The hidden influence of communities in collaborative funding of clinical science

Every year the National Institutes of Health allocates $10.7 billion
(one-third of its funds) for clinical science research while the
pharmaceutical companies spend $52.9 billion (90% of its annual budget).
However, we know little about funder collaborations and the impact of
collaboratively funded projects. As an initial effort towards this, we
examine the cofunding network, where a funder represents a node and an
edge signifies collaboration. Our core data include all papers that cite
and receive citations by the Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews, a
prominent clinical review journal. We find that 65% of clinical papers
have multiple funders and discover communities of funders that are formed
by national boundaries and funding objectives. To quantify success in
funding, we use a g-index metric that indicates efficiency of funders in
supporting clinically relevant research. After controlling for authorship,
we find that funders generally achieve higher success when collaborating
than when solofunding. We also find that as a funder, seeking multiple,
direct connections with various disconnected funders may be more
beneficial than being part of a densely interconnected network of
co-funders. The results of this paper indicate that collaborations can
potentially accelerate innovation, not only among authors but also
funders.

美国国立卫生研究院（National Institutes of Health）每年会拨出107亿美元，占其总经费的三分之一，用于临床科学研究；而制药企业的年度研发投入则高达529亿美元，占其年度预算的90%。然而，目前学界对于资助方之间的合作模式，以及联合资助项目所产生的影响仍知之甚少。为此，本研究首先对联合资助网络展开分析：网络中的节点代表资助方，边则代表双方存在合作关系。本研究的核心数据集涵盖所有既引用《Cochrane系统评价数据库》（Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews，该期刊为领域内知名临床综述期刊）的内容，同时又被该数据库引用的学术论文。研究发现，65%的临床类论文拥有多位资助方，同时还识别出由国家边界与资助目标共同塑造的资助方社群。为量化资助方的项目成果表现，本研究采用g指数（g-index）指标，用以衡量资助方支持临床相关研究的效率。在控制作者署名等混杂变量后，研究结果显示：相较于独立资助，资助方通过合作开展项目通常能取得更高的成果。此外，研究还发现，相较于嵌入高度互联的联合资助网络，作为资助方与多个分散的合作方建立直接联系，可能会带来更优的收益。本研究结果表明，合作不仅能够推动作者群体的创新，同样也能助力资助方之间的创新提速。