Performance-Based Research Funding and Its Impacts on Academics’ Publication Patterns in South Korea

This research investigates whether performance-based research funding brings increased performance among the funding non-recipient when compared with the recipients. In addition, this study analyzes whether there are changes in publication patterns among academics to comply with new funding systems. This study analyzes the Brain Korea 21 project which is designed to improve research competitiveness among South Korean universities. For efficient analysis, this study selected education departments to analyze the growth of research performance and to see whether publication patterns have been changed with the funding systems. This study found that the research publication has continuously increased among the funding recipients and non-recipients in domestic journals, while funding recipients are outperforming the other group in international journals. In addition, this study highlighted the improved research performance among the funding non-recipients using a concept called the ripple effect; the mechanism is explained through the theoretical perspective of isomorphic changes among the fund non-recipients. However, this study suggests that the increased numbers of publications does not necessarily mean that the quality of research has increased. This is because the increased level of performance could be explained as the academics’ strategic response—through increased co-authorship within university in this study.