Bibliometric Analysis and Funding Success to Evaluate an Organization’s Research Grant Decisions

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Date
2016-06-01Author
Lê, Mê-Linh
Hammond, Greg
Novotny, T
Pierce, G
Wade, J
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Title: Bibliometric Analysis and Funding Success to Evaluate an Organization’s Research
Grant Decisions
Objectives
The Manitoba Medical Services Foundation (MMSF), a non-profit medical foundation
that has provided nearly $20 million to support and fund research since 1974, sought to
evaluate the subsequent output of both its successful and unsuccessful operating grant
applicants. The foundation, which focuses on supporting new researchers, worked with
the Library to determine whether its grant review process was successful in selecting
the best candidates from 2008 to the 2012 competitions.
Methods
Using information up to 2014 for the five years of grants, which totaled $1,912,300 in
funding, an analysis was first completed for all successful and unsuccessful grant
applications. The analysis focused on two areas: publication history and funding history.
Scopus – one of the largest databases in the world and a resource committed to
eliminating author identification issues – was employed to determine the number of
published articles and the h-index for each researcher. The funding databases of the
three largest federal granting agencies in the country were searched to determine
whether a researcher had subsequently obtained other grants. The bibliometric and
funding data were statistically analyzed to assess the impact of a researcher’s initial
grant result on their future publication output and funding success, as well as the local
multiplier effect for the granting organization.
Results
Statistical analyses clearly demonstrated that those researchers who received funding
from the MMSF went on to have greater academic productivity than unsuccessful
candidates. Specifically, successful candidates had a greater number of publications, a
higher h-index, larger amount of funding from the major Canadian research granting
organizations, and greater odds of receiving funds as either co-investigators or lead
principal investigators. Analyses also showed that successful applicants were ultimately
very successful in bringing future external funding back to the province, with a local
multiplier effect of 10:1 (i.e., for every $1 spent on Manitoba-based researchers, $10
returns to the community).
Conclusions
This research demonstrated that the current process used by MMSF is successful at
selecting individuals who subsequently go on to become high-performing researchers.
These researchers are ultimately more productive and obtain more funding than those
individuals that are not selected. Furthermore, this project demonstrates a new way for
Libraries to use metrics to assist organizations or institutions as they are called upon to
demonstrate their value and impact on the community.