The effect of funding changes on public sector non-profit organisations: the case of Bushcare NSW

Research into non-profit organisations abounds, but public sector non-profit organisations have been neglected. Recent funding incentives have led to significant changes in the market environment for such organisations. This study describes market changes and explores the reactions of one environmental public sector non-profit organisation, Bushcare NSW, to these changes. This paper contends that, within this institutional environment, non-profit organisations more successful in attracting large amounts of external funding have better administrative structures in place, whereas those less successful find themselves confronted with burdensome administrative duties. Neo-institutional theory provides a theoretical basis for this empirical investigation. Funding changes have had a major impact on Bushcare organisations, those more successful in attracting grants reporting significantly fewer recent administrative changes

Supporting community engagement through teaching, student projects and research

The Education Acts statutory obligations for ITPs are not supported by the Crown funding model. Part of the statutory role of an ITP is “... promotes community learning and by research, particularly applied and technological research ...” [The education act 1989]. In relation to this a 2017 TEC report highlighted impaired business models and an excessive administrative burden as restrictive and impeding success. Further restrictions are seen when considering ITPs attract < 3 % of the available TEC funding for research, and ~ 20 % available TEC funding for teaching, despite having overall student efts of ~ 26 % nationally. An attempt to improve performance and engage through collaboration (community, industry, tertiary) at our institution is proving successful. The cross-disciplinary approach provides students high level experience and the technical stretch needed to be successful engineers, technologists and technicians. This study presents one of the methods we use to collaborate externally through teaching, student projects and research

The effect of public funding on research output: the New Zealand Marsden Fund

The Marsden Fund is the premiere funding mechanism for blue skies research in New Zealand. In 2014, $56 million was awarded to 101 research projects chosen from among 1222 applications from researchers at universities, Crown Research Institutes and independent research organizations. This funding mechanism is similar to those in other countries, such as the European Research Council. This research measures the effect of funding receipt from the New Zealand Marsden Fund using a unique dataset of funded and unfunded proposals that includes the evaluation scores assigned to all proposals. This allows us to control statistically for potential bias driven by the Fund’s efforts to fund projects that are expected to be successful, and also to measure the efficacy of the selection process itself. We find that Marsden Funding does increase the scientific output of the funded researchers, but that there is no evidence that the final selection process is able to meaningfully predict the likely success of different proposals

Successful private–public funding of paediatric medicines research: lessons from the EU programme to fund research into off-patent medicines

The European Paediatric Regulation mandated the European Commission to fund research on off-patent medicines with demonstrated therapeutic interest for children. Responding to this mandate, five FP7 project calls were launched and 20 projects were granted. This paper aims to detail the funded projects and their preliminary results. Publicly available sources have been consulted and a descriptive analysis has been performed. Twenty Research Consortia including 246 partners in 29 European and non-European countries were created (involving 129 universities or public funded research organisations, 51 private companies with 40 SMEs, 7 patient associations). The funded projects investigate 24 medicines, covering 10 therapeutic areas in all paediatric age groups. In response to the Paediatric Regulation and to apply for a Paediatric Use Marketing Authorisation, 15 Paediatric Investigation Plans have been granted by the EMAPaediatric Committee, including 71 studies of whom 29 paediatric clinical trials, leading to a total of 7,300 children to be recruited in more than 380 investigational centres. Conclusion: Notwithstanding the EU contribution for each study is lower than similar publicly funded projects, and also considering the complexity of paediatric research, these projects are performing high-quality research and are progressing towards the increase of new paediatric medicines on the market. Private–public partnerships have been effectively implemented, providing a good example for future collaborative actions. Since these projects cover a limited number of offpatent drugs and many unmet therapeutic needs in paediatrics remain, it is crucial foreseeing new similar initiatives in forthcoming European funding programmes

Collaborative Funding to Facilitate Airport Ground Access, Research Report 11-27

This report presents the findings and conclusions from a research study that has examined the challenges of funding airport ground access projects and the role of collaborative funding strategies between the different agencies that typically become involved in such projects. The report reviews the recent literature on funding airport ground access projects, as well as funding transportation projects more generally. This is followed by a detailed review of current federal transportation funding programs relevant to airport ground access projects, as well as a discussion of state and local funding programs and potential opportunities for private-sector funding. A major component of the research described in the report consists of detailed case studies of seven selected airport ground access projects, including a major intermodal center, two automated people-mover projects, two airport access highway projects, and two airport rail links. These case studies examine the history of each project, the costs involved, and the funding programs and mechanisms used to finance the projects. Based on the literature review, the review of current funding programs, and the case study findings, the report identifies potential funding strategies for intermodal airport ground access projects, requirements for effective implementation of these strategies, and a recommended approach to facilitate successful project development and implementation. The report also presents recommended changes to transportation funding program rules and regulations that could facilitate and simplify development of intermodal solutions to future airport ground access needs

The role of research orientation for attracting competitive research funding.

