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Keywords

basic research plan, performance evaluation, impact assessment, theory of change

Abstract

Since the 18th Party Congress, the Party Central Committee has attached great importance to strengthening basic research. In this context, basic research, as the source and general switch of scientific and technological innovation, is an important kernel for promoting China's scientific and technological progress. As China's investment in basic research continues to grow substantially, the government, as an investor, needs to understand whether the utility and value of its investment in basic research is maximized, as well as its impact and effect on scientific and technological development, social progress and economic growth. The National Natural Science Fund, as one of the important channels of funding for basic research in China, has grown rapidly over the past five years. In order to assess the financial support and management performance of the National Natural Science Fund, in 2011, the National Natural Science Fund Commission conducted an international evaluation of overall performance. Subse- quently, the National Natural Science Fund began the annual performance evaluation, gradually evaluating the various types of projects. So far, 18 project types have been fully covered. However, in view of the current state of research in China, the performance evaluation indicators of existing national natural science funds or the correspond- ing evaluation methods are focused on short and medium-term outputs and benefits, which are not consistent with the needs of long-term evaluations required for basic research programmes. Therefore, this paper makes a compre- hensive and systematic assessment of the impact of the National Natural Science Fund on long-cycle, academic and non-academic research, which can help to comprehensively summarize the broad economic and social impact of the Fund and propose more effective ways of funding. Based on the theory of change and causal chain analysis, this paper firstly defines the concepts of impact and impact assessment of basic research programs, and divides the causal chain of the impact of basic research programs into six stages: inputs, activities, outputs, short-term changes, medium-term changes, and long-term changes. And then from the dimensions of the impact of the science fund, it constructs a multi-dimensional impact assessment of ‘scientific research outputs, scientific research impacts, and scientific research environment’. Then from the dimensions of the impact of the science fund, a multi-dimensional impact assessment logical framework of ‘scientific research output, scientific research impact, scientific research environment’ is constructed, from which the index system of impact assessment of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) is designed; further, taking the Yunnan Joint Fund as a typical case, and from the assessment needs of the program, the specific assessment index system of the Yunnan Joint Fund is designed based on the logical framework of the impact assessment, and the corresponding policy recommendations are put forward from the actual situation of impact assessment of the basic research program in China. It also puts forward corre- sponding policy suggestions from the practical point of view of conducting impact assessment of basic research programs in China.

DOI

10.16315/j.stm.2024.01.004

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