NORWAY: Research policy review nears completion

Norway is reviewing its research system in preparation of possible reforms. A committee led by Oslo University professor Jan Fagerberg (pictured) is writing up the conclusions, partly based on comparative data from Canada, Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Norway.

"Norway is one of the countries in the world that spends [the] most public funding on research per capita, soon to reach 1% of gross domestic product," Tora Aasland, Minister of Science and Higher Education, said when she appointed the committee last year.

"We have to look critically at the relationship between the resources we invest in research and the results we are getting, asking whether our research results are of sufficient quality and whether they respond to the great social challenges we are facing."

The committee has held conferences, staged study trips and hearings, and commissioned several studies. Its recommendations are due to be delivered to Minister Tora Aasland on 1 May 2011.

One of the studies, drafted by the UK-based Technopolis group, an international consultancy, compares the research system in seven countries, with an emphasis on publically financed research. The study contains empirical data comparing the countries along seven criteria and concluding which instruments offer most value for money.

One of its findings is that "the non-explicit nature of national research and innovation strategies in many cases makes it hard to perceive aspects of the 'policy mix', such as the degree to which resources are directed towards basic or more applied activities.

"[Relevant] data are only available in a minority of countries, but these suggest a declining role of basic research in the sense of 'blue skies' or curiosity-driven research. However, when we look at who decides the research topics, it becomes clear that any drift away from basic research is the choice of the research community itself: the share of researcher-initiated project funding is clearly rising."

It said the UK is the exception, "with the proportion of 'pure' basic research in the universities rising over the past 20 years."

The report identifies New Zealand as an extreme case:

"Nowhere except in New Zealand is there a fully developed set of tiered performance goals in use. It is well beyond what can be done here to explain the degree to which this has affected performance, but it is noteworthy (a) that New Zealand's research performance is less than stellar and (b) rigid application of New Public Management ideas such as contestability have had perverse effects.

"In practice, performance goals in New Zealand seem to have shifted towards process rather than outcomes monitoring and therefore are less than useful for policy."

The first Research Support for the Fagerberg Committee - International comparison of goal-oriented public governance in research policy, can be downloaded here.

Public funding allocation to the main research sectors - including universities and university colleges, institutes, hospitals and industry - are described, and allocation patterns mapped over time.

It also gives information on research spending versus research administration, examines research recruitment, identifies mechanisms and criteria for public research allocation, and in particular how targets are operationalised.

It also covers a review of bibliometric systems developed for cataloguing research production (number and level of publications, quotations indexes) and gives some best cases examples.

Comparative data for the seven countries studied appears in a second volumn, which can be downloaded here.