Italian public universities facing the challenge of European funds for scientific research: the importance of organizational dynamics

The current research project has a twofold objective: the first one to provide a descriptive analysis of the outputs and outcomes of EU Cohesion Policy and EU Funds devoted to scientific research in Italy and assess if and how the Italian universities have been able to fully (or to what extent) exploit this opportunity. The second one is to evaluate if the organizational structure of the research offices of the universities - namely the type of decentralization used, the existence (or not) of specific internal policies and procedures, the quality of the human resources devoted to research offices etc. - have impacted upon the capacity of the Italian state universities to get more EU funds and to improve the management of already obtained funds. Therefore, my research object stands at the crossroad of four strands of literature and scientific reports: those about Italian university, from both an historical and a public policy approach, those concerning the outputs of EU Funds (Research Funds and Structural Funds), those about business organization in higher education and research institutions, with a focus on governance of the universities, and those about public policies and their evaluation. Little is known and little has been said in the literature about the factors that can facilitate or hinder the ability of Italian universities to obtain - and then spend profitably - European funds. The current research intends to fill this gap, paying particular attention to organizational features and mechanisms as inde-pendent variables. The pioneering value of this research consists in the primary data collected, with a level of detail for funds and organizational aspects never achieved before. The objective, as well as being explanatory, is also to give practical hints, and provide best practices, to the subjects directly involved in the implementation of research policies at university level.