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FinSys – Research Monitoring/Final Reports

The priority of funding from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) is on the examination, appraisal, and selection of detailed applications for financial support. Information from the DFG about the subsequent approval process consists of application statistics, approval rates, and rankings. In addition, the DFG provides the public with GEPRIS, an Internet system that facilitates access to research projects and their supporting data through full-text research.

However, the output side of DFG funding has received little attention compared to the research funding systems of other countries. Although DFG funding guidelines oblige applicants to document their project results in a final report submitted to the DFG, no further evaluation of those results has ever taken place. The administrative management and supervision of a project is over when the project ends and the final report is submitted.

The “Final Report” project is therefore intended to raise awareness of the output side of DFG research funding. It allows the observation and analysis of key developments in the research funding system. It can also be used to stimulate discussion about the performance indicators in the disciplines. Such evaluation of the results communicated in the final reports represents an important step in assessing the research output of funded projects, an issue of growing significance not only among German sources of outside funding but at the European level as well. This emphasis on evaluation differs from the more administrative dimension of computer-aided application procedures, reporting, and evaluation at the National Science Foundation in the United States, for example.

The DFG is currently developing a new computerized process (ExtrA) for systematically indexing research applications and is planning to do the same for the research reports. Administratively, the main intent is to simplify the indexing and documentation of final reports. Orderly computerized organization of the final reports will also reduce the effort required of the applicants. Preliminary research that the iFQ has planned for this project includes computer-aided content analyses of final reports and professional reviews, surveys of applicants and reviewers, bibliometric analyses, and evaluation of conference publications. This background work with the relevant actors is expected to gather instructive information with which to finalize the design of the indexing instruments and to develop new elements for evaluating the output of research funding programs.

Additional information that this project gathers will be linked with external sources for purposes of evaluation. As with GEPRIS, a text-based information system accessible through the Internet (FinSys) is being developed to enable users to research the abstracts and literature of past projects. The link to GEPRIS will thereby complement the application for DFG-funding with important findings and literature references and bring it to the attention of the interested public.

Another dimension has to do with the results that emerge from a research project. The analyses concentrate mainly on publications, which are checked with bibliometric methods linked to the current discipline. Whereas it was clear beforehand that classical citation analyses are pertinent only in certain research areas, bibliographical details can also yield information about cooperative relations and publication strategies, for example, and can delineate structural effects of the research funding. Furthermore, activities such as the organization of conferences and participation in congresses can serve an analysis of the impacts that research funding has on programs.

Beyond evaluation, the organized indexing of final reports offers access to a DFG repository. The final reports and compiled data could ultimately be interesting for local information and management systems of universities and other institutions of higher learning.

Numbers and Facts:
Figure 1 shows the number of funded projects completed between 2000 and 2005 in the Individual Grants Program. A total of 10,722 projects were concluded in that period. Figure 2 shows the number of projects concluded in the disciplines represented in the Pilot project FinSys between 2000 and 2005. The total number of that period's final reports to be indexed is 2094.

Source: DFG

Figure 3 presents the breakdown of final reports by subject area, represented in the pilot project, and volume of funding.

Source: DFG, own calculation

References:

Färkkilä, Heikki, 2004: Major Observations of a Study on Final Reporting of Funded Research. Academy of Finland. [Retrieved 31.10.2006]
Giles, C. Lee, and Isaac G. Councill, 2004: Who gets Acknowledged. Measuring Scientific Contributions through Automatic Acknowledgement Indexing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101 (51): 17599-17604. [Retrieved 31.10.2006]
  Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA), 2006: Ergebnisse einer Befragung anlässlich des HERA-Workshops „European Research Impact and Quality Assessment Practices, London 16.3.2006. Unveröffentlichtes Mansuskript.
  Hornbostel, Stefan, 1991a: Drittmitteleinwerbungen - ein Indiaktor für universitäre Forschungsleistungen? Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung 1, 57-84.
  Hornbostel, Stefan, 1991b: Drittmitteleinwerbungen als Forschungsindikator. Ergebnisbericht zum Teil II des Projektes "Vergleichende Bewertung von Leistungen der Hochschulen". Veröff. Typoskript. Köln: 1991.
  Internationale Kommission zur Systemevaluation der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft und der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Hannover, 2000: Forschungsförderung in Deutschland. www.blk-bonn.de/papers/forschungsfoerderung.pdf (Bericht) und www.blk-bonn.de/papers/forschfoerd_summary.pdf (Executive Summary). [Retrieved 31.10.2006]
Trägerverein Institut für Forschungsinformation und Qualitätssicherung, 2004: Antrag auf Förderung der Hilfseinrichtung „Institut für Forschungsinformation und Qualitätssicherung“. Bonn. [Retrieved 31.10.2006]