Nordic governments ponder benefits of expert input

The Nordic countries are increasingly using academic experts as members of government-appointed committees mandated to advise on research into economic, societal and environmental issues.

The extent to which this influences research policy issues, and political and strategic government choices, may depend on whether the appointments are short term and ad hoc or part of a long-term strategy for governing research policy.

The rector of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Professor Harriet Wallberg-Henriksson, last week suggested in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that Denmark could serve as a model for Swedish research.

“Long-term investments in research are the key for successful research,” she said. “Swedish research is suffering from splitting and short-term measures.”

Danish reforms involving university mergers, reorganisation of the ministry and a coupling of research and innovation policy are now producing results, Wallberg-Henriksson said.

An analysis by the bibliometric group at the Karolinska Institute in June showed that from 1995-2011, Denmark had more research articles ranked among the world’s top 5% than the UK and Sweden.

Last year University World News reported findings from the Nordic research coordination organisation Nordforsk that Danish researchers are cited 27% more frequently than the world average, compared with 13% for Sweden, 11% for Iceland, 8% for Norway and 5% for Finland.

Long-term strategy needed

Wallberg-Henriksson wrote in the context of ongoing work on the Swedish government’s research White Paper for the next four years, to be presented in early 2013: “In Denmark the government has appointed a permanent research-political council, independent of the political parties, universities, or research councils.

“The council is mandated to work out strategies for research and innovation for considerably longer periods than four years.”

In Scandinavia, Finland and Denmark have established long-term government-appointed research and innovation councils. Finland’s includes the participation of the prime minister, up to six other ministers and six high-level research experts.

In contrast, Sweden and Norway use a combination of short-term advisory boards for specific mandated research-related issues, and policy advice worked out in research councils.

Norwegian Minister of Trade and Industry Trond Giske has appointed members of the Norwegian Technology Board (NTB) to advise on future opportunities in new technology, including IT, biotechnology and gene technology, starting on 16 August.

Established in 1999, the NTB is an independent body with a broad range of tasks related to assessment, counselling, dissemination and public debate on the opportunities and consequences of new technology. It has 14 members, most of them high-level academic experts.

The Swedish government last year appointed the Commission on the Future, headed by Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt with party leaders in government and nine members representing different areas of Swedish society, supported by a secretariat of eight full-time staff.

Their mandate is to make recommendations on the future of Sweden with regard to immigration, integration and work, and “to minimise social exclusion, and strengthen the collective spirit that defines Sweden”.

The commission will also consider strategies for coping with the downsides of globalisation and ensure sustainable and green growth, linking these processes to research, higher education and innovation before the summer of 2013.

Academics and experts respond

Daniel Guhr, managing director of Illuminate Consulting Group, said most European countries operate with expert-driven science and technology research policy mechanisms. A key differentiator is how effective the interplay is between scientists and politicians.

“Politics, especially on wedge issues, can lead to bad science policies, and scientists can occasionally forget that societies have a legitimate expectation of affordable and effective research.

“Scandinavia has historically done well with regard to research and education performance based on a highly integrated but also occasionally fairly static policy model. Whether this approach will yield the best possible results going forward remains to be seen.”

Professor Anders Flodström, of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and a board member of the European Institute of Technology, said perceptions of the value of research, especially publicly financed research, would change.

Currently, value is determined by how much the research is seen as ground-breaking, as perceived by researchers and measured by publications and citations in peer-reviewed journals.

“In the future the value will be more connected to the impact of the research from societal and industrial and economic growth viewpoints,” he said. “Today jobs change much faster than education and if we are going to benefit from more innovation we need new people with the right skills."

While Sweden is rated number one in Europe on innovation, this is based on input indicators, such as research funding, not on output or impact indicators.

“I like the impact approach,” Flodström said. "It also gives a natural role to social sciences and humanities, because we all know that when it comes to many of mankind’s challenges, they are often in more need of social or human innovations than technology.”

Professor Matthias Kaiser, director of the centre for the study of sciences and the humanities at the University of Bergen, said preparation of science and technology policies through the active involvement of scientific and technological experts is common practice in all Nordic countries. It is also customary for draft policy papers to be subjected to broad public hearings.

Furthermore, all Nordic countries have a range of more or less independent advisory bodies that routinely offer advice. Despite this, final priorities are set through political processes.

Professor Sverker Sörlin, who was responsible for setting up the Stockholm Royal Institute of Technology’s environmental humanities laboratory, said there was a strong tradition of involving scientists in the strategic planning of publicly funded research in the Nordic countries, possibly more than in most European countries.

“It is also clear that politicians have always used their prerogative to take the final decision, and also to choose what issues to discuss with their advisors. There seems now to be a growing interest in a more long-term planning.”

Kaiser said it was important to note that the involvement of larger segments of the public is also widespread in Nordic countries, although perhaps more so in Denmark and Norway. Thus, science and technology are not restricted to high-level experts. The Norwegian Board of Technology in particular is required to seek input from the public.

“Ideally one would envisage a balanced dialogue between politics – that is decision-makers – experts and the public,” he said. “However, in my view the strong interest groups from diverse sectors in society still have a very dominating role, very much like in other European countries.”

Sörlin added it was crucial to insist on the democratic foundation of research and development policy, as with any other policy.

“However, this sphere of policy is special and needs to be long term and informed by strategic thinking about society's need for knowledge.

“For example, if the popularity of and confidence in research among the general population should rule, all research money would go to cancer and virtually nothing to the humanities and the social sciences. In that sense, we need expertise to deal with the issues.

