Sweden (pop.10 million) is often cited as one of the world’s leading higher education nations. It invested 3.2 percent of its GDP in research and development (R&D) in 2014, one of the highest proportions in the world. Unsurprisingly, it’s among the countries with the largest cohort of researchers (1 percent) relative to its total population. And while other countries reduced public funding for universities following the 2008 global recession, public higher education funding in Sweden increased by 23 percent between 2008 and 2014.
But the government’s research Bill, published last November, warns that Sweden is “losing innovative capacity while many other countries are increasing theirs”. Although Swedish research “maintains a good standard… we are losing ground to the strong research countries, and research countries that have been relatively weak up to now are catching us up,” it said.
The Swedish Research Barometer 2016, published by the Swedish Research Council in October, found that Sweden has reduced its spending on R&D in relation to GDP during the past decade, owing to a decline in the business sector’s contribution to research. Between 2002-2004, Sweden and Switzerland shared top spot in the ranking of countries based on the number of publications relative to their population. Since then, Sweden has dropped to fourth place, behind Switzerland, Denmark and Australia. Switzerland, Singapore, the US, Netherlands and the UK have also increased their share of highly cited publications more rapidly than Sweden.
Sven Stafstrom, director-general of the Swedish Research Council, says while the country’s research system has expanded over the past 10 years, the result has been an increase in the quantity of research rather than improvement in quality. The government’s Bill aims to address this by incentivising collaboration between universities and industry, encouraging greater private investment in research and creating a more attractive environment for young researchers.
It includes an SEK 1.3 billion (Rs.995 crore) increase in annual university funding until 2020, which it states is intended to boost quality rather than increase the number of researchers; an additional SEK 3 billion rise in research and innovation funding until 2020; and a commitment for half of newly recruited professors to be women by 2030 (up from the current 25 percent).
Hellmark Knutsson, minister for higher education and research, says the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKA) will now evaluate research quality assurance, as well as education, and one-third of the new competitive research funding allocated to universities will be based on their success in collaborating with industry. This funding is currently based only on bibliometrics and external funding. In 2017, the government will also appoint a commission to propose a new system of governance and resource allocation for universities.