Concentration versus excellence: lessons learned of European R&D &I framework programs

Framework programs (FPs) are the main research policy tools of the European Union (EU), attracting substantial attention from policy-makers and scholars. Therefore, an increasing number of studies have investigated the EU’s FPs from various angles; however, very few studies address the effect of the complex nature of the concentration of resources and their implementation. While several studies have examined the concentrations of collaboration structures, much less attention has been given to institutions, especially the concentrations that appear during implementation. Institutions that have been awarded several projects at the same time are forced to share their resources between the running projects, which can make the implementation of the projects riskier and thus jeopardize the project’s outcome. Therefore, the role of project management, which must allocate resources among complex implementation structures, such as multiprojects and programs, across portfolios, is appreciated. The aim of this study was to analyze the progression of the nature of concentration, such as institutional concentration in the four most recent framework programs (FPs), namely, FP5, FP6, FP7, and Horizon 2020 (H2020), and the structural and implementation concentrations in the last two framework programs. The study employed the CORDIS database, which encompasses both institutional and project-related information derived from four distinct framework programs. The findings indicated that the parameters of the collaboration network exhibited minimal changes; however, the concentrations of institutions experienced significant alterations. The concentration of complex project structures increased along with institutional concentration, which in turn led to greater efficiency and productivity and, in this way, excellence. Hence, it can be inferred that the output-increasing effect of the program structure is undermined in the deployment of other implementation structures by the need to share resources among several projects running in parallel. The strategy of using parallel projects involves inherent hazards because of the finite nature of resources, which consists primarily of human talent in the form of researchers. The results currently support policy-makers in three ways: (1) an improved understanding of how implementation structures evolve in EU-funded Framework Programs; (2) strengthened linkages among institutional concentration, productivity and excellence; and (3) insights into the design of the EU FP ecosystem.