The Netherlands tops the lists for several ways of measuring research success. According to Ingrid van Engelshoven, the Minister for Education, Culture and Research, the primary success factor is openness. Last week, she took part in Forskningspolitiska dagen (Research Policy Day), which was arranged by the Swedish Research Council.

The Swedish Research Council is forced to make major savings within national research infrastructure. The most important reason is the poor exchange rate of the Swedish krona, which causes increased costs for international infrastructure. But the cost increase is also because Swedish researchers have been successful, and have been awarded more time at several international facilities.

At a time when nearly all doors in academia were closed to women, a few still managed to make their way through. Paradoxically, several of the earliest women to have a research career in Sweden can be found within fields that are now the most male-dominated.

Every year, the world’s most cited researchers are listed. Being included on this list can be seen as proof that your research is being used, or that you have done a good job. But the phenomenon of listing highly-cited researchers, and the consequences this can have, are also being criticised.

“Academic housekeeping” steals time from research, and does not add merit. Academic housekeeping is the invisible work primarily carried out by women.

Men continue to dominate the top level of academia, a report from the AllBright Foundation shows. At technical universities in particular, women are heavily under-represented. At Chalmers University of Technology, more than 80 per cent of the professors are men. The university is now investing 300 million SEK over ten years, to increase the percentage of women and to change the culture in the long term.