TY - JOUR
T1 - Examining the Influence of Texas’ Strategic Plan for Increasing University Research
T2 - Loose Coupling and Research Production at Regional Public Universities
AU - Fernandez, Frank
AU - Fu, Yuan Chih
AU - Hu, Xiaodan
AU - Moradel Vásquez, Juan José
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Ohio State University.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Quasi-experiment
KW - difference-in-differences
KW - higher education finance
KW - research policy
KW - state policy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85151956656&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00221546.2023.2192161
DO - 10.1080/00221546.2023.2192161
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AN - SCOPUS:85151956656
SN - 0022-1546
VL - 95
SP - 373
EP - 398
JO - Journal of Higher Education
JF - Journal of Higher Education
IS - 3
ER -