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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Wang, Lili (UNU-MERIT); Wang, Xianwen (Dalian University of Technology); Piro, Fredrik Niclas (Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education); Philipsen, Niels (RILE, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and METRO, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | Public funding is believed to play an important role in the development of science and technology. However, whether public funding actually helps to increase scientific output (i.e. publications) remains a matter of debate. By analysing a dataset of co-publications between China and the EU and a dataset of joint project collaborations in European Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation (FP7 & H2020), we investigate whether different public funding agencies have different goals in their research policy. Our results support the hypotheses that funded research output represents the intentions of funding sponsors and a high level of public funding does not necessarily lead to high scientific output. Our results show that FP7/H2020 funded projects do not have a positive contribution to the output of joint publications between China and the EU. Interestingly, cooperation in the form of jointly writing proposals to these EU programmes, especially when they are not granted by the European Commission, can contribute significantly to joint scientific publications at a later stage. This applies in particular to cases where funding from China is involved. Our findings highlight the key role that funding agencies play in influencing research performance. While the Chinese government is interested in pursuing a high number of publications, the EU cares more about the social impact and indirect effect, which is hard to measure in the short term. |
| Keywords: | Public funding, research evaluation, scientific output, international collaboration, China, EU member states |
| JEL: | F02 H52 O20 O38 O52 O53 |
| Date: | 2019–11–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2019045&r=all |
| By: | Rothengatter, Werner (Asian Development Bank Institute) |
| Abstract: | The European Union introduced the concept of Trans-European transport networks in 1996 and developed it from a set of projects into a comprehensive network plan in 2013. The high-priority components of this plan (for 2050) are a core network and nine core network corridors (CNCs), which the European Union intends to implement until the year 2030. The CNCs focus on improving connectivity, including harmonizing technology and organization as well as removing border resistance. Railways, in particular high-speed railways, are at the core of the CNCs. The evaluation of CNCs through conventional cost–benefit analysis (CBA) is too narrow and could lead to a patchwork of independent projects rather than an integrated network. Therefore, the European Commission has launched several studies on extending CBA with strategic approaches including wider economic impacts and long-term impacts on the environment, climate, and regional/social equity. As there has been no convention for a standard approach until now—contrasting CBA—we discuss several possible methodologies. The conclusion favors dynamic approaches that are well calibrated on the base of empirical observations, such as macro-econometric or system dynamics models, over theoretically more challenging general equilibrium models, although the latter are still the mainstream in the economic literature. |
| Keywords: | trans-european networks; core network corridors; cost–benefit analysis; wider economic impacts; computed equilibrium; econometrics; system dynamics approaches; integrated assessment |
| JEL: | H54 O22 R42 |
| Date: | 2019–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0946&r=all |
| By: | Peel, Kyle; Tretter, Eliot |
| Abstract: | Toronto's Portlands neighborhood is the target of an enormous redevelopment effort that will infuse smart-city technologies into the urban morphology. The quasi-governmental Waterfront Toronto agency has partnered with the Alphabet subsidiary company Sidewalk Labs to plan and build out the neighborhood, essentially from the ground up, and embedded it with sophisticated technologies. The redevelopment plan details a digital layer made up of sensors that will collect and process locational information, tracking movement and usage patterns. Yet the project has been mired in controversy, mainly because of questions about data ownership and management. While there will be the amassing of an unfathomable amount of data, it is not clear who will control it and how it will be processed and used. Critics of the project have pointed out that the potential value of the data is enormous and if a private company has exclusive domain over it, that company could decide to sell it at will. Securely storing citizen’s data is another problem. This paper provides a description of the popular newspaper accounts of the Waterfront Toronto Project. It discusses how the project and redevelopment authority came to be, how Alphabet be-came the primary partner, the redevelopment vision, and controversy that has engulfed this smart-city project. |
| Date: | 2019–06–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:xgz2s&r=all |
| By: | Ariane Lambert-Mogiliansky (PJSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris, PSE - Paris School of Economics); Adrian Calmettes (SSSUP - Scuola Universitaria Superiore Sant'Anna - Istituto di Tecnologie della Comunicazione, dell'Informazione e della Percezione (Istituto TeCIP)) |
| Abstract: | Quantum-like decision theory is by now a theoretically well-developed field (see e.g., Danilov et al. 2018A). We here test the predictions of an application of this approach to persuasion. One remarkable result entails that in contrast to Bayesian persuasion, distraction rather than relevant information has a powerful potential to influence decision-making. We first provide a quantum decision model for a choice between two uncertain alternatives. We derive the impact of persuasion by means of distractive questions and contrast them with the predictions of the Bayesian model. Next, we conduct an experiment where respondents choose between supporting either one of two projects to save endangered species. We test the impact of persuasion in the form of questions related to different aspects of the uncertain value of the two projects. The experiment involves 900 respondents divided into three groups: a control group, a first treatment group and the distraction treatment group. Our main result is that, in accordance with the predictions of quantum persuasion but in violation with the Bayesian model, distraction significantly affects decision-making. Population variables play no role. Some significant variations between subgroups are exhibited and discussed. The results of the experiment provide support for the hypothesis that the manipulability of people's decision-making can be explained by the quantum indeterminacy of their subjective representations of reality. |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-02146862&r=all |