Yaqub, Ohid;
Coburn, Josie;
Moore, Duncan AQ;
(2024)
Research-targeting, spillovers, and the direction of science: Evidence from HIV research-funding.
Research Policy
, 53
(8)
, Article 105076. 10.1016/j.respol.2024.105076.
Preview |
PDF
Yaqub 2024 HIV spillovers.pdf - Published Version Download (3MB) | Preview |
Abstract
HIV/AIDS has been a major focus for research funders. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) alone has spent over $70bn on HIV/AIDS. Such investments ushered in antiviral drugs, helping to reverse a rapidly growing HIV/AIDS pandemic. However, the idea that research can deliver unexpected benefits beyond its targeted field, in fact, predates HIV/AIDS to at least Vannevar Bush's influential 1945 report. Cross-disease spillovers – research investments that yield benefits beyond the target disease – remains unexplored, even though it could inform both priority-setting and calculations of returns on research investments. To this end, we took a sample of NIH's HIV grants and examined their publications. We analyzed 118,493 publications and found that 62 % of these were spillovers. We used Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms assigned to publications to explore the content of these spillovers, as well as to corroborate non-spillovers. We located spillovers on a network of MeSH co-occurrence, drawn from the broader universe of biomedical publications, for comparison. We found that HIV spillovers were unevenly distributed across disease-space, and often in close proximity to HIV (60 % local; 40 % remote). We further reviewed 1000 grant–publication pairs from a local sample and 1000 pairs from a remote sample. For local spillovers, a quarter seemed to be unexpected, on the basis of their grant description; for remote spillovers, that proportion increased to one third. We also found that the NIH funding institutes whose remits were most closely related to HIV/AIDS were less likely to produce spillovers than others. We discuss implications for theory and policy.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Research-targeting, spillovers, and the direction of science: Evidence from HIV research-funding |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.respol.2024.105076 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2024.105076 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Spillovers, Research targeting, Research direction, Research policy, Science policy |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > STEaPP |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10217402 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
