In the light of increasing competition between national research systems and their organisations the relationship of research governance and research performance has moved into the focus of science policy and science studies.
Past research on the governance and performance of scientific systems has concentrated on two barely connected research fields: on the one hand quantitative research on performance, which analyses and compares research statistics and bibliometric data; on the other hand qualitative oriented governance research that has identified different governance mechanisms. Thus, for instance, the model of “governance equalizer” (de Boer / Enders / Schimank 2008) points out five analytical dimensions: state regulation, stakeholder guidance, academic self-governance, managerial self-governance and competition.
The project focuses on a comparative five-country study (Germany, Denmark, England, France, and the Netherlands) and the interrelation between research governance and research performance on three analytical levels: first, the macro-level of national research systems, second, the meso-level of research organisations and third, the micro-level of the scientific practices of individual scientists.
- Which governance regimes, instruments and structural peculiarities are characteristic for the selected national research systems? To what extent do the national research systems differ in their research performance? (macro-level)
- How do universities and extramural research organisations handle those national governance frameworks, i.e. act with or against them? How does this affect organisational performance? (meso-level)
- To what extent does the organisational implementation of governance frameworks shape the research conditions and practices of individual scientists? (micro-level)
The questions are tackled by a mixed-methods design that involves both qualitative (document analysis and guided interviews) and quantitative methods (science and research statistics, bibliometrics and an online survey).
