Kaare Aagaard

Developing a methodology to assess the impact of research grant funding: A mixed methods approach

This paper discusses the development of a mixed methods approach to analyse research funding. Research policy has taken on an increasingly prominent role in the broader political scene, where research is seen as a critical factor in maintaining and improving growth, welfare and international competitiveness. This has motivated growing emphasis on the impacts of science funding, and how funding can best be designed to promote socio-economic progress. Meeting these demands for impact assessment involves a number of complex issues that are difficult to fully address in a single study or in the design of a single methodology. However, they point to some general principles that can be explored in methodological design. We draw on a recent evaluation of the impacts of research grant funding, discussing both key issues in developing a methodology for the analysis and subsequent results. The case of research grant funding, involving a complex mix of direct and intermediate effects that contribute to the overall impact of funding on research performance, illustrates the value of a mixed methods approach to provide a more robust and complete analysis of policy impacts. Reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of the methodology are used to examine refinements for future work.

Implementation of European Research Policy

The European Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development aim to stimulate European researchers, to increase cooperation in Europe and to establish a ‘critical mass’ of European excellence. To achieve this broad goal of mobilising and activating researchers, an efficient and effective implementation of the Framework Programmes is crucial. This analysis addresses issues such as the appropriateness of the instruments used, the transparency and efficiency of the implementation process and the incentives and barriers to participation of key target groups. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Some considerations about causes and effects in studies of performance-based research funding systems

We thank the Editor for providing us with the opportunity to reflect and comment upon the critique of Linda Butler’s analses of the potential effects of the Australian performance-based funding system (PRFS) in the article by Van den Besselaar, eyman, and Sandström (2017; hereafter van den Besselaar et al.) in this special section of Journal of Informetrics. In 2010 Butler wrote that “[a]ssessing the impact of performance-based research funding systems (PRFS) is a fraught exercise, hich perhaps explains the paucity of broad authoritative texts on the subject” (Butler, 2010, p. 128). As it is well known to most eaders of this journal, Butler herself has conducted one of the few authoritative studies on this subject (documented e.g. n Butler, 2002, 2003a, 2003b, 2004). Her study has since then not only been an almost mandatory reference point for other rticles on this subject. It has also influenced both policy discussions and designs of PRFS around the world. In this light he present article by van den Besselaar et al. should be welcomed as it gives us an occasion to revisit and discuss Butler’s eminal work. However, as Butler also highlights in her quote above, examining effects of PRFS is an extremely challenging ask. These challenges will be our main focus in this commentary, where some of the problems associated with attributing ehavioral causality to PRFS are discussed. First, we outline some basic conditions which should be met in order to attribute ausality to PRFS. Secondly, we compare the approaches of Butler and van den Besselaar et al. with regard to these issues. inally, we round off with a few concluding remarks

Mergers in Danish Higher Education: An Overview over the Changing Landscape

The Danish Higher Education landscape has experienced profound changes as a result of mergers over the past 15 years. All parts of the higher education system, including short-cycle and medium-cycle institutions, the university sector and the governmental research institutes (GRIs), have been involved in these processes, resulting in a considerable reduction in the number of institutions. However, the processes have differed in both timing and content across the different sectors. This chapter outlines the changes across three different higher education sectors – short, medium and long-cycle – and analyses the merger processes in the university and GRI sectors in more detail. Although there are important differences between the three sectors, it is argued that the similarities in development between these sectors are substantial. The chapter also analyses and discusses the specific Danish setting which enabled and supported the merger processes and highlights some of the major challenges associated with the actual processes.

Mergers between governmental research institutes and Universities in the Danish HE sector

ABSTRACT This article presents an analysis of the mergers in the Danish Higher Education (HE)-sector with a particular emphasis on the 2007 mergers involving universities and Government Research Institutes (GRIs). Furthermore, it follows the post-merger processes up to 2014/2015 at two Danish universities and examines the consequences of the changes seen from the perspective of the key stakeholders, the university managements and the employees. It is shown that the two cases differ in important respects, but also that the three groups of actors within each case have different views of both the processes and the outcomes. Finally, it is shown that it makes a significant difference whether a federal or a unitary structure is implemented after the merger, although each solution has both strengths and weaknesses.

