The impact

NRP aid boosts quality in scientific research

Thanks to investments in the last four years, Italy is second in terms of increased publications behind China

by Michele Ciavarella, Michele Meoli and Stefano Paleari

11 July 2025

4' min read

Key points

Numbers evidence
Pnrr post
The Future Bet

4' min read

There is constant reflection in the research world on how to evaluate investments, often predominantly public. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRP), financed by the Recovery Fund, is no exception. Four years after its launch, while the systemic effects of this extraordinary injection of public resources are being questioned, the first measurable signs are emerging. And it is not, for Italian researchers, so much the quantity of scientific publications that is changing as much as, and perhaps more importantly, their quality.

To measure the latter, an increasingly used indicator is the Nature Index count, which records the number of articles published in some 140 scientific journals of very high impact, awarding one point to the country with at least one co-author in the article. It is a crude measure, but one that allows an international comparison between national research systems.

The evidence of numbers

Analysing the data over the period 2015-2024 for countries such as the United States, Germany, France, Italy and China (see graph opposite), one fact emerges clearly: China shows almost exponential growth, testifying to a structured strategy of scientific strengthening. Western countries, on the contrary, show stable or moderately growing trends. In this context, Italy is a positive exception. After a phase of substantial stagnation between 2015 and 2020, there has been a sharp rise since 2021: Italy's Nature Index count has grown by around 40% in the last four years, a rate significantly higher than France and Germany and second only to China. Among European countries, only Romania and Greece, also beneficiaries of substantial funds from Recovery, show a positive dynamic, albeit on smaller volumes than Italy.

This figure suggests that the NRP, despite having a broader mission, is making a real contribution to the production of high-quality publications, almost as an indirect or induced effect. It is worth recalling that the Plan has dedicated one of its six missions precisely to universities and research, allocating some EUR 17 billion to R&D, more than half of which directly to universities and public bodies. A not insignificant part was also directed to technology transfer and tax incentives for business innovation.

IL CONFRONTO INTERNAZIONALE

The post Pnrr

The observed result is even more interesting if one considers that the NRP required a paradigm shift from the institutions. It was not just a matter of disbursing funds, but of experimenting with new organisational models - just think of the hub & spoke system, designed to aggregate critical masses of researchers on strategic themes - and a more competitive and coordinated planning, with intermediate and final deadlines and objectives. An approach closer, in some ways, to that of the major European programmes.

An interesting and further result is obtained by correlating public investment (R&D expenditure) with quality publications. Italy, France, Germany and China are placed along a straight line of proportionality between expenditure and Nature Index count, while the US appears less 'efficient', probably due to the high average cost per publication. Italy, in particular, manages to maintain a good alignment with France and Germany: despite starting from lower levels of expenditure (around 1.3% of GDP compared to 2.2% in France and 3.1% in Germany), it produces a volume of high quality publications consistent with the resources employed.

Of course, the figure should be interpreted with caution but, after the result of the starting grants and the much-discussed rankings, we feel we can say that if one swallow does not make a summer, more swallows herald something. The contracts activated with the Pnrr are often of limited duration, and the positive effects may recede if they are not consolidated into a long-term structural policy. But the signal is clear: the quality of Italian research can grow if it is supported by targeted, selective and well-designed investments. Quality and not mere quantity.

The Future Bet

From this point of view, the Italian government's decision to revise the rules on the national scientific qualification of academic staff is also to be welcomed, indirectly highlighting less confidence in bibliometric metrics based on purely quantitative criteria. The bibliometric measurements introduced at the time by Anvur had the merit of initiating the concept of 'measurement', but they also stimulated the growth of the overall number of publications, without affecting the top end of them. The rise of the Nature Index count, on the contrary, coincides with the massive entry of Pnrr funds and the imposition of new organisational mechanisms.

If it is true that science takes time to produce visible results, this may be another sign of a research policy that, with all its criticalities, has begun to move in the right direction. The future challenge will be to maintain the results achieved by continuing to invest in people and merit, perhaps recovering resources from a better and more efficient organisation of the entire sector. And without forgetting the weaknesses that, not because of but with the Pnrr, have become even more evident. He who starts well, in any case, is already half way there.

Polytechnic University of Bari and University of Bergamo

The INDEX

The Nature index count
It is an index that records the number of articles published in some 140 scientific journals of very high impact, awarding one point to the country with at least one co-author in the article. It is a crude measure, but one that allows international comparison between national research systems. Its increase seems to coincide with the massive entry of Pnrr funds and the imposition of new organisational mechanisms.

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