Sweden
Swedish scientists may have access to more R&D funding than their colleagues in Norway, Finland or Denmark, but their government needs to ramp up its contribution to the pot, say many of the country’s researchers. The majority of Sweden’s research spending comes from industry, with the government giving the lowest percentage towards R&D of any of the Scandinavian nations (see Chart).
In March, a new research bill from the government promised an extra 2.34 billion krona (€248 million) for basic science over the next three years. But despite this, many scientists remain sceptical. “We were hoping the research bill this spring would raise ambitions, but it didn’t,” says Carl-Henrik Heldin, a biologist at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Uppsala. “Swedish scientists are disappointed about the level of funding.” Heldin says if you take inflation into account, the only real increase is three years away.
The government does support science in less direct ways, however. Sweden’s permissive laws on stem-cell research mean the country leads Scandinavia, and possibly even Europe, in this area. In April, the regulatory climate became even more favourable, with a law clarifying that researchers can create fertilised eggs in order to derive stem-cell lines.
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“Sweden is very open to stem-cell research,” says Boo Edgar, head of business development at Cellartis in Gothenburg. Cellartis is one of many young Swedish biotech companies benefiting from the Swedish government’s low corporate taxes on revenues and tax breaks for foreign workers. The firm now has 30 human embryonic stem-cell lines, which it distributes to researchers around the world.
Meanwhile, Sweden is forging ahead in other areas of the life sciences. One example is a €27 million proteomics project called the Human Proteome Resource, which aims to map every last protein encoded by the human genome. Mathias Uhlen and his group at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm plan to achieve this by making antibodies that bind to specific proteins, allowing them to trace where each protein is expressed in the body. This will require around 22,000 antibodies, which Uhlen hopes to make within 10 years. “No one has done such a comprehensive study,” he says. The team will allow public access to the finished “protein atlas”, which was due to be released in August this year.
But the funding is from a philanthropic source rather than the government. The project might never have raised the necessary cash had the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation not stepped in. If Sweden wants to hang on to its leading role in research areas like this, politicians should take note.
Norway
In March, Kristin Clemet, the Norwegian minister for education and research, made a promise. Norway will become a leading research nation in the next five years, she said, spending 3 per cent of its GDP on research by 2010, and catching up with its neighbours.
But that goal is a long way off, says Ole Petter Ottersen, a neurobiologist at the University of Oslo and head of the Centre for Molecular Biology and Neuroscience, one of Norway’s centres of excellence. “There is a substantial doubt whether the new white paper is entirely realistic,” he says. Realising Clemet’s ambition will require a significant increase in private funding for research. “The industry that is supposed to shoulder this increase is simply not there – yet,” Ottersen says. He believes public funding should make up the difference until the biotech industry and other technology sectors have matured.
Yet now the government does appear to be backing up its promises to support science. This October, a new round of funding from the Norwegian research council will establish between five and 10 new centres of excellence in research, including two or three new biomedical centres. Another measure backed by the government (and led by Ottersen) is giving researchers access to resources they might otherwise not have. The programme, called FUGE, provides genomics and proteomics researchers with shared facilities and guidance, such as the use of mass spectrometry equipment and bioinformatics software, and access to training, seminars and visiting experts. Bjørn Tore Gjertsen, a proteomics researcher at the University of Bergen describes FUGE as “instrumental” in his research into leukaemia markers. He says this kind of support is more than welcome in a country where, for now, “science is not on the political radar screen”.
Denmark
The Danish government is facing a dilemma. It was re-elected in February and has produced a research plan for the next four years that aims to increase research funding. However, it has also pledged not to raise taxes, so it may have to reduce the amount it spends in other areas such as welfare. And in more than one opinion poll, the people have said they would prefer the money to be spent on hospitals or care of the elderly rather than research.
In the meantime, many researchers facing lean times are turning to the European Union, says Martin Holmstrup, a soil fauna scientist at the National Environmental Research Institute (DMU) working on how climate and chemicals affect soil invertebrates. “Basic science is having a hard time,” he says.
Yet Denmark’s science is strong despite the meagre funding from government, according to Sven Erik Jørgensen, a professor of environmental chemistry at the Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Copenhagen – and this is especially true when it comes to environmental research, he says. Jørgensen beat scientists from around the world to the 2004 Stockholm Water Prize awarded by the Stockholm International Water Institute, for his unique models that predict how pollution and water treatment affect lake ecosystems. He led a team that developed modelling software for the United Nations Environment Programme, and is running a project for the restoration of the Iraqi marshlands drained by Saddam Hussein.
Meanwhile, the Danish government continues to stall. The public may need to be persuaded that science is worth backing before Danish researchers see any increase in their funding.
Finland
This January, Finland decided to go it alone. The country’s government announced in a position paper that it does not support the proposed European Research Council, which aims to fund basic science projects with European money. The paper said small projects should not be funded at a European level.
It is not surprising that Finland should take this view, as 97 per cent of Finnish science is already funded nationally, according to government figures. Finland appears well-positioned to nurture its research base without European money. It has already surpassed the EU target for nations to spend 3 per cent of GDP on R&D (see Chart), and is the top nation in the world for sustained economic growth, according to the World Economic Forum.
Finland started to develop its success in the early 1990s after bouncing back from a recession prompted by the collapse of the USSR, one of its key trade neighbours. The country’s transformation has been largely due to its ability to re-orient its trade toward niche sectors that promised high growth, especially in technology, says Pekka Neittaanmäki, director of the Agora Human Technology Center, a research consortium that links the social sciences with information technology. One obvious success of this move is Nokia, which has emerged as a world leader in mobile communications. The company now funds a large portion of Finland’s private sector R&D.
We chose a unique industry – other countries can’t do it, so we have a market,” says Neittaanmäki.