فصلنامه سیاست علم و فناوری
سال پانزدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 56، زمستان 1401)

The quantitative and qualitative expansion of research activities is necessary for the development of all countries in different aspects for example economic, social, cultural, and political dimensions, and this has increased the demand for various and new resources for funding research. The purpose of this study is to identify and classify the challenges of financing public research institutions in Iran and to propose some modifications in related laws and regulations in order to solve those challenges. For this purpose, first, semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts and after implementation, coding, and analysis of the results using MAXQDA2020, the aforementioned challenges were classified under five groups, in terms of the number of challenges are low cost-effectiveness and resource-consuming process efficiency, a weak evaluation system for performance-based financing of the institutions, the weak performance of the board of trustees, board of directors in connection with financing and lack of the institutions’ autonomy in the expenditure of resources, lack of the diversification of financing mechanisms and excessive emphasis on attracting external income. Some of these challenges can be solved by amending and strengthening relevant laws, for example, it is possible to amend the budget structure and performance-based budgeting, considering the difference in the nature of research and executive activities and the differentiation of institutions from the perspective of mission, establishing more flexible and competitive funding mechanisms while paying attention to guiding activities, setting priorities, independence of institutions and setting the priority of mechanisms and monitoring government financial resources by a national research agency.

Policy research studies for decision-making support system can have an important contribution in the development of national innovation system policies with the aim of increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of this system, especially in developing countries.The question is about the level and scope of innovative strategies of researchers in research institutes of science and higher education policy in Iran; and why such innovations are realized or not. A qualitative research was conducted with the participation of researchers from several institutions to discover their common lived experiences. According to the core concept of this research, researchers are in a "polar situation" on two paths. On the one hand, the structures, institutions, and contextual factors hinder them, and on the other hand, there are inadequacies in the researchers' own way of acting and their research initiatives that lowers the level and scope of researchers' innovations. Despite this, there are also intervening and adjusting variables that can overcome these obstacles and enable various innovative strategies. In the present study, this process has been causally explained and a set of innovations has been identified.Structures limit researchers' actions, but they cannot completely exclude their creative research initiatives from calculations and equations. According to the scope and diversity of their innovative research strategies in institutions, researchers can succeed in critical actions and institutional and structural changes.Structures limit researchers' actions, but they cannot completely exclude their creative research initiatives from calculations and equations. According to the scope and diversity of their innovative research strategies in institutions, researchers can succeed in critical actions and institutional and structural changes.

Collaboration between policymakers and researchers always faces a major challenge: high-quality research takes time, while policymakers need to find answers to their questions in the shortest possible time. In other words, in most cases, policy makers do not have enough time to receive the best evidence and research findings for decision making. Hence, the key responsibility of researchers is to rapidly respond to the needs of policy makers with a synthesis of research evidence. Government research institutes, in addition to their mission of expanding knowledge through in-depth research, due to their role in helping decision-making, it is necessary to be able to meet the urgent research needs of policy makers to make effective decisions based on scientific evidence. In this regard “Rapid response research” has been proposed as a solution for interaction of research institutes with policy makers and to meet their urgent need for research. The purpose of this research was to identify a framework for conducting rapid response research, and in it, the results of interviews with some experts who had experience in the interaction between policy and research, were coded and analyzed using the qualitative method of thematic analysis. The resulting components in this framework, what is or the clarification of the definition of rapid response research; Why to do it and how to include prerequisites and process. The prerequisites for conducting rapid response research, in two organizational and individual categories, were clarified and the process was achieved in three stages of problem identification, solution finding, and report presentation. Follow-up for agenda setting, challenges and considerations are also other influential factors that were identified and need to be taken into consideration in playing the role of rapid response research.

Government research institutes, as one of the main actors of the innovation system, are not only responsible for the realization of some of the main functions of this system, such as carrying out research and development activities, but they also contribute to the development of innovation driving engines through direct and indirect cooperation with other actors. However, clarifying the role and function of government research institutes in the transition to a knowledge-based economy has received less attention and related policies have not been sufficiently discussed. Therefore, in the current research, using the qualitative research approach and the methods of forming a focus group and thematic analysis, the functions of government research institutes and the policies that facilitate their role in the realization of the knowledge-based economy have been examined. The findings of this research indicate that playing roles such as a host to specialized innovation centers and accelerators; Strategic and problem-oriented research management platform; Standard reference and regulatory support of the economic sectors; Specialized service center for companies active in the economic sector; Center for cooperation, transfer, dissemination and promotion of technology in the economic sector; and the think tank of technological and political intelligence, are the most important functions of government research institutes in line with the transition to a knowledge-based economy. In addition, to create a suitable environment for the role of government research institutes in the realization of the knowledge-based economy, policies dedicated to governance and division of tasks; strengthening the supply side; strengthening the demand side; Strengthening the linkage between supply and demand and developing and providing infrastructure are needed, which have been identified in this research.

Research institutions are among the key actors in the national innovation system, which play a very important role in determining the directions and trends of science and technology. Therefore, clarifying their position in the innovation system and directing their movement path is very important in line with their mission orientation. However, the available evidence indicates that the expected functions of these institutions have not been effectively realized. One of the reasons can be due to the lack of a mission-oriented framework of these types of institutions and the behavior expected from them in the national innovation system. Therefore; the main goal of the current research is to accurately identify the main functions of government research institutions and their areas of focus based on a systematic literature review and a comparative study of some foreign examples and subsequently to provide a typological framework for government research institutions in order to provide a basis for determining their mission. The findings of the research indicate that there are 5 types of research institutes including "basic scientific research institutes", "policy research institutes and think tanks"; "technological and industrial research institutes"; "research and technology institutes" and " "Problem-oriented research institutions" can be separated based on two dimensions of functional areas and focus in the innovation chain which can be a basis for determining their mission and subsequently planning in line with the direction of some management requirements in these institutions. Research institutions are among the key actors in the national innovation system, which play a very important role in determining the directions and trends of science and technology in the national innovation system. Therefore, clarifying their position in the innovation chain and directing their movement path is very important in line with their mission orientation. However, the available evidence indicates that the expected functions of these institutions have not been effectively realized;

In recent decades, policymakers have confirmed the necessity and value of the role of applied research in the guidance and effectiveness of policy decisions. This research provides an evaluation framework for policy-research institutes based on the mission-oriented approach. Using the mixed methodology approach and the framework synthesis research method, we have selected the most important dimensions, indices, and measures for evaluating the performance of these institutions corresponding to their functional position in the national innovation system. In addition, we have validated the evaluation framework by expert survey and determined the importance of its components based on the one-sample T-test. The final evaluation framework shows in the form of a radar chart consisting of four quadrants of appropriateness, efficiency, effectiveness, and usefulness, 18 dimensions, and its sub-categories. Also, the most important results of this research, focusing on the different aspects of evaluating the performance of political research institutes and think tanks, indicate key axes derived from the specific missions of such institutes. Factors such as the specialized variety of political and technical researchers required by the institute, distinguished guest politicians, participation in the public discourse of the work field, policy networking, learning programs, knowledge enhancement through intellectual leadership in the political environment, and good governance, are the most important results