Examining the Influence of Texas’ Strategic Plan for Increasing University Research: Loose Coupling and Research Production at Regional Public Universities
Quasi-experiment; difference-in-differences; research policy; higher education finance; state policy
Abstract :
[en] States have adopted a variety of policies to encourage universities
to expand research production, with the hope of supporting economic
growth and competitiveness. This paper considers whether
a state-level initiative succeeded in influencing university-based
research outputs among regional public universities. We test
whether the Texas Research Incentive Program increased research
production at a set of state universities as measured by total
research spending, federally-funded research spending, the number
of scholarly publications, and the share of publications published
in high impact factor journals. Using a novel dataset and
difference-in-differences analytic strategy, we found that TRIP
adoption was associated with a 19%-25% increase in research
expenditures at emerging research universities in Texas relative to
a matched set of comparable universities. However, TRIP did not
influence federally-funded research expenditures or journal publication
outputs. We also show that federally-funded research
expenditures influence publication outputs — both in amount
and quality — and that number of full-time faculty influences
both federal research expenditures and publication outputs. We
discuss contributions to the literature on regional public universities,
loose coupling, and research production, as well as implications
for policy.
Disciplines :
Sociology & social sciences
Author, co-author :
Fernandez, Frank; University of Florida > Institute of Higher Education
Fu, Yuan Chih; National Taipei University of Technology > Graduate Institute of Technical and Vocational Education
Hu, Xiaodan; Northern Illinois University > Department of Counseling and Higher Education
Moradel Vasquez, Juan Jose ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Social Sciences (DSOC)
External co-authors :
yes
Language :
English
Title :
Examining the Influence of Texas’ Strategic Plan for Increasing University Research: Loose Coupling and Research Production at Regional Public Universities
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