This article studies the role of research orientation for attracting research grants at higher education institutions in Germany. Traditionally research activities were funded by the institutions’ core budget. More recently, extramural research funding has become increasingly important. Besides the public sector, industry provides a growing share of such funds. The results based on a sample of professors in science and engineering suggest that basic and applied research is complementarity for attracting research funding from industry. Thus, professors who conduct basic research in addition to research on the applicability of their results appear to be a more interesting target or most successful in raising industry funds. For raising grants from public sources, it turns out that specialization is more important. Specialized research units on either basic or applied research obtain significantly more public grants which points to a substitutive relationship between basic and applied research for grants from public sources.applied research; basic research; research funding; university-industry technology transfer;

The Legacy Project: Lessons Learned About Conducting Community-Based Research

Collaborative partnerships between community based organizations (CBOs) and university-based researchers can successfully conduct useful HIV prevention research. Collaboratively conducted research contributes to good programs and good science.The Legacy Project is an evaluation of 18 such partnerships. The evaluation found 6 essential elements for successful collaborative community-based research:Thoughtful selection of interventions for evaluationSecondary or alternative research questions incorporated into the research project from the beginningFlexibility to modify or change primary research question mid-studyAppropriate, stable CBO staffingHigh level of university-researcher involvement with both intervention and evaluationAdequate funding for intervention, evaluation and participant tim

Effective Strategies to Support Advocacy Campaigns: Considerations for Funders and Advocates

This report shares collected insights from funders and advocates across the country, in the hope that their observations will helpfully contribute to other funding and campaign efforts. The respondents noted that while considerable attention has been paid to factors informing the development of sound campaign strategy, comparatively less attention has been paid to the structural and operational issues that undergird successful campaign efforts. Our research accordingly focuses on these matters

Methods for Assessing Technology Transfer - An Overview

As triple-helix like research funding is growing in popularity, the need for evaluating the success of such programs is growing. During the last 30 years, a number of attempts have been made to assess whether certain technology funding has been successful or not. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of these attempts as well as suggest that we must look beyond simple valuemeters as patent creation rate in order to fully understand the process of technology transfer.technology transfer, assessment, patent, innovation management

Conducting retrospective impact analysis to inform a medical research charity’s funding strategies: The case of Asthma UK

© 2013 Hanney et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.BACKGROUND: Debate is intensifying about how to assess the full range of impacts from medical research. Complexity increases when assessing the diverse funding streams of funders such as Asthma UK, a charitable patient organisation supporting medical research to benefit people with asthma. This paper aims to describe the various impacts identified from a range of Asthma UK research, and explore how Asthma UK utilised the characteristics of successful funding approaches to inform future research strategies. METHODS: We adapted the Payback Framework, using it both in a survey and to help structure interviews, documentary analysis, and case studies. We sent surveys to 153 lead researchers of projects, plus 10 past research fellows, and also conducted 14 detailed case studies. These covered nine projects and two fellowships, in addition to the innovative case studies on the professorial chairs (funded since 1988) and the MRC-Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma (the ‘Centre’) which together facilitated a comprehensive analysis of the whole funding portfolio. We organised each case study to capture whatever academic and wider societal impacts (or payback) might have arisen given the diverse timescales, size of funding involved, and extent to which Asthma UK funding contributed to the impacts. RESULTS: Projects recorded an average of four peer-reviewed journal articles. Together the chairs reported over 500 papers. All streams of funding attracted follow-on funding. Each of the various categories of societal impacts arose from only a minority of individual projects and fellowships. Some of the research portfolio is influencing asthma-related clinical guidelines, and some contributing to product development. The latter includes potentially major breakthroughs in asthma therapies (in immunotherapy, and new inhaled drugs) trialled by university spin-out companies. Such research-informed guidelines and medicines can, in turn, contribute to health improvements. The role of the chairs and the pioneering collaborative Centre is shown as being particularly important. CONCLUSIONS: We systematically demonstrate that all types of Asthma UK’s research funding assessed are making impacts at different levels, but the main societal impacts from projects and fellowships come from a minority of those funded. Asthma UK used the study’s findings, especially in relation to the Centre, to inform research funding strategies to promote the achievement of impact.This study was funded by Asthma UK