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Research Funding
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Research Funding The development of R&D systems in most countries has put pressure on research funding which has led governments and research funding bodies to seek increased efficiency in the use of funds. Furthermore, research funding mechanisms increasingly need to accommodate multiple strategic objectives (respond to societal changes, facilitate economic growth…) beside the traditional demand for scientific excellence, which makes funding processes more challenging.
The Global Science Forum (GSF) has initiated a series of activities related to research funding with the aim to increase research funding mechanism efficiency and adapt funding strategies to different objectives. |
KEY DATE
- COVID19 Research funding worldwide (Excel sheet)
- Virtual workshop on “Effective Policies to foster High-Risk/High-Reward research”, OECD Global Science Forum
- DSTI STP GSF M(2020)1 ANN - HRHR summary.pdf
- HRHR-session 3-2 Arimoto_Oyamada GSF April 2020.pdf
- HRHR-session 3-3 Jean-Pierre Bourguignon GSF April 2020.pdf
- HRHR-session 4-1 Johan Huysse GSF April 2020.pdf
- HRHR-session 4-3 Jessica Robin GSF April 2020.pdf
- HRHR-session 4-4 Michael Turner LIGO GSF April2020.pdf
- HRHR-session 2-1 Marc Zbinden GSF April 2020.pdf
- HRHR-session 4-2 Catriona Firth GSF April 2020.pdf
- HRHR-session 2-2 Lisa Higgins GSF April 2020.pdf
- HRHR-session 1-1 Jim Kurose GSF April 2020.pdf
- HRHR-session 2-4 Jens Oddershede GSF April 2020.pdf
- HRHR-session 2-3 Thomas Sinkjaer GSF April 2020.pdf
- HRHR-session 3-1 DiogoMachado GSF April2020.pdf
- Effective operation of competitive research funding mechanisms
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Emergency research funding initiatives related to the covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered an unprecedented mobilisation of the scientific community at the request of national and international authorities. This response includes the development of a large number of new research initiatives: Public research agencies and organisations, private foundations and charities and the health industry have set up a vast array of newly funded research projects in a record time, most often at the request of decision makers, to respond to the crisis. These initiatives encompass all dimensions of the pandemic but have to be developed in a timeframe and context that are challenging for the research funding system.
Research areas supported by new research funding initiatives
Research funding initiatives launched by research funding and research performing organisations can be regrouped in several main categories:
- Basic research; such a research will typically aim at understanding how the Covid-19 virus works, where it does come from, how it could evolve…
- Epidemiology: these research aim at understanding how the covid-19 virus spreads
- Public health and clinical management; those research aim at understanding how the health systems can best respond to and manage the epidemic, both in developed and developing economies
- Diagnostics; the objective is to develop tests to detect infected patients (usually through the detection of the genetic material of the virus) and immunised people after infection (through the presence of antibodies against the virus in the blood)
- Therapeutics; finding cures for infected patients. The initial focus is on testing existing drugs or biologics (alone or in combination) to move ahead as quickly as possible, as the development of new drugs takes several years
- Vaccines; vaccines do not cure but prevent infection by priming the natural immune system; they do however take 12-18 months minimum for development, so their role would be to prevent a future epidemic. A large number of vaccine projects against Covid-19 have been launched, usually by alliances between public laboratories and industry, quite often involving international partnerships
- Technologies; those research aim at developing technologies directly relevant to Covid-19 pandemic such as for facial masks, ventilators, applications to monitor confinement, IR scanners to detect people’s temperature…
- Societal responses; these studies, usually in the fields of social sciences and humanities, aim at studying the health community and general population response during crisis, response and effect of confinement policies, emergency policy responses, data sharing and data protection policies…
New Covid-19 research funding schemes
The OECD is gathering and updating information on these funding initiatives (country of origin, agency/organisation in charge, topic/targeted area of research, status of the project, level of funding, link to the scheme…). These information are currently available as an Excel table at the following link:
COVID19 Research funding worldwide (Excel sheet)
Important note: The majority of the information presented in this data file originates from public sources but has not been validated by the relevant funding organisation.
The OECD STP team is currently working on a solution to make these information accessible and searchable with a more user-friendly environment.
Other organisation are also collecting information research funding scheme at national or international level, the html links to some of those are shown below:
https://stip.oecd.org/stip.html
https://stip.oecd.org/Covid.html
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/covid-19
https://sciencebusiness.net/news/live-blog-rd-response-covid-19-pandemic
https://grants.sfi.ie/ex/ex_viewreport.jsp?key=&token=%40Gg4KSBgZeFpZRhZQSRxXQFVVYV19HXVg
Research results on the Covid-19 are widely shared, the WHO is maintaining a global database of publications and reports on Covid-19 research (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/global-research-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov).
Challenges in managing emergency research funding projects
Research funders that are setting up emergency research funding schemes face a series of specific challenges which need to be addressed:
- How to determine priority topics for emergency research (with what level of coordination with other funders at national and international level to avoid duplication)
- How to issue and disseminate rapidly calls for proposals to the scientific community
- How to set up a fast-track selection of the proposals received among a flurry of applications (sometimes opportunistic) without sacrificing quality
- How to mobilise and deliver rapidly the resources to the scientific teams
- How to follow-up and disseminate quickly the results of the research to all relevant health authorities to maximise impact
The OECD Global Science Forum is investigating how these challenges are being addressed and will disseminate good practices in the course of its current activity on High-Risk/High-Reward research.
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