The Evolving Research Funding Landscape

The evolving research funding landscape

The research funding landscape is currently in flux and is subject to concern from important and well-placed organizational leaders. Research funders have seen a gap between research funding and progress toward societal goals and are interested in ways to close this rift.

When surveyed by PROSECON project opens in new tab/window participants, research funders identified structural issues, such as a lack of maturity in the systems opens in new tab/window, within the research funding field. It's challenging to square existing frameworks with tangible efforts to advance larger societal goals.

Pew has found that funders are adjusting opens in new tab/window their practices opens in new tab/window, including shifting the voices and perspectives involved in the funding process, revising their impact measurement methods, and issuing clearer guidance to grantmaking staff.

To take a closer look at this shifting landscape, Elsevier has produced a research funding survey* polling 150 funders across regions to determine the next steps for meaningful, socially aligned research funding.

The survey highlights the interconnected nature of the research funding and university ecosystems. This means:

• Funding agencies don't just allocate resources; they set directions, expectations, and impact criteria.

• In return, universities must demonstrate how they translate these investments into measurable outcomes, not only for science but also for society.

Therefore, the relationship between funding agencies and academic institutions is at the heart of this analysis.

Strategic priorities: What matters most to funders

The deadline results of the study describe what matters most to funding organizations. The top priorities include:

1. Sustainability: 91%

2. Digital Transformation: 85%

3. Graduate Outcomes: 83%

These are complex areas that contain internal challenges. For example, the Global Research Council has identified three essential aspects opens in new tab/window of funders' top priority — sustainability in research:

• Promoting research for sustainable development.

• Making research itself sustainable.

• Ensuring that sustainability research matters to society.

When compared to the current state of research, a natural tension emerges around funders' most common goals. Specifically, we'll review six paradoxes that come from a misalignment between the most common goals and the ability of current systems to accommodate them.

The six strategic paradoxes: Understanding the implementation gap

By examining places where current research funding performance misaligns with expectations and aspirations, it's possible to chart a useful path forward for funding organizations and government agencies as they seek to close these gaps.

These misalignments extend from an unfulfilled desire for sustainability to success in academic rather than societal metrics and beyond. Highlighting issues and projecting potential solutions can chart a way forward for research funders. The six most telling observations from the research include:

1. The sustainability paradox

Sustainability is on many minds in the research funding space. It's the No. 1 stated priority, shared by 91% of respondents. This makes the implementation rate of sustainability commitments, only 45%, particularly glaring.

Standardization around the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) opens in new tab/window has given some structure to sustainable research, addressing both the societal and environmental sides of sustainability. Failure to address these goals can come from challenges such as performance benchmarking and outcome tracking.

By embracing practices like impact mapping opens in new tab/window that account for a variety of short- and long-term implications, it's possible to become more certain about the outcomes of sustainability research. A lack of execution capacity, resources, or shared metrics could explain this tension. What this tells us is that sustainability has shifted from a declarative commitment to an operational obligation — and that this transition remains complex.

Funders that use digital resources such as SciVal, Pure, Researchfish, and Analytical Services are better equipped to gain numerical insights into progress on specific sustainability objectives.

2. The innovation-implementation divide

Digital transformation is a pressing issue in both the corporate and academic worlds, and it's a priority for 85% of funding organizations. With that said, it's subject to another significant implementation gap: Only 43% of funders have made their transformation journeys.

Tackling the question of digital outcome measuring is especially important because advanced data processing can address so many of the other challenges funders face today. Organizations capable of mapping outcomes digitally will find it easier to address the impact of their investments overall.

Models like research impact assessments (RIAs) in high-priority fields like biomedical research are frequently challenged by the difficulty of collecting and analyzing high-quality impact  opens in new tab/windowdata opens in new tab/window. This reflects technical challenges and difficulties in evolving structures, processes, and even mindsets. The adoption of digital services has not yet resulted in deep transformation.

While digital solutions offer critical infrastructure, their value is only fully realized when embedded in a culture of accountability and openness to change. Digital transformation is not just a technical upgrade. It requires changes in institutional mindset, leadership expectations, and governance structures.

This raises a crucial question: how can funders support institutions in achieving sustained and measurable modernization? As one European Research Evaluation leader noted, “Can we really talk about digital transformation without integrating AI?” The question underscores a strategic blind spot: artificial intelligence, despite its relevance, consistently ranks low across priority, progress, and potential in the survey. Some regions are moving swiftly, while others are still building the necessary foundations. This likely reflects varying phases of maturity and highlights the importance of tracking these trends over time.

