The effect of performance-based research funding on output of R&D results in the Czech Republic

We have studied the effects of performance-based research funding introduced to the Czech (CZ) R&D system in 2008 on outputs of R&D results. We have analyzed annual changes in number of various types of publications and applications including patents before and after this change. The growth-rate of almost all types of results has accelerated in 2005 or 2006 and the increase continued till 2010. The growth of result quantity in the CZ has been faster than in seven other European countries selected for comparison. Because the accelerated growth has started already before 2008, implementation of the performance-based funding could not have been its cause. Likely cause of the growth could be either the evaluation of R&D institutions introduced in 2004 itself and/or growth of public R&D funding in the past decade. Because the increase of the citation impact of publications lagged behind the increase of their quantity, we conclude that the evaluation is not based on optimal indicators.