NORWAY: One in five scientists fails to publish

One in five of Norway's university scientists have not produced a single publication over the past five years, while 20% wrote more than half of all publications, an expert committee has found after a year-long investigation into how research can be improved.

The experts said it was time to end the right of all scientific staff members to devote half their working time to research - a right of all tenured staff members at Norwegian universities - and to reward more productive academics.

But the proposals have met with wide-ranging opposition.

The Research Policy Review Committee was mandated to analyse the relationship between research investments and results and to find ways to measure such relationships. Chaired by University of Oslo professor Jan Fagerberg, its extensive report reveals that in bibliometric measures Norway is underperforming compared with other Nordic countries in relation to research and development investment.

The report, A More Open Research System, presents a lot of new material based on surveys, dialogue meetings, specially commissioned reports and a 230-page document wrestling with questions around research quality and how it should be measured.

Observers commended the analysis and the findings, but nobody liked the recommendations. Researchers did not like the individual measurements of research productivity; union leaders warned against more bureaucracy; students were afraid of less research-based teaching.

Ole Petter Ottersen, Rector of Oslo University, asked how the expert committee could be given a remit that fell within the autonomy of universities. Even Minister of Higher Education Tora Aasland and Junior Minister Kyrre Lekve, who commissioned the report, argued against its proposals in their private blogs.

At an OECD meeting in Paris later in the week, Jan Fagerberg presented the analysis "Can the efficiency of the public research system be measured", which can be accessed in Norwegian only here.

Norway is in an advanced position in bibliometric measurements of institutional productivity measured in term of how many scientific articles academics publish and the impact the articles have on citations. All public higher education institutions today receive part of their funding from the government based on these data.

The Fagerberg committee has been considering whether to recommend publishing bibliometric measures for each member of scientific staff at institutions, and allocate resources to them accordingly.

The most controversial part of the report contains figures on scientific publications, based on reports from some institutions, and its related recommendations. These have been opposed by Norwegian researchers, their union leaders and students.

The proposal that some academics should not have the right to allocate working time to research was not accepted. Anders Folkestad, leader of one of the major unions representing 300,000 members, said the proposal would lead to even more bureaucracy.

Another proposal to establish an "arena for free research" where all sciences are eligible, regardless of thematic specifications, which are today most programmes that are administered by the Norwegian Research Council, drew negative reactions from the minister and junior minister in their blogs, even though there are currently so many applications for free research projects that only 10% are accepted.

Fagerberg proposed to allocate NOK2 billion (US$362 million) to this, four times the current allocation.

Aasland said: "The committee makes it too simple for themselves to prioritise activities almost exclusively by an expansion of the budget. I had expected a more thorough analysis arguing for such an expansion." The government had already expanded the research budget by NOK5 billion from 2005-11, "the largest relative increase of all sectors on the budget", added Aasland.

In the newspaper Aftenposten, cultural editor Knut Olav Åmås wrote an editorial titled "Money, money, money", questioning whether all challenges in the Norwegian higher education system should be solved by expanded budgets.

Another proposal by the committee, to increase the number of PhDs from approximately 1,100 a year now to 2,000 a year by 2020, would also require more government funds.

The report will now be sent to higher education and research institutions and stakeholders for comment.