Acquisition of European research funds and its effect on international scientific collaboration

Abstract

The Framework Programmes (FPs) funded by the European Commission support transnational research collaborations in order to make the European Research Area more competitive. Some have raised concerns that the FPs compromise the cohesion policies of the European Commission aimed at reducing income disparities between European regions. We investigate whether existing scientific collaborations between European Union (EU) subnational regions-as captured by co-authored publications-are conducive for acquiring FP funding, and whether FP funding, in turn, stimulates subsequent co-publication activity between pairs of EU regions. Our results indicate that previous co-publication activity only has a minor effect on being funded. We also find that the effect of funding on co-publication activity is especially significant for regional pairs that did not intensively co-publish before participation. The results suggest that the returns to FP funding are highest when involving scientifically lagging regions. In this respect, the current FP policy is in line with cohesion policy.