Terttu Luukkonen

This article explores the newly founded European Research Council's (ERC) peer review system and its ability to sustain its mission to promote excellent, groundbreaking research. The article explores the extent to which the selection of groundbreaking research is constrained by inherent limitations in peer review by analysing the informal practices of ERC peer reviewers. This article notes that controversy and uncertainty are central characteristics of potentially groundbreaking research proposals. The selection of truly innovative research is constrained by the boundaries on current knowledge, against which the value of proposed research is judged; these boundaries affect the extent to which peer review panellists feel they can take risks in their judgments and the rules of interpretation and deliberation they adopt. The role of customary interpretative rules is to limit the risks involved in decision making. Predicting the outcomes of peer review in controversial situations is difficult, however, as contingent factors play an important role.

Increasing the level of integration is currently an important policy objective for European research. This brings to light issues regarding the meaning and nature of integration and integration in research; issues associated with the mechanisms to enable and facilitate higher levels of integration in research as part of a policy process; and issues related to the assessment and evaluation of success or failure of policy instruments. The paper addresses these issues by introducing a nuanced conceptualisation developed with particular reference to the policy task for promoting integration and proposing a framework that captures essential features in integrative processes in research—both at the level of researchers and organisations. Furthermore, an empirical example of a Network of Excellence is used to illustrate how the proposed framework can be applied.

This paper will analyse the nature of the EU framework programme, particularly its degree of market-orientation and precompetitiveness, at the time of the fourth framework programme. The paper will show that precompetitiveness as a project or participation attribute is independent of technology or market orientation, where technology orientation means that the motive for participation in the framework programme is learning and knowledge and market orientation means that the motive is based on commercial objectives. Technology or market orientations appear almost equally as basic motivations for company participation in the programme. However, companies usually choose one of the two as their collaboration mode. The paper will further show that the framework programme participation by firms continues to be mainly precompetitive. This is due to the special circumstances and the contract principles of the framework programme.

The European Research Council (ERC), which was introduced in the Seventh Framework Programme, implements radically new principles in the Framework Programme. This paper develops a methodological framework for measuring the effects of the ERC on the European research funding landscape and presents empirical findings. It maps three analytically separate but closely related dimensions: the research policy, institutional, and organisational dimensions, all of which are pertinent to a study of the effects of the ERC. The paper notes that the ERC has prompted a number of significant changes in EU research funding policy. At the institutional level, the ERC has rapidly gained legitimacy and status in the context of European research policy and its scientific and scholarly constituencies, both of which are important prerequisites for its influence on a broader scale. At the organisational level, its effects are fewer and are partially overshadowed by developments in the European Research Area.

This paper draws attention to problems inherent in the routine application of the concept of additionality in evaluation. It exemplifies these problems by expressing them in a typology based on the perceived additionality of public R & D support and the strategic value of the R & D funded. Some categories are considered to represent successes of public R & D support and others to represent failures. The paper questions such routine assumptions, and uses empirical materials from EU framework programmes, a special case of public R & D programmes, to illustrate the problems. The paper ends by suggesting that the present system of evaluation rewards short-term success, and argues that it would be more beneficial to develop evaluation procedures that stretch over a longer period and are therefore able to pick up emerging areas of important technology supported by public programmes. q

Evaluations concerning the EU framework programmes have not been able to get to grips with competitiveness, which is a major objective for these research programmes. The reasons include the general nature of the objective and the ensuing difficulty in measuring its attainment. There are also conceptual and methodological problems in evaluation studies, which arise from the fact that they are part of the political processes for formulating the programmes. The paper points out that the concept of additionality, used in these studies, has serious conceptual and measurement problems and asserts that in the evaluation of the impact of EU research programmes, too little attention has been paid to the interactions between firms' R & D strategies and their EU collaboration activities. The paper summarises findings of impact studies carried out in several countries and shows that intangible, infrastructural effects, such as learning new skills and catalysing new network relations, are the impact most often mentioned by all partners concerned. The programmes have other important effects related to the promotion of common standards, which are a prerequisite for the creation of a common market. In order to assess the longer-term importance and evolution of the networks created, more qualitative and longitudinal studies ought to be carried out. q

