A new approach for estimating research impact: An application to French cancer research

Much attention has been paid to estimating the impact of investments in scientific research. Historically, those efforts have been largely ad hoc, burdensome, and error prone. In addition, the focus has been largely mechanical—drawing a direct line between funding and outputs—rather than focusing on the scientists that do the work. Here, we provide an illustrative application of a new approach that examines the impact of research funding on individuals and their scientific output in terms of publications, citations, collaborations, and international activity, controlling for both observed and unobserved factors. We argue that full engagement between scientific funders and the research community is needed if we are to expand the data infrastructure to enable a more scientific assessment of scientific investments.