Do funding sources complement or substitute? Examining the impact of cancer research publications

Abstract

Academic research often draws on multiple funding sources. This paper investigates whether complementarity or substitutability emerges when different types of funding are used. Scholars have examined this phenomenon at the university and scientist levels, but not at the publication level. This gap is significant since acknowledgement sections in scientific papers indicate publications are often supported by multiple funding sources. To address this gap, we examine the extent to which different funding types are jointly used in publications, and to what extent certain combinations of funding are associated with higher academic impact (citation count). We focus on three types of funding accessed by UK‐based researchers: national, international, and industry. The analysis builds on data extracted from all UK cancer‐related publications in 2011, thus providing a 10‐year citation window. Findings indicate that, although there is complementarity between national and international funding in terms of their co‐occurrence (where these are acknowledged in the same publication), when we evaluate funding complementarity in relation to academic impact (we employ the supermodularity framework), we found no evidence of such a relationship. Rather, our results suggest substitutability between national and international funding. We also observe substitutability between international and industry funding.