Who Funds Whom? An Exploratory Survey of Top Journal Papers of the Small Post-Soviet Countries

We analyze funding sources of the most visible part of science in small post-Soviet countries. For this purpose, we develop a classification of sources and manually link these sources to local authors. Our approach accounts for both country of origin and types of sources (intramural, state agencies, business etc.). Papers of small post-Soviet countries in top journals are rarely funded only locally and more often result from complex amalgamations of sources from various countries. State grants are by far the leading type of both domestic and foreign sources, along with the international\EU-wide programs. Our approach reveals marked differences between linking funding sources to papers and linking them to authors and yields a nuanced picture of post-Soviet funding landscapes.