management research and management education do not seem to follow the same patterns of adopting different management paradigms. Management paradigms seem to experience upswings in their patterns of use, on average a decade earlier in management research than in education.

As the position of formal scientific management knowledge varies greatly across countries and historical periods, the study contributes to this line of research by giving a descriptive account of the paradigmatic development of management research schemes in Finland which can be compared and contrasted to the development of management research in other countries. The relevance of the study for management theory‐building is in contemplating the relationships between the actors creating, diffusing and using managerial knowledge.

The emergence of Research Management and Administration (RMA) is a result of the pressure on academics to secure research funding from external sources, the increasing competition for these funds, as well as the rising requirements of research funders in terms of reporting and compliance with regulations. This is relevant in the case of the current Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (HEU) funded by the European Union (EU) which requires important level of professionalisation of the research support staff on behalf of the applicant institutions. Data management, open science, research ethics and integrity, achieving impact beyond academia and the valorisation of project results can be regarded as non-research specific criteria which have to be met by applicant organisations to secure the highly competitive funding. Meeting these non-specific criteria is not always possible in countries whose performance is lagging behind compared to the Western European competitors in EU-funded programmes, such as Hungary.

Our findings reveal two things. First, research support in Hungary is in its early stage of maturity, similary to many countries in Central and Eastern Europe. In several cases, Research Managers and Administrators (RMAs) do not possess the knowledge necessary to meet the non-research specific criteria even if the knowledge is present at the institution or with other colleagues. Second, due to the continuously increasing participation in EU-funded framework programmes (FPs), the state of research support in Hungary is constantly evolving. There is also willingness to learn and improve capacities, which needs strategic planning, studying others’ examples and their adaptability. Such processes can support the capacity building and professionalisation of research offices not only in Hungary, but in countries of the Central and Eastern European region with a similar maturity level of RMA.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the vision that the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation (DFG)) pursues with its funding programmes in the field of digital information provision.

The first section of the paper sketches out the strategic decisions which determine the funding policy of the DFG in the field of digital information, while the second section describes in more detail the central funding schemes of the DFG in the field of digital information.

The funding policy of the DFG seeks to build an integrated digital research environment that includes scholarly publications and primary research data as well as new forms of communication in virtual research and work environments. But it will be only by the common effort of scholars, libraries and providers of scholarly information, funders, publishers and fee‐collecting agencies that the vision of an integrated digital research environment will come true.

The outline of the funding programmes of the DFG in the area of digital information provision will be of interest to librarians and information professionals seeking information about library‐funding policies and strategies in Germany.

Scientific innovation has resulted in the development of newer technologies for the betterment of humankind. Academic and research organizations are the places where these technologies are actually ideated and/or invented. However, the process of technology transfer and its eventual successful commercialization covers many other facets, in addition to the scientific research alone. This study aims to draw attention towards certain policy gaps and thereby suggest plausible solutions for the improvement of technology transfer process in the Indian context.

Here, the authors present an extensive Web survey of technologies available for transfer/commercialization in 12 major Indian research organizations, namely, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Indian Council of Medical Research, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Defence Research and Development Organisation, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Biotechnology, Indian Space Research Organisation, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Kanpur.

A total of 2,921 technologies were found to be available with respect to the above-mentioned organizations, with the highest of these in agricultural sciences and the maximum reported by ICAR.

Certain significant policy interventions of this study include the need of a central framework for deposition, management and dissemination of institutionally developed technologies. More attention and support is required for the technologically less developed research areas, and there is a need for the promotion of funding mechanisms for the prototype development, in addition to the already available funding schemes for other stages of technology commercialization.

Hence, the successful commercialization of the innovation from the Indian research labs requires the restructuring of the existing policies to eventually facilitate the economic growth of the nation.

This study discusses the major policy gaps of the Indian technology transfer process. For this, an extensive Web survey was carried out to enlist the various technologies available for transfer and commercialization in India from 12 major research organizations. The study presents the results and some major policy implications of the technology transfer and commercialization process in the Indian context.

The purpose of this study is to analyze reported good institutional responsible research and innovation (RRI) practices from an organizational and learning perspective to discuss the usefulness of RRI as a broad umbrella concept.

This study connects neo-institutional and translation accounts of diffusion to different modes of learning and discusses reported best practices from 12 reports, including in total 23 organizations in the research system worldwide, in light of this theoretical framework. This study categorizes the good practices identified in the reports and discusses how the nature of the practices influences the potential learning from them. The authors then apply the results from the discussion of this study to current policy developments on RRI.

The two most often mentioned good practices overall are organizational policies and the establishment of organizational units, but the type of good practices recommended differs across the various aspects of the RRI umbrella concept. This diversity within the RRI construct is a practical argument against the effectiveness of RRI as an umbrella concept.

This study is novel in the fact that the authors, building on Wæraas (2020), systematically relate types of good practice to neo-institutional theory and translation perspectives explicitly combined with learning approaches and apply this approach in the field of research organizations. The policy implications from the empirical and theoretical analyses are novel and timely in these early phases of the EU funding framework programme Horizon Europe and can also be relevant for the increasingly important umbrella concept of Open Science.