Funding agency
Funding agency is an organization which provides financial assistance to projects, programs or individuals. Generally, it is financial support in the form of scholarships, subsidy or any other form to universities, individual scientists, research teams and research institutes. Funding is significant for research and the issuance of scientific documents. The entity applying for funding must submit an application to the appropriate funding agency.
Agencies have to choose from many proposals which of the objectives they will support financially. For the raiting of application the largest number of funders select the best-known, proven and tested method considered the best when it comes to assessing the scientific value of research projects since the end of the Second World War.They are based on the method "the peer review of individual proposals to identify the most promising projects for funding"(Bollen J., Crandall D., Junk D., Dink Y.,Borner K.,2014, p.131). However,it is costly in terms of time and money because it requires a lot of work and effort in assessing individual applications. It has a high rejection rate. Due to tenderers, dissonances and certain omissions, it is essential that the assessment teams reach a consensus. This may involve sub-optimal decisions due to the stochastic nature of this evaluation process (Bollen J., Crandall D., Junk D., Dink Y.,Borner K.,2014, p.131).
Examples of funding agency
Examples of popular funding agency in the world (Wang X., Liu D., Ding K., Wang X. 2012, p.595-596)
- National Institutes of Health (NIF) - agency supporting financially the largest number of SCI papers in the US, moreover it is becoming an international organization which supports the development of medical research also in Canada or Japan.
- National Science Foundation (NSF) - self-contained federal funding agency that assist education, engineering research and scientific research in the USA.
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) - the most important funding agency in China with a meaningful influence on scientific and technological development.
- German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) - most important funding agency in Deutschland.
- European Commission (EC) - an agency operating in countries such as France, Italy, Spain, and Germany.
Looking for information about financing agencies, we can find different ways to record the names of the organizations in the raw records. Different name entries make it difficult to examine the sum of funds of each agency.
An example of such an organization is the most important funding agency in China which is the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Frequently used records of its name are NSFC, NSF of China or Natural Science Foundation of China. "Moreover, sometimes the names of funding agencies are written in the authors’ native languages. For example, German Research Foundation is often written as Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft" (Wang X., Liu D., Ding K., Wang X., 2012, p.594-595).
| Funding agency — recommended articles |
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References
- Bollen J., Crandall D., Junk D., Dink Y.,Borner K.,(2014) From funding agencies to scientific agency "EMBO reports", vol.15, no.2, p. 131-133
- O'Malley M.A., Elliott K. C., Haufe Ch., Burian R. M. (2009), Philosophies of Funding, "Cell", vol.138, p. 611-615
- Tardy Ch.M., (2003), A Genre System View of the Funding of Academic Research "Written Communication", vol.20, no.1, p. 7-36
- Walters M.W. (2009), Write an Effective Funding Application: A Guide for Researchers and Scholars, JHU Press, Baltimore
- Wang X., Liu D., Ding K., Wang X. (2012), Science funding and research output: a study on 10 countries "Scientometrics", vol.91 p. 591-599
Author: Gabriela Jopek
