SWEDEN: Councils propose plan to improve research

Six research councils have urged the Swedish government to adopt a five-point plan for improving research and innovation and have voiced concern over a sharp decline in private sector research. The heads of the councils, which have a total portfolio of SEK9.3 billion (US$1.4 billion), presented their common position to Minister of Education Jan Björklund (pictured) last week.

Their report, For Swedish Advance in Research and Innovation 2013-16, sets out five major proposals.

Crucially, it proposes a new national system for the allocation and re-allocation of funding to universities and research institutes based on the quality, not the quantity, of previous or external funding received, as is often the case currently.

It also recommends an incentive system for the use of research results and a new collaborative programme between smaller and larger companies, public institutions and higher education institutions.

It further proposes greater international research collaboration and research mobility, notably through an expanded international guest professorship programme, and calls for a national coordinating function for Swedish participation in European Union research programmes.

The report was requested by the government to inform its plans for research and innovation in 2012, which are to be outlined next year, the first such long-term proposal since 2008.

The six research councils are the Swedish Energy Agency; the FAS, Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research; the Swedish Research Council Formas; the Swedish National Space Board; the Swedish Research Council Vetenskapsrådet; and VINNOVA.

The government asked the research councils to identify and analyse the areas in which Swedish research has a high international standing, and what can be done to strengthen it and research-based innovation further.

Total Swedish research investment in 2010 was estimated at more than SEK113 billion, two-thirds invested by the private sector. Per capita spending on research is among the highest in the world.

But the six research councils voiced concern that research in the private sector is in decline. From a top level in 2001 measured by research in private firms larger than 50 employees, it has fallen from 3.4% of gross national product to 2.4% in 2009.

A part of the reduction, the report says, is probably due to the major restructuring of the large Swedish telecom-firm Ericsson. But research and development investment in Sweden by firms owned by foreign countries has also decreased, while at the same time the proportion of foreign-owned firms has increased.

The research councils agreed on seven research thematic areas to focus on: knowledge, cognition and communication; the social development of the society and vulnerability; medical technology; the digital explosion; biological variation; welfare, working life, lifestyle and health; and origins of life and life conditions.

Each of these is elaborated in the report, with suggestions on how Swedish researchers might contribute to the advancement of research.

Kåre Bremer, rector of Stockholm University, wrote on his blog that, because the councils have taken a joint position, this report will be highly influential.

He said that the instruments proposed were not particularly focused on details about how they should function, but the thematic areas were very concrete and, provided that a proper governmental financial basis could be found, would lead to further advancements of these areas. He welcomed in particular the focus in the report on social scientific perspectives and on global challenges.

Thomas Blom, pro-rector of Karlstad University, underlined the importance of prioritising social science-related research, which highlights welfare issues and working life conditions.

"We are facing huge, grand challenges and the welfare questions are important from a variety of perspectives, which I now can see are prioritised in the report," Blom told University World News.

Professor Sverker Sörlin, environmental historian at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, told University World News that the willingness of Sweden's research agencies to address major global challenges and do this through priorities was a positive step.

"It is absolutely crucial that research priorities stem from broad discussions in the research community," he said. "In this way the agencies lower the risk of repeating the heavy-handed interventionist policy that guided the government's last research bill in 2008."

Other welcome features were the acknowledgement of the value of industrial research institutes, the stress on affirmative action to align research with EU initiatives, and the openness to flexible matching funding schemes in Sweden.

However, some areas remained weak, Sörlin said. "There is little organised thinking on the role of social sciences and, in particular, the humanities although they seem more urgent than ever. There is a research policy deficit in these areas which, in combination with the overarching language of 'innovation', risks worsening an already worrying situation for the humanities and social sciences."