Examining the Influence of Texas’ Strategic Plan for Increasing University Research: Loose Coupling and Research Production at Regional Public Universities

Frank Fernandez, Yuan Chih Fu, Xiaodan Hu, Juan José Moradel Vásquez

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

States have adopted a variety of policies to encourage universities to expand research production, with the hope of supporting economic growth and competitiveness. This paper considers whether a state-level initiative succeeded in influencing university-based research outputs among regional public universities. We test whether the Texas Research Incentive Program increased research production at a set of state universities as measured by total research spending, federally-funded research spending, the number of scholarly publications, and the share of publications published in high impact factor journals. Using a novel dataset and difference-in-differences analytic strategy, we found that TRIP adoption was associated with a 19%-25% increase in research expenditures at emerging research universities in Texas relative to a matched set of comparable universities. However, TRIP did not influence federally-funded research expenditures or journal publication outputs. We also show that federally-funded research expenditures influence publication outputs — both in amount and quality — and that number of full-time faculty influences both federal research expenditures and publication outputs. We discuss contributions to the literature on regional public universities, loose coupling, and research production, as well as implications for policy.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)373-398
Number of pages26
JournalJournal of Higher Education
Volume95
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Ohio State University.

Keywords

  • Quasi-experiment
  • difference-in-differences
  • higher education finance
  • research policy
  • state policy

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