Stephani Victor, Sommariva Silvia, Spranger Anne, Ciani Oriana
Department of Health Care Management, Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
CERGAS - Università Commerciale L. Bocconi, Milan, Italy.
Health Res Policy Syst. 2017 Oct 2;15(1):85. doi: 10.1186/s12961-017-0249-x.
Evidence shows that territorial borders continue to have an impact on research collaboration in Europe. Knowledge of national research structural contexts is therefore crucial to the promotion of Europe-wide policies for research funding. Nevertheless, studies assessing and comparing research systems remain scarce. This paper aims to further the knowledge on national research landscapes in Europe, focusing on non-communicable disease (NCD) research in Italy and Germany.
To capture the architecture of country-specific research funding systems, a three-fold strategy was adopted. First, a literature review was conducted to determine a list of key public, voluntary/private non-profit and commercial research funding organisations (RFOs). Second, an electronic survey was administered qualifying RFOs. Finally, survey results were integrated with semi-structured interviews with key opinion leaders in NCD research. Three major dimensions of interest were investigated - funding mechanisms, funding patterns and expectations regarding outputs.
The number of RFOs in Italy is four times larger than that in Germany and the Italian research system has more project funding instruments than the German system. Regarding the funding patterns towards NCD areas, in both countries, respiratory disease research resulted as the lowest funded, whereas cancer research was the target of most funding streams. The most reported expected outputs of funded research activity were scholarly publication of articles and reports.
This cross-country comparison on the Italian and German research funding structures revealed substantial differences between the two systems. The current system is prone to duplicated research efforts, popular funding for some diseases and intransparency of research results. Future research will require addressing the need for better coordination of research funding efforts, even more so if European research efforts are to play a greater role.
有证据表明，国界继续对欧洲的研究合作产生影响。因此，了解各国的研究结构背景对于推动全欧洲范围的研究资助政策至关重要。然而，评估和比较研究体系的研究仍然很少。本文旨在增进对欧洲各国研究状况的了解，重点关注意大利和德国的非传染性疾病（NCD）研究。
为了掌握各国特定的研究资助体系架构，采用了三重策略。首先，进行文献综述以确定关键的公共、志愿/私人非营利和商业研究资助组织（RFO）名单。其次，对符合条件的RFO进行电子调查。最后，将调查结果与对非传染性疾病研究领域关键意见领袖的半结构化访谈相结合。研究了三个主要感兴趣的维度——资助机制、资助模式和对研究成果的期望。
意大利的RFO数量比德国多四倍，且意大利的研究体系比德国体系拥有更多的项目资助工具。关于对非传染性疾病领域的资助模式，在这两个国家，呼吸系统疾病研究的资助都是最少的，而癌症研究是大多数资助流的目标。资助研究活动最常报告的预期成果是学术文章和报告的发表。
这项对意大利和德国研究资助结构的跨国比较揭示了这两个体系之间的巨大差异。当前体系容易出现研究工作重复、对某些疾病的普遍资助以及研究结果不透明的问题。未来的研究将需要解决更好地协调研究资助工作的必要性，尤其是如果欧洲的研究工作要发挥更大作用的话。