For funding agencies, this raises the question of how to support institutions in achieving sustained and measurable modernization.

Advanced analytical tools, including InsightGraph, SciVal, and Analytical Services, can drive organizations ' evolution to more solid digital models and allow funders to make more informed decisions.

3. The academic-impact tension

The tension between academic and societal impact measures comes from one source: Funding organizations consistently perform better when judged on conventional measures of scholastic success (49% progress) rather than positive social outcomes in real-world communities (35%).

The issue may reside in the types of metrics used by researchers and funders to assess the societal impact of scientific studies. Research that comes from problem-centric premises can target forms of impact that are less visible opens in new tab/window with current standards.

In the years ahead, researchers and funders alike can benefit from new methods to connect academic outputs more clearly with their real-world value and application. This linkage will help organizations balance academic blue-sky research with applied projects.

With access to solutions like Researchfish, Pure, InsightGraph, Scopus, and Analytical Services, funders can make solid, data-driven links between academic excellence and social value, helping them evaluate the impact of their investments.

4. The diversity implementation crisis

Organizations pursuing societal good through research may find a crisis close to home — a lack of diversity among student bodies. According to research, the most significant gap between intention and implementation (47%) concerns efforts to create more diverse and representative groups to perform research.

Diversity gaps exist throughout socially aligned organizations. Among groups focused on environmental sustainability, for example, there are gaps opens in new tab/window in racial and gender representation, as well as a lack of cross-class collaboration.

Unconscious biases in messaging and recruitment can perpetuate these imbalances, with systems such as internships failing to meaningfully change organizational demographics. Turning a closer lens on researcher data can help impact this trend.

While there is no direct digital solution for diversity challenges, having access to more advanced data through tools such as Scival, Analytical Services, and InsightGraph can help funders visualize their collaboration networks and see new opportunities for inclusion. Data on patterns in participation and funding can drive these efforts.

5. The graduate outcomes opportunity

Graduate outcomes are the No. 3 priority among polled funders. This area has the greatest transformation potential (53%) but a merely moderate progress rate of 44%. There is a clear opportunity for new approaches to research to affect graduates' trajectories.

Universities in the U.K. that have seen success in improving employment outcomes opens in new tab/window for their graduates have taken a few approaches. One of the most important includes encouraging or even mandating relevant skill development.

By prioritizing research relevant to the types of job opportunities in the market and also tracking and showcasing those achievements, university research programs can boost their students' success in the market.

Researchfish, Pure, InsightGraph, and Analytical Services are among the technology tools that can track individual performance through research programs. They can make explicit links between funders' investments in research and students’ career outcomes while also promoting the visibility of research to showcase researchers' efforts for the job market.

6. The transition from reputation to impact

As the research field undergoes an overall change in priorities, shifting from conventional measures of prestige to demonstrated societal value of research, it's crucial for specific funders and universities to similarly shift.

Programs such as Education Innovation and Research (ER) opens in new tab/window depend on evidence of research effectiveness to deliver future funding. Adopting a new set of metrics changes the demands on teams to find data-driven evidence for the impact of their efforts.

Another relevant program, the 4th Generation University (4GU) opens in new tab/window model, helps institutions move beyond prestige-based evaluation by capturing their role as ecosystem orchestrators. It offers data-driven, collaborative insights into regional and societal impact that traditional rankings overlook.

Targeting specific and notable social needs is an increasingly prominent way to manage funding models. Of course, this transition will only work smoothly for researchers and funders alike if there are new and reliable ways to track performance in place of conventional prestige.

Impact tracking and analysis solutions within tools like Researchfish, Pure, InsightGraph, and Analytical Services help funders change their models to suit a demonstrated-impact-driven approach. Adding new capabilities, metrics, and processes is easier when supported by a technological framework.

Regional analysis: Global perspectives and local priorities

The shifts observed in the research funding field are not uniform worldwide. By focusing on regional objectives and interests, it's possible to zoom in on specific solutions and approaches that can help organizations succeed locally.

