Impact of competitive research funding on lithuanian researchers' citation levels: counterfactual evaluation

Impact of Competitive Research Funding on Lithuanian Researchers' Citation Levels: Counterfactual Evaluation. Lithuanian government implemented a comprehensive science ant study reform in 2009. In this context the scale of competitive research funding for scientific studies was significantly increased. Initiators of the reform expected that increase in competition among Lithuanian researchers will result in higher quality scientific production. The main question and objective of this study was to assess the impact of competitive research funding on Lithuanian researcher’s scientific performance and particularly on their citation levels. Theoretical basis of this study consisted of three theories: new public management doctrine, resource dependence and new-institutionalism theories. Empirical analysis was based on 3336 publications produced by Lithuanian researchers in the period from 2007 to 2012. The publications included in the analysis were from three scientific research fields - mathematics, physics and chemistry. Qualitative information about publications were extracted from international scientific database Thomson Reuters Web of Science Core Collection. The sample size of analysed Lithuanian researchers accounted for 880 individuals. It was a sufficiently large sample to make representative conclusions that would apply to all Lithuanian researchers from the aforementioned research fields. The impact of competitive research funding on Lithuanian researchers’ citation levels were measured by applying counterfactual impact evaluation methodology. Propensity score matching method was used to form treatment and control groups of researchers. The net effect of intervention was measured by applying differences-in-differences method. The results of counterfactual impact analysis show that Lithuanian researcher’s citation levels (measured as an average number of citation per publication) remained the same before and after the introduction of competitive research funding in 2009. The small positive impact (less than one citation) proved to be statistically insignificant. However, the analysis of additional scientific performance indicators suggest that two different types of researchers started to develop in Lithuania after the reform in 2009. Scientific performance indicators of researchers, who received funding from Lithuanian Research Council, increased significantly after 2009. Those researchers became more productive as they started to produce higher numbers of all three types of scientific publications (poorly, averagely and highly citied). In addition, the higher share of them started to produce publications with partners from foreign institutions. The average number of co-authors per one scientific publication and the average citation quartile of scientific journal also increased. In contrast, scientific performance indicators of almost all researchers in the control group decreased after the introduction of competitive research funding model in 2009. Those researchers became less productive as they published fewer of all three types of publications (poorly, averagely and highly citied). The average number of co-authors per publication also decreased