The Nordic countries have very similar attitudes and conditions when it comes to basic research. In international comparison, Denmark does best. “I think that people in Sweden, Norway and Finland are more tolerant towards mediocre research than Denmark is,” says Gunnar Öquist, who has evaluated Nordic research in various contexts.
“Undirected basic research is society’s investment in addressing future unknowns.” So says Lars Kloo, professor of applied physical chemistry. Curie has talked to three researchers about why basic researchers need more time and freedom.
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.
What is the position of basic research in Sweden, and what does basic research really mean? Curie has talked to Karin Markides, Mats Ulfendahl and Göran Blomqvist. All three have experience of research funding from leading positions within bodies such as Vinnova, the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences.
Working with basic research tests your patience – it can take decades to achieve tangible results. This is well-known to the microbiologists Jan Holmgren and Ann-Mari Svennerholm, who have been researching cholera vaccine since the 1970s. Today, the couple have received many accolades for their work spanning many years.
