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Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use R&D support services to increase their R&D efficiency because they can facilitate innovation by supplying the planning and management functions that SMEs may lack. This study investigates the issues that can arise during service transaction processes and ways of improving SMEs' use of R&D support services. We discuss the different perspectives of clients and service providers in Korea, where R&D support services have just emerged, and consider how a government-funded research institute could act as an intermediary to bridge the gap between those perspectives. The findings, largely produced through interviews and surveys, are expected to advance our understanding of the R&D support service industries, and offer strategic and policy implications that will improve SMEs' use of such services and thus improve their innovation capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to model selection criteria of R&D projects for awarding direct subsidies to the private sector, in order to assist government agencies in improving the way in which they allocate the subsidies. The modeling involved three steps. The first step was a literature review of the criteria used to make the decisions. The second step involved structuring the revised criteria into a hierarchical matrix. The third step involved evaluating the proposed matrix by weighting the criteria using the analytic hierarchy process. The results obtained allowed the elucidation of these criteria, the proposal of a valid and detailed hierarchical matrix and the integration of the personal perceptions of the decision-makers with the specific objectives of a public organization. Thus, this model was demonstrated to be an appropriate tool for structuring these criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the role public support plays in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) R&D financing as well as these firms' assessments of financing conditions in the context of other framework conditions for innovation. Using the sample of 2,708 German SMEs that participated in public R&D promotion programs during 2005-10, we identify four unique types of R&D financing. Firms are generally positive about public financing of R&D in Germany, although a group of R&D companies without a track record that wish to introduce an innovation to the market find it difficult to procure a loan. SMEs perceive obstacles to innovation primarily in the non-financial sphere, namely, the supply of skilled personnel, market regulation, and competition conditions. Therefore, future work on innovation policies for SMEs should place greater emphasis on the non-financial external framework conditions for firm R&D and innovative activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past two decades, centres of excellence (CoE) and other 'research excellence initiatives' likely to increase the cumulative advantages and stratification of science, have been implemented in many countries. Based on empirical studies of CoE in four Nordic countries, this paper examines how the resources provided by CoE schemes (generous long-term funding, prestige and visibility) add to the success and growth dynamics of the CoE. The data indicate a modified Matthew effect with ceilings and limits avoiding excessive accumulation of resources. Important impacts of the CoE are found, in particular in terms of enabling more interdisciplinary collaboration and risk-taking and enhancing international recruitment to the research areas involved. But, in contrast to what might be expected, the CoE grant seem to add less to the relative citation rate of those already performing at the highest level, than for those performing at a somewhat lower level prior to the CoE grant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates how changes in US National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding levels affected US universities' total biomedical R&D efforts, over a period of dramatic change in the federal funding environment. Instrumental variables estimation reveals that during the NIH budget doubling period (1998-2003), each federal dollar that US universities received spurred an additional $0.26 in research support from non-federal sources, with stronger complementarity found among historically less-research-intensive institutions. However, in the more competitive post-doubling environment (2006 onwards), the more research-intensive PhD-granting universities substituted funding from non-federal sources to maintain stable levels of R&D expenditures. In contrast, at non-PhD-granting and historically less-research-intensive institutions, total R&D funding and expenditures declined overall with reduced availability of federal funds. However, the effect of successful federal applications on subsequent non-federal investment remained significant and positive for this latter group, suggesting federal R&D funding may play an important signaling role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the distribution of federal academic research and development (R&D) funding in the context of fiscal federalism in financing academic R&D in the USA. The statistical results suggest that the distribution of federal academic R&D expenditures is primarily determined by states’ research capacity. In addition, a state’s political representation on congressional appropriations committees also has some significant but limited impact on its receipt of federal R&D support. The paper improves our understanding of fiscal federalism in supporting academic R&D in the USA, and provides empirical evidence related to the debate about the geographic distribution of federal funding of academic R&D. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]