Funding shapes the anatomy of scientific research

TL;DR

This study analyzes how funding influences collaboration patterns in scientific research, revealing increased inequality, institutional diversification, and the emergence of cohesive core networks among leading universities over three decades.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive characterization of funding-driven changes in research collaboration networks and highlights the adaptive organization of these networks in response to funding dynamics.

Findings

Funding inequality has increased over time.

Leading universities diversified collaborations and became knowledge brokers.

Cohesive core networks among elite institutions are linked to research success.

Abstract

Research projects are primarily collaborative in nature through internal and external partnerships, but what role does funding play in their formation? Here, we examined over 43,000 funded projects in the past three decades, enabling us to characterise changes in the funding landscape and their impacts on the underlying collaboration patterns. We observed rising inequality in the distribution of funding and its effect was most noticeable at the institutional level in which the leading universities diversified their collaborations and increasingly became the knowledge brokers. Furthermore, these universities formed a cohesive core through their close ties, and such reliance appeared to be a key for their research success, with the elites in the core over-attracting resources but in turn rewarding in both research breadth and depth. Our results reveal how collaboration networks undergo previously unknown adaptive organisation in response to external driving forces, which can have far-reaching implications for future policy.