Public funding and the ascent of Chinese science: Evidence from the National Natural Science Foundation of China

Albert G.Z. Hu

Research Policy, 2020, vol. 49, issue 5

Abstract: We investigate the role of public funding in the rapid ascent of Chinese science by examining the impact of a major upgrade of a funding program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China in 2011. Using research grant level data and a difference-in-differences estimator, we found that the more generous funding resulted in higher research output, measured by the number of publications, the number of citation-weighted publications, the number of journal impact factor-adjusted publications, and the maximum journal impact factor. This belies significant variation in the impact of the change in funding by researcher characteristics: 1) less-established researchers benefit more from the funding upgrade; 2) scientific fields that are more likely to be financially constrained benefited more; and 3) researchers from less-prestigious research institutions made more productive use of the additional funds. Finally, we found that the funding upgrade has led to increasing collaboration with researchers from top science-producing foreign countries for the less-prestigious institutions.

Keywords: Science policy; Basic scientific research; Public funding; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:49:y:2020:i:5:s0048733320300639

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2020.103983

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