The purpose of this paper is to analyse the nature of bureaucratization within public research bodies and its relationship to scientific performance, focusing on an Italian case-study. The main finding is that the bureaucratization of the research sector has two dimensions: public research labs have academic bureaucratization since researchers…

The accurate measurement of the time spent by academics on research and development activities is of great importance to universities and government. This essay outlines the ways in which different countries estimate these factors, and suggests ways of producing more reliable estimates.