The Danish UNIK Initiative: An NPM-Inspired Mechanism to Steer Higher Education

This chapter presents an analysis of the Danish UNIK initiative ‘Investment Capital for University Research’ (‘Universitetsforskningens Investeringskapital’) established in 2007 and implemented from 2009 to 2014. Specific funding for the UNIK initiative was provided through the Danish Finance Acts of 2008 and 2009, amounting to DKK 480 million (€64 million). The UNIK initiative was introduced as a new research funding mechanism aiming to strengthen the strategic steering capacity of the Danish universities. The initiative offered competitive funding to encourage Danish universities, as institutions, to strengthen their strategic efforts to prioritise research and to create a distinctive research profile. The idea was to fund a limited number of centres of excellence (CoE), based on proposals submitted by university management. The latter was novel in the Danish higher education (HE) system where almost all other project funding mechanisms are based on proposals from individual researchers or research groups. This new approach fits the logics of New Public Management (NPM), which favours, among other things, strong organisational management and competitive, market-based instruments, but stands in contrast to the traditional ways of funding research as well as the traditional notions of university organisation.

Different Faces of Danish Higher Education Mergers

This chapter looks at three selected cases of Danish university mergers in more detail: University of Copenhagen, Aarhus University and Aalborg University. Through these three cases the chapter shows how the Danish university merger processes – in spite of a common starting point and the same overall political incentives – have had a number of different faces across the sector. Whereas some mergers – in particular Aarhus University – have been large and comprehensive, involving a number of different types of institutions from different parts of the country, others have been more modest in scope – e.g. Aalborg University. In between these extremes is the merger involving Copenhagen University, which although comprehensive in scope only involved universities located in close geographical proximity. The chapter highlights a complex interplay between top down and bottom up dynamics and shows how individual institutions have translated and transformed the overall national objectives in order to make them fit with their own institutional goals.

Post-merger Experiences at Danish Higher Education Institutions

While the analysis in Chap. 12 focused on the merger process up to the merger decisions, this chapter takes the analysis one step further and looks at the results of the mergers concerning Aarhus University, University of Copenhagen and Aalborg University over the 8 years following the formal mergers in 2007. The chapter addresses two main questions: How have the post-merger processes been handled at the institutions, particularly in relation to internal integration? What kind of consequences can be observed, up to 2015, within the three selected institutions as a consequence of the merger processes? The chapter builds on the argument that the particular form of any merger is likely to have a major influence on the character of the subsequent merger process, the kinds of difficulties likely to be experienced, the pattern of structures likely to emerge, and the likelihood of success. The analysis is based on document analysis, interviews and observations. Data from Psychological Workplace Environment Assessments and survey material from within the universities are also included.

Denmark - Creating university centres of excellence: the UNIK-Initiative

This study analyses how different types of system-level (or ‘landscape’) structural reforms in higher education have been designed and implemented in selected higher education systems. In the 12 case studies that form the core of the project, the researchers examine reforms aimed at:• Increasing horizontal differentiation between different types of higher education institutions (for example reforms to introduce or modify the role of universities of applied science);• Increasing vertical differentiation through increasing or decreasing positional or status differences between higher education institutions (for example, reforms aimed at concentrating research in a limited number of universities) and;• Changing institutional interrelationships between higher education institutions (for example, through mergers, the formation of associations of institutions).In each case, the researchers set out to understand the origins and objectives of the reforms examined, the why they were designed and implemented, the extent to which they achieved their objectives and the factors affecting success or failure. The overall objective is to provide policy makers at the European, national and institutional levels with policy relevant conclusions concerning the design, implementation and evaluation of structural reforms