Distribución porcentual de las comidas en el día

Abstract. This chapter describes the institutional and decision-making struc- tures for science systems in OECD member countries, their differences and how they influence the way public research is managed and funded.

Introduction

In the area of science policy, countries’ decision-making structures have a major influence on how policy is designed and implemented and how public research is funded and managed. To a large extent they shape the governance of science systems1 and their understanding helps shed light on governance reforms that may be needed to better respond to challenges that these systems are facing in terms of efficiency, accountability and long term sustainability of knowledge creation. As will be described later in this chapter, in some countries incremental changes to – or within the framework of – the existing structures may already allow them to cope with the challenges science systems are facing. In others, more substantial reforms may be needed to make structures more flexible in dealing with new demands and opportunities.

This chapter identifies the structures of different systems and highlights the changes that they are undergoing in order to better respond to policy challenges. In particular, the chapter attempts to review how countries with different structures respond to the demand for greater involvement of all stakeholders concerned with the governance of the science system and the long-term sustainability of the research enterprise. It will be shown that – while trends are not equally evident in all countries – there are common features across OECD countries despite variations in the structures of different national research systems.

The chapter is based on questionnaire responses2 and other available sources of information. Questions regarding science system structures were the following:

x A first set of questions addressed the governmental structure for the overall management of the science system – also closely related to priority setting and funding (see related chapters).

x A second set of questions related to whether governments were directly involved in the management and funding of universities and other public research institutions, or whether this would be left to intermediary institutions such as research councils, being closely related to the question of how different stakeholders are involved in the process of decision-making about priority setting and funding. x Another set of questions dealt with the relative importance of

universities vs. other public research institutions.

These items were also the most important elements in identifying the three science system archetypes described below.

System governance

Countries’ structures for governing their science systems are varied and complex. Looking at the various structures, it proved useful to analyse the relationships between structures and governance through the prism of three science system archetypes (see Table 2.1):

x First, the “centralised” archetype with a strong top-down manage- ment approach, a high share of institutional funding and an important share of research carried out in public research insti- tutions that are not part of the university system.

x Second, the “dual system” archetype with a mixed system of top- down and bottom-up approaches to priority setting, a mix of institutional funding and competitive funding instruments, and a balance between research-performing institutions.

2. The following countries responded to the questionnaire and later provided addi- tional information on some of the questions: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States.

x Third, the decentralised archetype with relatively low top-down control, hardly any institutional funding apart from mission- oriented programmes, and a strong research base in universities. These three archetypes are organised in different ways with regard to the features described above, and respond in a different way to the challenges related to governing science systems.

It should be stressed that the three archetypes are by no means a typology to categorise countries as belonging to one or another. Rather, they are intended to provide a mapping of possible governance systems and each country has elements that reflect some aspects of each archetype and would fit in the mapping that could be represented as a triangle whose apices would be the three archetypes. Such a representation is a useful conceptual tool as it facilitates the understanding of important features of countries’ governance systems, and the identification of their strengths and drawbacks in relation to their proximity to the three archetypes. Also, as the governance of science systems is subject to changes through institutional or other reforms, this representation allows to highlight the possible effects of such changes on the performance of science systems and their responsiveness to the challenges they are facing.

Indeed, in most countries, incremental or more comprehensive reforms have been undertaken to overcome major systemic drawbacks. As reported by countries (see Box 2.1) the most important changes relate to the definition of priorities for public research, the strengthening of intermediate funding agencies (research councils), better co-ordination between different government levels, increased institutional autonomy for universities and public research insti- tutions, and the introduction of performance measurement. As already outlined above, changes in regulatory frameworks are sometimes sufficient to achieve the desired effects, but at times deeper reforms are required. Although on the whole more centralised systems seem to be more rigid, once changes have been decided they might be easier to make because top-down procedures are shorter than those in the mixed approach of the dual system or the bottom-up approach of the decentralised system, both of which take more time for co-ordination and consensus building before decisions can be made.

Table 2.1. Science system archetypes

Centralized archetype Dual-system archetype Decentralized archetype Ministerial structure _x Single ministry of science

(sometimes together with education and/or technology)

x Federal and state/regional ministries of science and/or education/technology

x Many government departments

Priority setting _x Primarily top-down from central government; stakeholder involvement only at advisory level

x Top-down and bottom-up; stakeholder involvement for part of the R&D budget

x Primarily bottom up from research community

Funding streams _x Primarily institutional funding; direct funding of public research institutions and universities x Relatively few competitive grant

programmes

x No independent funding agencies (research councils)

x Institutional funding of public research institutions and universities as well as competitive grant programmes in independent funding agencies for universities and public research institutions

x Hardly any institutional funding; primarily project funding; competitive grant programmes in independent funding agencies, primarily to universities

x Secondarily mission-oriented funding of public research institutions Role of research performers receiving public support (universities, public research institutions)

x Research primarily carried out in public research institutions, including short-term post-docs x Universities come second as

research performers

x Balance of research performance between

universities and public research institutions, including graduate students and short-term post docs

x Research primarily performed in universities, including short- term post-docs and graduate students

x Public research institutions come second as research performers

Evaluation _x Periodic committee evaluation