Individual Research Grants and Academic Productivity

This study aims at finding out the impact of the remunerative and commitment-based incentives on the academic outcomes of the HSE faculty. This analysis is relevant as provides an understanding about the efficiency of the motivation of HSE academic contract. Under academic contract, we imply apart from the labor agreement the whole range of incentive tools offered for academic faculty in university. Research grants are considered one of the most relevant part of the motivation policy incorporated in the academic contract. At the moment, a number of the incentive tools in academic contract are introduced at HSE. This research implies the program of individual research grants as a key driver of remunerative and commitment-based incentives for academic staff. We reveal the treatment effect of this program on the publication intensity and quality in HSE. We state that remunerative and commitment-based incentives play critical role for research activities and their outcomes in HSE. The empirical analysis is carried out for the purpose of this research. The database comprises about 800 observations of the granted and rejected applications from 2008 till 2012. This database is elaborated on the information provided by the HSE Academic Fund and publicly available data obtained from HSE website. The technique of regression discontinuity design enables estimation of the treatment effect of the individual research grants over last 5 years. As a result of this investigation we shed some light on the results of the HSE motivation policy towards academic staff.