The Effect of TUBITAK’s R&D and Project Fundings on Academic Research Activities

Universities, through providing research, publications and innovations in the scientific field, provide significant contributions to the national research and development (R&D) system. That is why most governments are keen to support scientific research activities directly or indirectly. In this regard, this paper aims to analyze the impact of R&D supports of TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) on the research performance of universities in Turkey. The study comparatively investigates the efficiency of the research fundings in different university types, public and private. As an empirical model, a panel data analysis spanning 2013 to 2018 period has been used for the top 10 public and top 11 private universities. Our findings prove that national research grants of TUBITAK have a significant and positive impact on academic research only when the highest-ranking universities are analyzed; otherwise, the impact is insignificant. Secondly, for the large sample analysis, we found that public universities used research funds more efficiently compared to private universities. Furthermore, our findings prove that teaching load does not necessarily risk the research capacity of a university.