Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Research Policy, cilt.55, sa.6, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
Excellence initiatives are established policy instruments for enhancing research capacity and competitiveness in higher education, yet evidence on how long their effects persist remains limited. This study addresses this gap through a longitudinal, comparative assessment of Japan's World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI). Using scientometric data, we examine eight university-based centers from establishment through 2022, covering both funded and post-funding periods, across three program-relevant dimensions (research production and impact, internationalization, and interdisciplinarity) relative to host universities. During active funding, WPI centers exhibited higher publication output and citation impact relative to their host universities. Post-funding trajectories diverged systematically: centers that secured alternative external resources sustained elevated performance, whereas those reliant on institutional support experienced decline toward host-university baselines. In contrast, internationalization and interdisciplinary activity remained stable after funding ended, although both displayed persistent heterogeneity across centers. Interpreted through Resource Dependence Theory, the findings underscore that excellence gains are contingent on the reconfiguration of external resource environments rather than on funding intensity alone, and that their duration is shaped by whether alternative resource streams are secured before exceptional support ends.