The Dutch R

1
The Dutch RD systemcharacteristics and trends,
with a focus on government funding

• Jan van Steen
• Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, The
  Netherlands
• Madrid, 3-4 July 2008

2
A multi level RD system

• The political and governmental level
• Advisory bodies
• RD funding organisations
• Intermediary organisations and temporary task
  forces
• RD performing institutes
• Research facilitating institutes

• Parliament, Cabinet, Ministries
• Advisory Council, Innovation Platform, Academy of
  Sciences
• Government, enterprises, other national funds,
  abroad
• Research Council, Academy of Sciences, Task
  forces on Genomics and ICT
• Universities, institutes, enterprises
• Liaison office for EU, ICT infrastructure, Royal
  Library

3
Increasing complexity in the science system
4
High ambitions in science policy

• To be in the top of Europe
• To have an excellent research climate, based on
• An ambitious climate
• Self management within scientific disciplines
• Focus on talent and talent development
• Scientific areas should fit to the agendas of
  government, the business sector and societal
  organisations
• Research with a practical focus
• To achieve with
• Strengthening the role of pure scientific
  research
• A greater focus on national research priorities
• Solid social embedding of scientific research
• Independence, transparent accountability and
  proper quality management

5
but a mixed performance today

• Very modest RD-expenditure ( 8,9 billion
  1.67 of GDP) in the middle group of OECD
  countries, and even below the EU average
• A relatively large public RD sector and small
  private RD sector, funding as well as
  performance
• Relatively few researchers and under
  representation of specific groups
• Scientific output 2.5 of world output (ranked
  10th), combined with a relative good productivity
• High citation impact score 1.34 (ranked third
  worldwide)

6
A decreasing trend in RD expenditure

7
Government funding of RD why?

• Institutional funding for the maintenance of the
  knowledge infrastructure (basic research at
  universities and institutes, applied research
  institutes)
• For knowledge development for governmental
  policies (evidence based policy)
• Specific funding is a powerful instrument of
  (science) policy, that can steer the direction of
  RD
• In addition to other instruments like
  legislation, regulations and dialogue

8
Policy issues related to funding

• Public versus private funding
• Institutional versus project funding (long term
  versus short term)
• Assumption a large increase of project funding
• The capacity for free basic research versus
  oriented research
• The increasing complexity of the system

9
Government funding of RD how much?

10
Government funding of RD how?

• Institutional funding
• Basic institutional funding (the universities)
• Oriented institutional funding (TNO, GTIs)
• Infrastructure and equipment
• International institutes and programmes
• Project funding
• Contract research
• Open competition programmes
• Thematic competition programmes
• Consortium competition programmes

11
EU project on public funding of RD

• Context the PRIME network of researchers, funded
  through the Framework Programme of the EU
• Aim to compare funding modes in a number of
  countries (Switzerland, Italy, France, Norway,
  Austria and the Netherlands), leading to country
  reports
• Specific orientation on the role and composition
  of project funding by instruments, which differs
  between countries (academic, thematic, innovation
  oriented)
• The Dutch project was largely based on the
  analysis of GBAORD data for the years 1975-2005

12
Some results of the Dutch project

• The share of government funding declined
• Two ministries are dominant Science and Economic
  Affairs (more that 80 percent)
• Project funding increases most
• But as a relative share it increases between
  1975 and 1990, then it stabilizes
• The system is getting more complex!

13
Institutional versus project funding
14
Funding types by ministry
15
Some general conclusions on Dutch RD

• A mixed performance
• Modest RD expenditure, especially in the private
  sector
• But a high scientific performance and impact
• In a increasingly complex organisational setting
• A number of major challenges to achieve the
  ambitions

16
Challenges

• Implementing a long term strategy for public and
  private investments in research talent and RD
  (investing in high performing groups)
• Stimulating the inflow of talented researchers,
  national and international
• Based on an integrated effort of the different
  partners government, research organisations,
  private sector
• With the Innovation Platform as main stimulating
  party