Swedish funding overhaul devalues basic research, leaders say

Swedish sector leaders have raised concerns about a government proposal to significantly restructure the country’s research funding system, arguing that the new approach would not improve research quality while criticising its emphasis on applied over basic research.

After a year-long investigation, a government-appointed committee concluded in a report that research quality in Sweden did not reflect the country’s high investment in research and development, with research failing to “sufficiently” address societal challenges. The report lamented the “complex and heavy administrative burden” of the current funding system.

The committee recommended that four of Sweden’s key funding agencies – the Swedish Research Council, Forte, Formas and Vinnova – be “phased out”, with research and innovation at the fifth, the Swedish Energy Agency, no longer funded.

In their place, the committee proposed the establishment of three new funding bodies: the Science Agency, funding “research of the highest quality in all scientific fields”; the Strategic Research Agency, funding “research and innovation of importance to key sectors in Swedish society”; and the Innovation Agency, focused on the “implementation of knowledge and new ideas in society”.

Earlier this month, the Swedish Research Council rejected the committee’s central proposal, stating that the inquiry had failed to demonstrate that the reorganisation “would lead to higher quality and improved impact of Swedish research”.

The council, which would be shuttered under the committee’s plans, further critiqued the lack of researcher influence at strategic level in the proposed funding agencies, as well as the “too sharp” division between basic and targeted research.

“The current governmental research funding system has some shortcomings, and we agree with some of the challenges that the inquiry identifies, but no expensive public agency reform is required to solve these,” director general Katarina Bjelke said in a statement. “The quality and effectiveness of Swedish research can be increased by gradually adapting the current system.”

Speaking to Times Higher Education, Hans Ellegren, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said he agreed with some of the issues with the current system raised by the investigation. “Sweden has a blurred division of roles and mandates among public funding agencies, and we simply have too many small channels through which governmental funding for research is distributed,” he said.

“Sweden invests a lot in research, Swedish universities house large numbers of scientists and they produce many scientific papers. Our problem is thus not quantity, it is more a matter of quality; Swedish research compares less favourably when it comes to parameters such as proportion of highly cited papers and success rate at the European Research Council.”

The committee could have addressed the quality issue “more explicitly”, he said, adding: “The investigation is more concerned with organisation than quality, and I think this is very unfortunate.”

Echoing the Swedish Research Council, Professor Ellegren said the proposed restructure of research funding would “negatively” impact Swedish research, addressing in particular the committee’s emphasis on research driven by societal challenges.

“The view embraces the importance of ‘strategic’ research, where the research directions to be taken by publicly funded scientists would be defined to a large extent by stakeholders, politicians – in fact perhaps by the public,” he said. “The danger here is that history so clearly tells us that it is essentially impossible to foresee what breakthroughs may come from research, and how the needs of future societies may come to look.

“The solutions and innovations that today give us cure to diseases, vaccines, new ways to produce energy, the internet, have come from long-term basic, bottom-up driven research by excellent scientists in open competition, not from being ‘ordered’ by politicians.”

emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com