Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan.
College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
PLoS One. 2023 Aug 17;18(8):e0290077. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0290077. eCollection 2023.
Understanding the effectiveness of public funds to generate emerging topics will assist policy makers in promoting innovation. In the present study, we aim to clarify the effectiveness of grants to generate emerging topics in life sciences and medicine since 1991 with regard to Japanese researcher productivity and grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. To clarify how large grant amounts and which categories are more effective in generating emerging topics from both the PI and investment perspectives, we analyzed awarded PI publications containing emerging keywords (EKs; the elements of emerging topics) before and after funding. Our results demonstrated that, in terms of grant amounts, while PIs tended to generate more EKs with larger grants, the most effective investment from the perspective of investor side was found in the smallest amount range for each PI (less than 5 million JPY /year). Second, in terms of grant categories, we found that grant categories providing smaller amounts for diverse researchers without excellent past performance records were more effective from the investment perspective to generate EK. Our results suggest that offering smaller, widely dispersed grants rather than large, concentrated grants is more effective in promoting the generation of emerging topics in life science and medicine.
了解公共资金在产生新兴课题方面的效果，将有助于政策制定者推动创新。本研究旨在阐明自 1991 年以来，日本学术振兴会资助对日本生命科学和医学领域研究人员生产力和资助的影响，以明确资助在产生新兴课题方面的效果。为了从研究人员和投资方的角度明确大额资助和哪些类别更有利于产生新兴课题，我们分析了获得资助前后包含新兴关键词（新兴课题的要素）的获奖研究人员的出版物。结果表明，就资助金额而言，虽然研究人员获得的资助金额越大，产生的新兴关键词越多，但从投资方的角度来看，每个研究人员获得的最小资助金额范围内（每年少于 500 万日元）的投资效果最佳。其次，就资助类别而言，我们发现，对于没有出色过往业绩记录的多样化研究人员提供小额资助的类别，从投资角度来看，更有利于产生新兴关键词。研究结果表明，在生命科学和医学领域，提供小额、广泛分散的资助比提供大额、集中的资助更有利于促进新兴课题的产生。
