Who funds whom exactly? A study of funding acknowledgments

Research funding plays a crucial role in the production of knowledge, and its nature varies considerably from country to country. Numerous studies have analyzed research funding from a bibliometric perspective. However, the role of individual authors in attracting funding remains understudied, and it may be crucial for many actors. We propose a new approach that provides a more accurate picture and test it on post-Soviet countries with low scientific production. We analyze the funding sources of the most visible part of the natural sciences by focusing on the funding acknowledgments of their papers in Nature Index journals published in 2017–2021. Both the country of origin and types of sources are accounted for. Our approach reveals marked differences between traditionally used paper-level and proposed author-level funding links. The shares of funding sources measured in this way are very different, especially with regard to foreign sources and the role of specific countries. This is particularly important when studying international papers and the roles of the countries involved, even more so for the countries with lower research capacity. Utilizing a case-driven funding sources classification, we paint a rich picture of diverging post-Soviet funding landscapes, mostly driven by national grants and EU-wide programmes.