Knowing what research organizations actually do, with whom, where, how and for what purpose: Monitoring research portfolios and collaborations

Managers and policy makers have struggled to develop effective monitoring systems to track the evolution of research organizations. This paper presents the first components of a novel monitoring system for monitoring such organizations. These components can be used to generate detailed static pictures of the actual activities and partnerships of a large research program or organization, in other words, what the organization is actually doing, with whom, where, how and for what purpose. It can also identify whether new incentives or organizational structures have an immediate effect on the researchers’ activities. Once developed, the full system will be able to monitor the evolution of the organization’s activities and assess mid- and long-term effects of specific incentives. Essentially, the system asks individual researchers to list all the important collaborations they engaged in during the preceding 12 months and to provide some information about these collaborations. The data are then aggregated to describe the organization’s portfolio of activities and engagement with other actors in the innovation system