Alliance Online - December 2007

Excellence in research – necessary but not sufficient

Anthony Tomei

EVENT European Forum on Philanthropy and Research Funding
Date 4 December
Venue Brussels, Belgium
Organizer European Foundation Centre

For some years now a group of research-focused foundations has been working with the European Commission to establish a Europe-wide dialogue with universities and research institutes. In December 2007 the resulting initiative, the European Forum on Philanthropy and Research Funding, held its inaugural conference in Brussels.

The organizers deserve our thanks and congratulations. With a fair wind, the Forum will lead to better understanding and better conditions for the funding of research by foundations across Europe.

However, it is important that they do not stop there. The initiative thus far has been framed around the question: ‘How can foundations help research in Europe?’ This is of interest to a relatively small number of foundations. If the Forum is to be widened it will need to address the converse question: ‘How can research help the missions of foundations?’

Origins

One of the current axioms of the European Union is that the future of Europe lies in developing its intellectual capital. Various policies flow from this. Under the overall umbrella of an ambition to develop a ‘European Research Area’, they include the expansion of the Framework Programme, the creation of a European Research Council, initiatives to encourage scientific careers, and various moves to modernize Europe’s universities.[1]

Another strand is to increase funding for research from private sources. Industry is the big target, but philanthropic funding also has a role to play, and as far as foundations are concerned it is here that the story really begins. Sometime in 2004 the European Commission seems to have discovered foundations. It established an Independent Expert Group (EU jargon for a committee), which issued a report Giving for Research in Europe. This report looked at foundations’ and philanthropic organizations’ role in funding research. One of its recommendations was to create a Forum to improve networking and coordination between foundations and other European research stakeholders.

This idea was discussed at a follow-up conference, jointly organized by the Commission and the European Foundation Centre, held in March 2006.[2] Following the conference, there was a period of consultation, and a second expert group was established to recommend measures at national and European levels to promote the role of philanthropy in research.

The conference

The outcome of all this activity was the establishment of the European Forum on Research and Philanthropy Funding. The one-day inaugural conference was attended by 150 or so delegates, representing some 120 organizations. By my reckoning, around 30 of these organizations were foundations in the true sense of the word (that is, independent organizations with the capacity to provide funds). The foundations were slightly outnumbered by universities and research organizations and the balance was made up by EU and national bodies, consultancy organizations, think-tanks and third sector bodies.

The opening session, entitled ‘Building Momentum for European Research’, was led off by a keynote address from the EU Commissioner for Science and Research, Janez Potocnik. The Conference Chairman, Wilhelm Krull of the Volkswagen Foundation, then gave an elegant speech describing the role that foundations can play in funding research; how that role is different from that of state funding; and how the independence of foundations allows them to support initiatives of a distinctive and important kind. Krull was followed by the President of the Karolinska Institute in Finland, Professor Harriet Wallberg-Henriksson, who described how her university has set about fundraising, and by Pier Mario Vello, Secretary General of the Cariplo Foundation, who described the aims and ambitions of the Forum.

The conference then divided into parallel sessions. In the morning, one session addressed the issue of evaluating research outcomes and impact, while the second presented the conclusions of the EC Expert Group on Fundraising by Universities from Philanthropic Sources. In the afternoon, one session heard about regulatory and fiscal issues affecting donors and research funding while the second discussed ethics and public benefit in funding research. A final plenary session asked what foundations could contribute to the European Commission’s vision for the European Research Area and, more generally, what philanthropy can contribute to research in Europe.

Reflections

The conference was well organized, the speakers were good, and there was a clear sense of purpose. So far so good, but if I have a worry it is that the event was framed exclusively around the question posed in the final session: ‘How can foundations help research in Europe?’ It did not address the inverse question: ‘How can research help the missions of foundations?’

While there are a few foundations whose missions direct them to fund universities, research and scholarship for their own sakes, for most foundations research is a means to an end, not an end in itself. For them the wellbeing of research in Europe is likely to be of interest only in so far as it helps them achieve their objectives. Getting their attention and involvement will mean taking the second question seriously. This is not so easy, but it is a goal that is well worth pursuing. It has the potential both to increase the number of foundations funding research (and hence the amount of funding available) and to help foundations do their jobs better.

To give an example, the mission of the Nuffield Foundation, for which I work, is ‘the advancement of social wellbeing, especially by scientific research’. This gives us a greater orientation towards research than most foundations. But it is not definitive. Moreover, the way it is framed, with a clear separation of ends from means, profoundly affects the way we think about research. We operate mainly in education and various areas of social policy and we fund research that we intend will influence policy and practice. So we pay close attention to the impact the research will have, to timeliness, and to the means by which the results will come to have an influence.

Other foundations take a similar view. The Wellcome Trust, for example, one of the largest funders of research in Europe, has a mission to support research that will ‘improve human and animal health’. For them the wellbeing of research is fundamental, and they spend large sums supporting it. But what ultimately concerns them is the effect that their research is having on health. Their reports and publications bear witness to the priority they give to funding research that will ‘make a difference’.

For foundations that see research as a means rather than an end, the issues that were discussed at the conference, while important, are only part of the story. Take the session on evaluation, for example. We heard about the way some foundations measure the outcomes of their grants by counting publications, citations and other measures of research excellence. But at Nuffield what we are really interested in is the impact the research has had on policy and practice. This is much more difficult to measure. I would have welcomed more time discussing this and hearing how others attack the problem. The excellence of the research we fund is critical; poor research is not simply a waste of money, it can be misleading, even harmful. But for us, research excellence is a necessary, not a sufficient condition.

Conclusion

In my view foundations can best achieve their objectives by being strategic, thinking long term, understanding the problems they are trying to address, and focussing on the impact of the work they fund. This points firmly to the idea that research ought to be one of the key weapons in their armoury.[3] This is not an easy message to get across. Many foundations rule out the funding of research, seeing it as too difficult, too expensive, or simply an irrelevant diversion of money and effort. I hope the Forum will use the excellent start it has made as a base for beginning a dialogue with the neutrals and the doubters, rather than confining itself to internal discussions between foundations that are already committed. For its next conference, I hope the Forum will set itself a target of substantially increasing the number of participating foundations. To do this they will need to address the question, ‘how can research help foundations?’ It will be a long haul, but the prize is potentially substantial.

1 For a summary see: The European Research Area: New perspectives. Green Paper. April 2007. European Commission.
2 http://ec.europa.eu/invest-in-research/policy/philanthropy_en.htm
3 For a succinct version of this argument see M E Porter and M R Kramer (1999) ‘Philanthropy’s New Agenda: Creating value’, Harvard Business Review.

Anthony Tomei is Director of the Nuffield Foundation. Email atomei@nuffieldfoundation.org

Why should I subscribe to Alliance?

Subscribe now to Alliance magazine and receive:

4 issues of Alliance to your door
8 issues of Alliance Bulletin to your inbox
Access to all back issues (since 1998) in PDF format
Click here for more information or call +44 207 608 1862.