Money to move: The effect on researchers of an international mobility grant

Dr. Fabiana Visentin, UNU-MERIT

Despite the acknowledged importance of international mobility for science and innovation, there is limited evidence on the effect of incentives and programs supporting it. Novel data from the Swiss National Foundation allow us to implement a Regression Discontinuity Design analysis to assess the causal effect of an international mobility grant program.  The grant effectively supports periods of research abroad that often extend beyond the duration of the grant, without turning into permanent migration. Awarded researchers increase their output quality, although the effect on output quantity and on careers is not significant. Additional evidence suggests that financing international mobility likely affects output quality by reducing the cost of exploring new collaboration opportunities and research topics: awarded applicants are more likely to collaborate with new co-authors of higher, on average, scientific quality and rely less on their previous own research results. Moreover, the grants mainly benefit researchers receiving a mobility grant for the first time. (The work is co-authored with Stefano Baruffaldi and Marianna Marino.)

About the speaker

Fabiana Visentin received her Ph.D. degree in Economics and Organisation from the Advanced School of Economics of Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, Italy. She was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland, and at the Goizueta Business School, Atlanta, USA.  Before joining UNU-MERIT and Maastricht University, she worked as Senior Research Fellow at the Chair of Economics and Management of Innovation at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Switzerland. Her research interests focus on the microeconomics of innovation and on the economics of science area. In these topics, her contributions have appeared in the American Sociological Review, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Research Policy, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management and PlosOne.

Venue: 0.16/0.17

Date: 27 March 2019

Time: 13:00 – 14:00