Helping academic research in Europe: institutions matter more than money

A new data set of highly cited researchers highlights Europe’s poor research performance. Empirical work suggests that the poor performance is not only due to low research budgets. Proficiency in English as well as the design and governance of academic institutions are likely to be more important.

VoxEU.org is a policy portal set up by the Centre for Economic Policy Research in conjunction with a consortium of national sites, including the Italian site LaVoce, the French site Telos and the Spanish site Sociedad Abierta. Vox aims to promote research-based policy analysis and commentary by leading scholars. The intended audience is economists in governments, international organisations, academia and the private sector as well as journalists specializing in economics, finance and business.