The diversity of policy instruments for public R&D funding

Governmental R&D funding was deeply transformed and the use of project-based mode of allocation was further improved in the eighties for two main reasons: on the one hand the stagnation of the volume of public research funding pushed toward more selective modes of allocation; on the other hand, the new policy rationale about an efficient use of public resources emphasized competitive allocation as a mean to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the research systems (Lepori et al., 2007). Many countries have embarked on reforms of public research funding in response to new demands and opportunities, enhancing their strategic-planning capacity and paying more attention to the social and economic environment, to the need to address societal grand challenges and to the evolving patterns of relationships between stakeholders (Foray et al., 2012; Mazzucato, 2018). In the nineties, government funding increased for mission-oriented and contract-based research that is supposed to be more dependent on output and performance criteria. This led to the problem of understanding how R&D government policies are put into actions by Research Funding Organizations (Braun, 2006; Lepori and Reale, 2019) and the extent to which government funding is implemented to address problems of social relevance designed at policy level. The paper deals with the structure of government funding instruments in nine European countries presenting some illustrative examples of evidence for analyzing functions and processes of funding programs in order to shed light on national research policies and mix of instruments (Flanagan et al., 2011; Capano et al., 2019) used to reach given policy goals. The reference will be mainly related to the experiences developed within some European initiatives devoted to mapping and characterizing national and supra-national funding research instruments and their diversity. Also, the paper will show an innovative data infrastructure (EFIL-RISIS) collecting information on programs and building metrics that would allow to deepen the configuration of funding portfolios and policy mixes of programs by focusing on instruments characteristics, actors involved, and topics addressed, at different levels of policymaking (national and regional level). References Braun, D. 2006. The mix of policy rationales in Science and Technology Policy, Melbourne Journal of Politics, November Capano, G., Pritoni, A., Vicentini, G., 2019. Do policy instruments matter? Governments’ choice of policy mix and higher education performance in Western Europe. Journal of Public Policy, 1-27 Flanagan, K., Uyarra, E., Laranja, M., 2011. Reconceptualising the ‘policy mix’ for innovation. Research Policy 40, 702-713 Foray, D., Mowery, D.C., Nelson, R.R., 2012. Public R&D; and social challenges: What lessons from mission R&D; programs? Research policy 41, 1697-1702 Lepori, B., Dinges, M., Potì, B., Reale,E., Slipersaeter,S., Theves,J. and Van den Besselaar,P. (2007), Comparing the Evolution of National Research Policies: What Patterns of Change? Science and Public Policy, 34 (6), 372-88 Lepori, B., Reale, E., 2019. The changing governance of research systems. Agencification and organizational differentiation in research funding organizations, in Handbook on Science and Public Policy. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenam, pp. 448-463 Mazzucato, M., 2018. Mission-oriented innovation policies: challenges and opportunities. Industrial and Corporate Change 27, 803-815