United States: Balancing innovation, accountability, and digital transformation

U.S. research funders are navigating a dynamic tension: how to support long-term, transformative research while meeting rising demands for accountability and public value. Survey data indicate that funders greatly prioritize digital transformation (93%) and digital service adoption (92%), closely followed by graduate outcomes (88%). This signals a shift toward modernizing infrastructure and aligning research investments with transparent, outcomes-driven models.

Despite strong intent, execution remains uneven. Only 47% report progress in digital transformation and 44% in graduate outcomes, while more established areas like academic excellence see higher performance (53%). This reflects the influence of federal mandates such as the Evidence Act and GAO performance standards, which require measurable societal impact. At the same time, mission-driven programs such as the National Science Foundation Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (NSF-TIP) and the Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency (DOE ARPA-E) must justify long-term exploration within these outcome-focused frameworks, highlighting the structural pressure to reconcile ambition with evidence.

As this landscape evolves, U.S. funders are rethinking how success is defined and communicated. Many are now exploring new models of evaluation that more directly connect research to societal outcomes. The challenge ahead is to turn high-level priorities into institutional practice, not by abandoning innovation but by ensuring it is matched with meaningful accountability and visible, measurable progress.

United Kingdom: Redefining research excellence through sustainability and global connectivity

U.K. funders are reshaping research excellence to integrate sustainability, public value and institutional performance. Sustainability and academic excellence were both ranked as top priorities (100%), alongside community impact and digital services (89%). This reflects a national strategy that balances intellectual achievement with social responsibility and digital readiness, setting the U.K. apart in how it defines institutional success.

Implementation, however, reveals a divide. While progress on sustainability is impressively high (89%), academic excellence shows a significant gap, with only 67% reporting success, despite its top ranking. To address this, the U.K. has led the way globally with the Research Excellence Framework (REF) — a model that requires institutions to report not only on publications but also on societal, cultural, and economic impact. This shift has placed the U.K. at the forefront of impact-based funding and accountability.

Looking ahead, U.K. funders see global research networks (44% transformation potential) as an underleveraged strategic opportunity, especially critical in the post-Brexit context. At the same time, digital transformation is viewed more as core infrastructure than innovation, essential to scale what already works.

Europe: Elevating community impact, equity, and institutional transformation

European funders are driving a bold shift in how institutional success is defined. The top priorities — meaningful community impact (87%), effective digital transformation (86%), diversity in leadership (84%), and real-world research impact (83%) — reflect a clear pivot away from traditional academic metrics toward societal relevance, inclusivity, and digital modernization. Funders are reimagining universities as deeply engaged, diverse, and digitally-enabled institutions that serve public needs beyond scholarly outputs.

Progress has been most substantial where policies are supported by regulation and clear measurement frameworks, particularly in sustainability performance (70%) and sustainable development (68%). Notably, faculty diversity (60%) and graduate outcomes (56%) have also seen real traction, often tied to direct institutional benefits such as improved student success, regulatory compliance, and reputational gains. These advances suggest that when funders connect strategic goals with measurable results and incentives, implementation accelerates.

This agenda is supported by Horizon Europe, the EU’s flagship research and innovation program, which promotes collaborative, impact-driven research across borders. Yet funders still see untapped potential in expanding global research networks and fully operationalizing digital capabilities. The challenge now is to ensure that equity, community impact, and digital transformation are not pursued in parallel but integrated as part of a cohesive, outcomes-driven strategy for institutional transformation at scale.

China: Strengthening research excellence while closing the community impact gap

China’s research funders are pursuing a dual agenda that emphasizes global competitiveness in research quality alongside stronger alignment with national social priorities. The top priorities — community impact (94%), digital transformation (94%), and academic excellence (93%) — reflect both internal pressure to modernize and a strategic push to ensure research directly contributes to societal well-being. This positions China as one of the most ambitious regions in aligning scientific output with national development goals.

Yet the gap between ambition and implementation is stark. While academic excellence has achieved 53% progress, community impact lags at just 24%, making it the largest implementation gap reported across all regions. These results suggest that while research quality is well supported by existing infrastructure and performance frameworks, mechanisms for translating that research into public benefit remain underdeveloped. Bridging this gap will be essential if China is to realize the societal return on its significant R&D investments fully.

Funders see high transformation potential in both digital transformation (71%) and academic excellence (65%), confirming that the future of China’s research agenda rests on combining scientific leadership with tangible, real-world impact.

