Popular elections and changes of government have a significant impact on the kinds of research that are prioritised. Julián D. Cortés and Catalina Ramírez draw on a study of research calls made by the Colombian government to explore how different governments have shaped research in the country and how evidence based approaches to tracking these changes can be used to develop long-term approaches by science policy actors.

National science policy is like a game of musical chairs. The contestants are researchers, research groups, universities, companies, among others. Some are better at keeping up with certain rhythms, salsa, or hip-hop say, others are better at finding a seat when music stops. The government plays the music and chooses the beats, but as governments come and go, how does this effect who wins and loses?

In 2024, around half of the world population will hold elections. Given the likely policy implications of these elections, we wanted to explore how far we can measure and understand the relationship between national science policies and actually existing research, or what happens to research when the record and priorities are changed. To do this we focused on our own country (Colombia, 2007-2022) and analysed the strategic fields prioritised by government science policy and the funding calls issued the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation. We found an expanding and increasingly interconnected set of strategic priorities over the period, with a handful of research fields maintaining their relevance despite changes in government.

Science policy networks

One of the main mechanisms governments have of realising science policies is through research funding calls. In Colombia, these calls were focused across a range of activities: supporting basic/applied research, research evaluation, private R&D activities, academic mobility, junior researcher, master’s and PhD grants, and funding for research institutes/centers. We sourced 389 such calls over the period of study.

To build the internal structure of research calls and their priorities, we used co-word analysis. This technique enables us to visualise the structure of these calls, the SDGs they are related to and their relation to each other. This enabled us to determine government science policy priorities by grouping each administration’s research calls, their internal structure, and strategic research fields (Fig.1).

Fig.1: Modelling science policy and public research-oriented calls priorities via co-word and network analysis.

Revealing changing science policy priorities

We divided our analysis into the four governments that ruled through the period: Government 1 (2007-2010), government 2 and 3 since it was a re-elected government (2011-2014 and 2015-2018), and government 4 (2019-2022).

For Government 1, health sciences were central, followed by physical sciences, life science, and social sciences and humanities.

During Government 2, health sciences became less important, as did life sciences, while social sciences and humanities became central. Physical science also maintained its supporting role.

Fast forward to Government 3 and physical sciences, like biomaterials, and in health sciences, such as psychiatry and mental health gained prominence. The distribution of research fields during this period looked a lot like it did in Government 1 (2007-2010), with health and life sciences being strategic, and physical sciences and social sciences and humanities being more peripherical.

By Government 4, most fields had become interconnected. We saw a balanced inclusion of new fields across all areas, with newcomers like immunology, dermatology, environmental chemistry, and library and information sciences. The distribution of research fields during this period was similar to that of 2011-2014, except for social sciences and humanities, which resembled the previous period.

Across the fifteen years studied, health sciences consistently represented a highly influential set of strategic fields for all periods. Physical sciences, the area with the highest overall number of fields, had developed throughout the period coming to include significant representation from other areas (social sciences and humanities). Life sciences fields fluctuated period-by-period.

Short vs. Long term priorities

When we looked at the betweenness score changes for those fields identified throughout 2007-2022, we found out of 334 fields, 248 were mentioned at least once in all four periods. However, when we selected those with above median betweenness score (those fields that were the most linked to others), the sub-sample was reduced to only 14. These are the fields with sustained relevance across all governments and high strategic value through their betweenness score. Interestingly this did not include health sciences. The figure below shows the changing, although consistent, betweenness score of those 14 strategic fields (Fig.2).

Fig.2: Period-by-period of governments in office (x-axis) and betweenness centrality changes for fields identified throughout 2007-2022 research calls (y-axis).

When we reduce the list to the top-five most highly strategic fields for all government between 2007-2022, those resulted in the following research fields:

• Drug Discovery
• Nature and Landscape Conservation
• Management Science and Operations Research
• General Economics, Econometrics and Finance
• Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality.

These priorities were shaped by a range of factors. Notably, in Colombia, 2015 was a year of “peak” research and development investment (0.37% of the GDP), the highest since 1996. This budget peak probably reflected the point at which policy most directly influenced research. The increasing policy focus on interdisciplinarity is a likely explanatory factor in the number of interrelated fields between Governments 3 and 4. Our findings also align with the shift from science policy government to governance, which emphasises the inclusion of a broader range of stakeholders in setting objectives within and outside the research ecosystem. Science policy can be defined as a set of norms or rules that affect the practices to develop basic or applied research within national borders, our study shows how governments shape these priorities, but also how they are path dependent and certain fields remain significant even as agendas change.

Staying the course

Science policies therefore set the rules and norms for public and private actors. The ideal scenario is a long term and mission-oriented vision of science and technology. However, this is not a virtue of middle and low-income countries such as Colombia (more here and here). As governments change, so do their science priorities. This research can help us understand these shifts and keep research on track. Evidence based and replicable techniques such as these can also help policymakers figure out strategic priorities and consider where long-term support is needed.

To return to our analogy, by being able to visualise the shifting nature of science policy musical chairs and how the most popular beats and pauses can change the nature of the game we can learn to play better and also be more attentive to the influence of those who choose the music.

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