Analyzing the research funding in physics: The perspective of production and collaboration at institution level

Abstract

Recently, researchers have shown an increasing interest in research funding analysis. However, most previous large-sample studies have focused on the macro-level, such as country or discipline level. Here we focus on an important meso-level, institution in physics. In this work, we try to explore the features of funding on institutions by using a dataset of 117,916 SCI-indexed papers in physics. The results show that, for the institutions in physics, research funding is associated with the publication impact, production of high-impact papers, and lower ratio of uncited ones. The h-index of research funding significantly affects the h-index of the institution. In the aspect of scientific collaboration, the funded collaboration network of physics institutions is mainly consisted of Europe and US subgroups, while China, Japan, and South Korea are also constructing an emerging collaboration subgroup in East Asia with the support of funding. The data does not verify research funding can expand the scope of scientific collaboration at institution level, but our empirical results suggest that research funding can enhance the intensity of collaboration between institutions and their major partners.