Research funding in different SCI disciplines: A comparison analysis based on Web of Science

Abstract

Abstract To provide valuable insights for shaping future funding policies, in this study, we offer a comprehensive panorama of the research funding across 171 SCI disciplines in the decade 2011–2020, based on more than 13 million scientific literature records from the Web of Science. The relationship between funding and research impact is also explored. To this end, we employ two indicators: the universality and multiplicity of funding, to indicate the funding level and six indicators to gauge the impact advantages of funding. Our findings reveal an upward trend in both the universality (increasing from 66.30% to 74.26%) and multiplicity (increasing from 2.82 to 3.26) of funding over the decade concerned. The allocation of funding varies across disciplines, with life sciences and earth sciences receiving the highest percentage of funding (78.31%) and medicine having the highest multiplicity of funding (3.07). Engineering and computer science have seen relatively rapid growth in terms of universality and multiplicity of funding. Funded articles have a greater impact than unfunded ones. And this impact strengthens as the number of funding grants increases. Through regression analysis, the citation advantage of funding is also proven at the article level, although the usage advantage is not significant.