Strategic implementation: Bridging the gap between ambition and execution

It's common at present for research funders to experience a disconnect between their highest priorities and their capabilities. Some of these challenges come from the difficulties in establishing and demonstrating various in-demand types of impact.

This paradox raises more profound strategic questions, not just about execution but also about coherence and visibility in decision-making.

As one senior leader from a European Research Evaluation Agency observed: “This disconnect raises a fundamental question about strategic alignment: are agencies equipped with the visibility and coherence needed to guide their priorities effectively?”

According to this leader, the issue may stem less from a lack of intent and more from a lack of internal visibility, strategic coherence, or institutional maturity.

The next steps for these organizations will call for change, specifically involving the way research impact is assessed and reported. To truly benefit from digital analytics, funders must invest in developing skills and internal capacity, ensuring their teams can effectively interpret, act on, and communicate data-driven insights.

There is a general agreement among academic leaders, funders, and researchers that the costs are worth the outcomes, and 52% of stakeholders opens in new tab/window across the spectrum are willing to bring about such a change.

Identified priorities opens in new tab/window for the future of research evaluation include:

• A focus on institutional-level impact, including societal outcomes.

• A holistic approach to evaluating academics and universities worldwide.

• A need to change the culture of research to be more interdisciplinary and diverse.

• A desire for quantitative measures of impact beyond academia.

Progress into this new era of clearer assessments and evaluations is not just about shifting the paradigm in research funding. It will also help funding organizations better execute the current best practices opens in new tab/window established by groups like the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which involve performance monitoring, outcome communication, and network building.

Case studies: Successful data for high-performance funding models

Funding organizations worldwide have achieved success by deploying technological solutions that reveal a clear impact across various verticals. These outputs enable funding organizations to demonstrate societal value and deliver more accurate, data-driven awards that address their key priorities and needs. Some examples of this process in action include:

Impact evaluation through data platform success: NSF-TIP

The U.S. NSF-TIP has deployed a hub displaying research award data opens in new tab/window. The information on each grant in the system includes a visual map, along with measurements of societal and strategic impact. Funders and researchers can access the data to connect and form meaningful partnerships.

Assessing comprehensive impact on research and society: NHMRC

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in Australia has created a database of research on dementia and diabetes opens in new tab/window. The database uses bibliometric technology and generative AI to highlight the economic, environmental, social, and health impacts in detail.

Establishing research outputs in line with national priorities: Egyptian Knowledge Index

The Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB) has released a new methodology opens in new tab/window for evaluating research and periodicals in the Arabic language. The Egyptian Knowledge Index applies international standards to a consolidated database of all Egyptian research outputs.

Tools and resources for evidence-based funding 

As research funders become increasingly committed to assessing the impact of their research in a public policy context, there will be a need for technology to facilitate this process. There is a need for solutions that can:

• Produce a unified dataset from internal and external sources for a holistic overview of research impact.

• Assess the impact of research on policymaking and direct societal change, as well as more traditional measures of academic success.

• Track and highlight individual contributions to support career outcomes, incentivization, collaboration, and more.

Digital tools should not operate in a vacuum. Their indicators and dashboards must accurately reflect the priorities and regulatory frameworks that guide public investments.

Solutions such as InsightGraph, Pure, Scopus, SciVal, Researchfish, and Analytical Services each address various parts of this process. By implementing these technological tools within their operations, research funders can establish metrics that align with their specific priorities and objectives.

Specific use cases include:

• InsightGraph: Generate tailored insights and graphs from case-specific data.

• Researchfish: Collect impact-related data to advocate and inform funding strategies.

• Pure: Capture, manage, and showcase research impacts across metrics.

• SciVal and Scopus: Identify emerging research cases and frontiers.

• Analytical Services: Benchmark research impact against peers.

The future of high-performance funding 

Organizations need to become more strategic and informed about the outcomes of their research funding decisions as the sector’s tides shift toward impact-driven thinking. This adjustment will necessitate changes in how these organizations assess and measure progress, and it will require technological transformation to accompany it.

To bring your funding organization into this new landscape, you can read related materials from Elsevier, including the detailed results of our survey and our Back to Earth report opens in new tab/window.

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_{*: This analysis is based on a global survey of 150 research funders and government leaders, conducted in August-September 2024. Respondents were asked to prioritize and evaluate progress and transformation potential across 21 strategic performance objectives, such as sustainability, effective digital transformation, diversity in leadership, graduate outcomes and meaningful societal impact.}