Motivations guiding public research funding in science, technology and innovation (STI) policy: a synthesis

Chapter in the Handbook of Public Research Funding (https://www.projectfundinghandbook.com/)

A persistent tension between the autonomy of creativity and the politics of purpose surrounds discussions about science, technology and innovation over time. This conflict underlies public research investment. However, the environment surrounding public research funding (PRF) has changed in the last decades making the underlying rationales more complex, heterogeneous and hybrid. The chapter explores motivations guiding PRF that over time try to explain and justify more complex realities and demands. It synthesizes relevant literature around three main motivations –creativity, purpose, and transformation– and considers them as co-exiting in national research environments. This typology departs from the classical triad of curiosity, market and mission motivations, but re-casts them in light of emergent motivations that seek to transform PRF. The chapter extends Elzinga's contribution, which took a time-based, succession approach, by exploring the types of funding motivations described in the literature and providing a discussion about recent motivations that propose transformative change.