The changing governance of research systems. Agencification and organizational differentiation in research funding organizations

The goal of this chapter is to develop a general framework to analyse RFOs and their functions within science policy by leveraging on the political sciences literature on agencification (Pollitt et al, 2004; Verhoest et al, 2009). This literature provides with three important analytical lenses for studying RFOs and their role in the governance of sciences, i.e. the relationships with the state (the antinomy between autonomy and control), the distribution of tasks (vertical vs. horizontal specialisation) and the agencies' culture and structure (the emergence of distinct organizational forms). We also provide throughout the chapter some empirical illustration from examples of RFOs in European countries, focusing particularly on six countries. This sample includes very diverse countries in terms of their research and politico-administrative system and of NPM reforms: UK as the forerunner of NPM, two continental European countries (Switzerland and Germany), France as a traditionally very centralistic state and research policy system, a Mediterranean country (Italy) and a Nordic country (Norway). The importance of project funding, and accordingly the potential space for RFOs, also varies widely between 47% of total public research funding in Norway and 45% in the UK to barely 5% in Italy (data for 2014). Most of our data and of descriptive information have been derived from a recent comparative study on the structure of public research funding in Europe that was funded by the European Commission (PREF, Reale et al, 2017).