An important prerequisite for the renewal of Finland’s industrial and economic base is the ability of the universities to promote the renewal of the knowledge base. The UNI project studied ways in which changes in external funding mechanisms and recent governance changes in Finnish universities have changed the framework conditions influencing innovativeness and innovation in university research. Innovation here refers to novel approaches and potentially, breakthrough research, requiring risk-taking. The UK provided a comparative perspective for the study. This report reprints four separate policy briefs and reports that the UNI project has produced and provides an overall concluding chapter for them. A major conclusion of the study is that, so far, there has not been much impact from the recent policy changes on intellectual innovation in research in Finland. University governance influences research content very indirectly and is mediated by multiple other factors, meaning that policy changes are not, at least in the short run, translated into changed research content. As far as research funding organisations are concerned, Finland has not had a funding organisation that encourages risk-taking and intellectual innovation in research. Recent policy changes have not fundamentally altered this situation. In the UK, the established practice of performance measurement of universities seems to narrow notions of appropriate research content and standards of performance and is becoming an ominous factor in reducing variety and risk-taking in university research. This phenomenon is further developed in the UK, but Finland seems now to be ‘catching up’. In industry-university collaboration short-term commissions and most of Tekes’ industrial collaboration support draw on existing knowledge and know-how and are not intended to promote highly innovative and high-risk activities. More flexible and longer-term contracts can in principle promote such research activities provided that the knowledge they produce will be in the public arena since scientific breakthroughs, to bear fruit, require a great deal of further development and wide adoption of the novel concepts, methods etc. by the scientific community.
Key words: University research, research funding, intellectual innovation in research, university governance JEL: O38, O39

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. ABSTRACT This paper examines the dynamics and bottlenecks in the commercialisation of biotechnology in Finland by using the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry as a benchmark. The paper considers both ICT and biotechnology within the dynamic life-cycle model of technological revolutions by Perez. For an empirical comparison, it applies the concept of a 'com-petence bloc' as an interpretive and focusing device. A competence bloc may be defined as a set of actors, functional competences, and institutions that are necessary for large-scale commercialisation and industrialisation of new emerging technologies. In spite of the many differences between the ICT and biotechnology industries, the comparison serves as a heuristic device for pinpointing important features in the framework conditions of commercialisation in biotechnology. The paper shows that a major bottleneck in the development of the biotechnology industry in Finland is the scarcity of industrialists to transform innovations into large-scale production.

The European Research Council (ERC), which was introduced in the Seventh Framework Programme, implements radically new principles in the Framework Programme. This paper develops a methodological framework for measuring the effects of the ERC on the European research funding landscape and presents empirical findings. It maps three analytically separate but closely related dimensions: the research policy, institutional, and organisational dimensions, all of which are pertinent to a study of the effects of the ERC. The paper notes that the ERC has prompted a number of significant changes in EU research funding policy. At the institutional level, the ERC has rapidly gained legitimacy and status in the context of European research policy and its scientific and scholarly constituencies, both of which are important prerequisites for its influence on a broader scale. At the organisational level, its effects are fewer and are partially overshadowed by developments in the European Research Area.

Evaluations concerning the EU framework programmes have not been able to get to grips with competitiveness, which is a major objective for these research programmes. The reasons include the general nature of the objective and the ensuing difficulty in measuring its attainment. There are also conceptual and methodological problems in evaluation studies, which arise from the fact that they are part of the political processes for formulating the programmes. The paper points out that the concept of additionality, used in these studies, has serious conceptual and measurement problems and asserts that in the evaluation of the impact of EU research programmes, too little attention has been paid to the interactions between firms' R & D strategies and their EU collaboration activities. The paper summarises findings of impact studies carried out in several countries and shows that intangible, infrastructural effects, such as learning new skills and catalysing new network relations, are the impact most often mentioned by all partners concerned. The programmes have other important effects related to the promotion of common standards, which are a prerequisite for the creation of a common market. In order to assess the longer-term importance and evolution of the networks created, more qualitative and longitudinal studies ought to be carried out. q

Increasing the level of integration is currently an important policy objective for European research. This brings to light issues regarding the meaning and nature of integration and integration in research; issues associated with the mechanisms to enable and facilitate higher levels of integration in research as part of a policy process; and issues related to the assessment and evaluation of success or failure of policy instruments. The paper addresses these issues by introducing a nuanced conceptualisation developed with particular reference to the policy task for promoting integration and proposing a framework that captures essential features in integrative processes in research—both at the level of researchers and organisations. Furthermore, an empirical example of a Network of Excellence is used to illustrate how the proposed framework can be applied.

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The paper discusses the often lamented lack of a theory of citations, and the lack of a sociological theory in particular. It draws attention to one proposed theory and discusses the potential reasons why it has not been generally accepted as the theory of citations, despite its merits in explaining many phenomena in the citation behaviour of scientists. This theory

This paper deals with three types of questions concerning the application of citation analysis. First, it studies the use of citation analysis for assessing national research performance in a research subfield; second, it discusses methodological problems related to the definition of research subfields and to data acquisition; and third, as the data concern four Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and