Identifying patterns in research funding of influential philanthropies: insights from funding acknowledgement data

• In Event: Show me the money! Science and Technology in the Age of Mega-Philanthropy

Abstract

The decline of public research funding worldwide has forced a large number of universities to seek alternative sources of income to maintain their “competitiveness”. This materialized in a plethora of university-industry collaboration arrangements as well as a whole ecosystem of university fundraising activities. A main player in this new ecosystem is philanthropic foundations. While their impact is still dwarfed by government and business funding, two issues are worthy of investigation; first, the extent to which the proportion of research funded by these foundations is increasing, and second, whether or not they predominantly fund certain fields or certain universities. This paper focuses on a group of six foundations that make up the core of the Science Philanthropy Alliance (SPA). SPA was established in 2015 with the aim of “substantially increasing philanthropic support for basic research” in response to government’s shift to supporting translational research. The rationale is that “private funding is more patient and more nimble than government funding”. Publications funded by those six foundations will be extracted from the Web of Science database and analyzed to identify patterns in four parameters, namely the amount of projects funded, research fields, affiliations of funded authors and characteristics of joint funding if any. Outcomes will be cross checked with information available on the foundations websites. Investigating research funding by philanthropies is a relatively new undertaking whether in the field of STS or in Science Policy. This paper aims to provide insights from the available data that more critical studies can build on later.

Author

• ElHassan ElSabry, Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi University