International Arctic Research: Analyzing Global Funding Trends

Our portfolio company ÜberResearch, alongside the UArctic Science & Research Analytics Task Force, have released a report analyzing global funding trends in Arctic research titled: International Arctic Research: Analyzing Global Funding Trends. A Pilot Report (2017 Update)

In this annual update to the pilot report on global Arctic funding published in 2016, and using insights from grants database Dimensions, the authors studied data from over 250 funders for the period 2007-2016 to determine the extent to which research in the field is being supported.

Key findings include:

• Roughly ⅓ of all global Arctic research presented in this data is undertaken by UArctic member institutions.
• Arctic Council Observer states provide about 0.5% of their total research funding to Arctic research, compared to 7% on average for member states.
• The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science is now the biggest funder, by number of grants, in Dimensions, with over 800,000 records – 354 of which are focused on Arctic research. Japan is the second most active Observer Country of the Arctic Council, following the UK.
• RFBR remains the top funder, by number of funded projects, related to Arctic (3,035) in the ten year period (2007-2016), followed by NSF-GEO and NSERC.
• The largest proportion of Arctic research funding falls under the Earth Sciences, with many attributed to Oceanography.

For the first time, the report also includes data from all major Danish funders, who collectively contributed funding for over 280 projects across disciplines, and Danish institutions who are doing Arctic research.

Speaking about the report, lead author Igor Osipov, Senior Research Fellow at FEFU and Chair of the UArctic Research Analytics Work Group, commented,

“We’re really pleased to have been able to incorporate insights from Denmark into the annual update of the analysis. Danish funding plays a big part in many of the Arctic research projects that are being conducted today, and being able to showcase their contribution was an important aspect of this report.”

Co-author Giles Radford, Head of Professional Services at ÜberResearch, adds,

“As we continue to add new funding data into the Dimensions database, our data around Arctic research continues to become more robust. Research priorities can change and we hope to monitor and report annually to show how funding for research into the Arctic landscape changes over time.”

You can download the report here.