The Dutch R&D system
characteristics and trends, with a focus on
government funding
Jan van Steen
Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, The Netherlands
Madrid, 3-4 July 2008
A multi level R&D system
• The political and governmental
level
• Advisory bodies
• R&D funding organisations
• Intermediary organisations and
temporary task forces
• R&D performing institutes
• Research facilitating institutes
• Parliament, Cabinet, Ministries
• Advisory Council, Innovation
Platform, Academy of
Sciences
• Government, enterprises, other
national funds, abroad
• Research Council, Academy of
Sciences, Task forces on
Genomics and ICT
• Universities, institutes,
enterprises
• Liaison office for EU, ICT
infrastructure, Royal Library
Increasing complexity in the science system
High ambitions in science policy …
• To be in the top of Europe
• To have an excellent research climate, based on:




An ambitious climate
Self management within scientific disciplines
Focus on talent and talent development
Scientific areas should fit to the agenda’s of government, the
business sector and societal organisations
 Research with a practical focus
• To achieve with




Strengthening the role of pure scientific research
A greater focus on national research priorities
Solid social embedding of scientific research
Independence, transparent accountability and proper quality
management
… but a mixed performance today
• Very modest R&D-expenditure (€ 8,9 billion = 1.67% of
GDP): in the middle group of OECD countries, and even
below the EU average
• A relatively large public R&D sector and small private
R&D sector, funding as well as performance
• Relatively few researchers and under representation of
specific groups
• Scientific output: 2.5% of world output (ranked 10th),
combined with a relative good productivity
• High citation impact score: 1.34 (ranked third worldwide)
A decreasing trend in R&D expenditure
2,4
%
2,2
2,0
1,8
1,6
'90 '91 '92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 '05 '06
NLD
OECD
EU-27
EU-15
Government funding of R&D:
why?
• Institutional funding for the maintenance of the
knowledge infrastructure (basic research at universities
and institutes, applied research institutes)
• For knowledge development for governmental policies
(“evidence based policy”)
• Specific funding is a powerful instrument of (science)
policy, that can steer the direction of R&D
• In addition to other instruments like legislation,
regulations and dialogue
Policy issues related to funding
• Public versus private funding
• Institutional versus project funding (long term
versus short term)
 Assumption: a large increase of project funding
• The capacity for free basic research versus
oriented research
• The increasing complexity of the system
2005
1981
Japan
Switzerland
Sweden
Belgium
Finland
Denmark
Germany
OECD
United States
Ireland
Canada
United Kingdom
EU-15
Netherlands
Austria
France
Iceland
Australia
Spain
Norway
Greece
Italy
Portugal
Government funding of R&D: how much?
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Government funding of R&D: how?
• Institutional funding
•
•
•
•
Basic institutional funding (the universities)
Oriented institutional funding (TNO, GTI’s)
Infrastructure and equipment
International institutes and programmes
• Project funding
•
•
•
•
Contract research
Open competition programmes
Thematic competition programmes
Consortium competition programmes
EU project on public funding of R&D
• Context: the PRIME network of researchers, funded
through the Framework Programme of the EU
• Aim: to compare funding modes in a number of countries
(Switzerland, Italy, France, Norway, Austria and the
Netherlands), leading to country reports
• Specific orientation on the role and composition of
project funding by instruments, which differs between
countries (academic, thematic, innovation oriented)
• The Dutch project was largely based on the analysis of
GBAORD data for the years 1975-2005
Some results of the Dutch project
• The share of government funding declined
• Two ministries are dominant: Science and Economic
Affairs (more that 80 percent)
• Project funding increases most
• But: as a relative share it increases between 1975 and
1990, then it stabilizes
• The system is getting more complex!
1500
35
1300
30
1100
25
900
20
700
15
500
10
300
5
%
(1975 = 100)
Institutional versus project funding
100
0
'75 '76 '77 '78 '79 '80 '81 '82 '83 '84 '85 '86 '87 '88 '89 '90 '91 '92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 '05
% Project funding (right axis)
Project funding
Institutional funding
Funding types by ministry
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Economic Affairs
Science
Project funding
Other
Institutional funding
Total
Some general conclusions on Dutch R&D
• A mixed performance
 Modest R&D expenditure, especially in the private
sector
 But a high scientific performance and impact
• In a increasingly complex organisational setting
• A number of major challenges to achieve the
ambitions
Challenges
• Implementing a long term strategy for public and
private investments in research talent and R&D
(investing in high performing groups)
• Stimulating the inflow of talented researchers,
national and international
• Based on an integrated effort of the different
partners: government, research organisations,
private sector
• With the Innovation Platform as main stimulating
party