Measurement of network effects from the EC SCIENCE/STIMULATION programmes

Abstract

Each of the EC research programmes has to be evaluated with respect to their objectives. This paper describes the study of the effects of the SCIENCE/STIMULATION Programmes on all the laboratories that participated in contracts which were still running at the time of the study. The study was designed with special regard to the short time available. Nevertheless, it yielded sufficient data to justify a clustering of the laboratories networks in four classes as they looked before the contract and in six classes as they looked afterwards. Thus, the study provided quantification of the links among the laboratories.

We find that the method is feasible within the constraints set, but we recommend that further theoretical work be done on the concept of networks as well as on the processing of the data and, more ambitiously, that more global studies be made possible by use of this method on other surveys.