Abstract
We present a statistical framework based on the gravity model to analyze inter-organizational research collaboration to assess the fragmentation of a national research system. We focus on the Dutch research system during the period 2010–2022 characterized by multiple policy changes to reduce the fragmentation and to align agendas among the key organizations: classic universities, technical universities, university medical centers, universities of applied sciences, and public research organizations. Using the gravity equation, we explain the intensity of collaboration between any two organizations while controlling for their respective sizes and travel distance. By looking at the standardized residuals of the regression analysis over time, we assess whether organizations tend to collaborate more or less than what can be expected from their respective sizes and travel distance. Our main finding holds that a process of defragmentation of the Dutch research system is somewhat visible, especially in closer collaborations between the universities of applied sciences (UAS) with other organizations. At the same time, technical and classic universities have become more detached from each other. And, public research organizations have not become much more integrated within the research system, despite calls to do so. These findings suggest that the process of integration is a variegated and slow one, exposing the limited ability of national governments to steer research systems in top-down manners.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 104765 |
| Journal | Scientometrics |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 10 Apr 2025 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Author(s) 2025.
Funding
As in many other research systems, the Dutch research system is dominated by universities spread across the country. These are all publicly funded under a single regime, while some differences in disciplinary orientations. One historical differentiation exists between the ten classic universities and four technical universities. Classic universities generally have faculties of science, social sciences and humanities, and are often co-located with a university medical center with many local collaborations. Technical universities are oriented towards engineering disciplines and tend to have stronger ties to industry. Next to ten classic universities, eight university medical centers and four technical universities, there are 21 universities of applied sciences (\u2018Hogescholen\u2019) focusing on teaching but increasingly engaged in research as well. Furthermore, there are 25 public research organizations (PRO) funded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) or the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Table provides an overview of all organizations as well as their research outputs as an indication of their relative size within the Dutch research system.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen | |
| Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek |
Keywords
- Co-authorship
- Collaboration
- Gravity equation
- Reform
- Science policy