مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Large R&D projects, such as research infrastructures (henceforth, RIs), require substantial capital investment, mostly financed by means of public funds. The injection of significant public resources to RIs in the European Union (EU) is motivated by the recognition of their positive contribution to expanding the scientific and technological knowledge frontier, by fostering scientific discovery and acting as incubators of innovative technologies.1 The scope of potential benefits, beyond pure knowledge, accruing to both supplier and user industries of RIs, has indeed fostered an increase in EU funds aimed at supporting RIs. From a mere €۳۰ million allocated within Framework Programme 2 (FP2) between 1987 and 1991, €۱٫۸۵ billion were committed for RIs between 2007 and 2013 in the context of FP7, and the Horizon 20202 Programme’s budget for RIs is of around €۲٫۵ billions between 2014 and 2020.3 Further, an EU-wide roadmap for RIs is being implemented under the supervision of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), further suggesting the attention given to this specific form of research collaboration.

Given the importance attributed to RIs for the achievement of excellence in science, innovation, and technology and the amount of funds earmarked by the EU to promote and sustain them, a better understanding of their impact on the European economy is crucial. The aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it offers a critical reading of previous literature on the evaluation of the rate of return to investment in research and development (R&D) to gauge the potential benefits of RIs. On the other, the paper provides an overview of the characteristics of existing RIs in the EU and presents two possible measures (a cost effectiveness ratio and a bibliometric citation count) that can be seen as rough proxies of the rate of return to (public) investment in RIs. The empirical results presented thus suggest the dimensions along which existing and future RI projects, in different fields of science, can be examined to evaluate the potential returns to these endeavors. The goal is to frame further research on new methods to evaluate the rate of return to investment in RIs within previous literature and methodologies, while taking advantage of the stylized facts and empirical evidence concerning existing facilities in the EU.

While each project is characterized by idiosyncratic characteristics, influenced by the type of research carried out and the subject matter, that in the end determine the rate of return to capital investments, some common features and trends can be highlighted. RIs in the various fields of science may differ, for example, in terms of duration, costs, type of collaboration and partners, and countries involved, thus making comparisons in terms of a rate of return to the investment rather difficult. However, several strands of economic literature have focused on both the methodological issues and the empirical analysis related to the definition and quantification of the rate of return to investment in R&D, both at an aggregate and at a project-specific level. Thus, analyzing previous literature may shed light on a reasonable numeric range for this variable and suggest a reliable methodology to analyze the impact of research investment in general, and RIs, on economic variables. Can a common framework for the evaluation and appraisal of the contribution of RIs to economic well-being and growth be identified? Can a set of stylized facts on the rate of return be distilled from the analysis of existing RIs in Europe? To this end, in what follows, a selection of previous literature on the subject is presented, mainly with the aim of identifying methodologies and best practices in the evaluation of the rate of return to capital investment in R&D, rather than presenting a systematic survey of this burgeoning literature.4 This overview is complemented by an empirical evaluation, based on a new data set prepared for this paper, of the main characteristics of European RIs. An initial sketch of a methodology for evaluating the rate of return to investment in RIs (focusing on a cost-effectiveness measure and considering the impact of scientific publications produced within the RI) is also proposed based on data from existing facilities in the EU.