“Precisely because of this, it is in fact good if long-term planning is carried out by a quite independent agency, which could then present its thinking to politicians. It would also spread responsibility for research and development to more parts of the government than the current situation when the department of education holds the strings to the research purse, which is the case in all Nordic countries, except perhaps Finland.”

Guhr doubted that participatory models accurately reflect current societies and their future needs. Most science and technology policy committees did not include young entrepreneurs or rising young scientists. As such, they run the inherent danger of representing yesterday's societal, research and innovation structures.

Said Guhr: “When setting policy, governance structures are often as important as policy design.”

Sörlin believes universities should be much more active as policy-makers. They have a tendency to lobby only for their own good.

“Ideally, universities should take on the role of saying interesting things about higher education, research and innovation and related issues, regardless of whether it is in their own special interest or not. That would enhance their respect in society, which has been waning in recent years.”

Source: University World News

World climate conference: Conflict outside and inside Copenhagen meeting

Danish police battled several thousand demonstrators in the streets outside the world climate conference in Copenhagen, while inside the delegates of the major imperialist powers, China, India and dozens of less developed countries clashed over conflicting proposals to deal with the worldwide impact of pollution caused by industrialization, deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels.

More than 260 protesters were arrested and many were teargassed, hit by pepper spray or beaten with batons as police repeatedly charged into the ranks of the demonstrators. Most of those demonstrating were in Copenhagen to demand emergency action against global warming and the climate-related deterioration in living conditions, particularly for people living in vulnerable coastal areas and island states.

The police were able to prevent any sizeable incursion into the conference, using dogs, shields, water cannon and armored vans to block access routes and push back most of the demonstrators. They also beat back a group of delegates who tried to leave the conference center and make a show of sympathy for the protests.

Inside the conference, a crisis atmosphere prevailed, with bitter exchanges between the representatives of the US, Britain and other industrialized nations, and those from Africa, Asia and Latin America. At one point Monday, delegates representing all 77 of the poorest nations staged a walkout to protest the intransigence of the rich countries, which are demanding that any climate agreement lock in their economic advantages, permitting double the per capita carbon consumption of the Third World.

Voicing a sentiment widespread among the delegates from the poor countries, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela denounced the position of the US-led bloc. He pointed to the trillions of dollars used to bail out the banks in the United States and Western Europe, telling the assembly, “If the climate was a capitalist bank, they would have already saved it.”

In the face of appeals by environmental scientists to reduce rich-country emissions of greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, the EU has offered only a 20 percent cut, the US a mere 3-4 percent cut. Neither figure would be a significant contribution to averting a potential climate catastrophe. No action will be taken that impinges on the profits of the giant capitalist firms that produce and use fossil fuels, and no coordinated worldwide effort is possible given the conflicts between rival national interests.

No amount of pressure or protest around the theme of “climate justice” can persuade the capitalist billionaires and their political representatives in Copenhagen to act against their own class interests. The defense of the environment can be undertaken only by a turn to the international working class, the only social force whose interests are not tied to either capitalist profit or the nation-state system, and the building of a mass movement of working people based on socialist principles.

Source: World Socialist Web

SOVIET ANNOUNCES NUCLEAR ACCIDENT AT ELECTRIC PLANT

The Soviet Union announced today that there had been an accident at a nuclear power plant in the Ukraine and that ''aid is being given to those affected.'' The severity of the accident, which spread discernable radioactive material over Scandinavia, was not immediately clear. But the terse statement, distributed by the Tass press agency and read on the evening television news, suggested a major accident.

The phrasing also suggested that the problem had not been brought under full control at the nuclear plant, which the Soviet announcement identified as the Chernobyl station. It is situated at the new town of Pripyat, near Chernobyl and 60 miles north of Kiev. The announcement, the first official disclosure of a nuclear accident ever by the Soviet Union, came hours after Sweden, Finland and Denmark reported abnormally high radioactivity levels in their skies. The readings initially led those countries to think radioactive material had been leaking from one of their own reactors.

The Soviet announcement, made on behalf of the Council of Ministers, after Sweden had demanded information, said in its entirety: ''An accident has occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant as one of the reactors was damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Aid is being given to those affected. A Government commission has been set up.'' The mention of a commission of inquiry reinforced indications that the accident was a serious one. United States experts said the accident probably posed no danger outside the Soviet Union. But in the absence of detailed information, they said it would be difficult to determine the gravity, and they said environmental damage might conceivably be disastrous. The Chernobyl plant, with four 1,000-megawatt reactors in operation, is one of the largest and oldest of the 15 or so Soviet civilian nuclear stations. Nuclear power has been a matter of high priority in the Soviet Union, and capacity has been going into service as fast as reactors can be built. Pripyat, where the Chernobyl plant is situated, is a settlement of 25,000 to 30,000 people that was built in the 1970's along with the station. It is home to construction workers, service personnel and their families. A British reporter returning from Kiev reported seeing no activity in the Ukrainian capital that would suggest any alarm. No other information was immediately available from the area. But reports from across Scandinavia, areas more than 800 miles to the north, spoke of increases in radioactivity over the last 24 hours.

Scandinavian authorities said the radioactivity levels did not pose any danger, and it appeared that only tiny amounts of radioactive material had drifted over Scandinavia. All of it was believed to be in the form of two relatively innocuous gases, xenon and krypton. Scandinavian officials said the evidence pointed to an accident in the Ukraine. In Sweden, an official at the Institute for Protection Against Radiation said gamma radiation levels were 30 to 40 percent higher than normal. He said that the levels had been abnormally high for 24 hours and that the release seemed to be continuing. In Finland, officials were reported to have said readings in the central and northern areas showed levels six times higher than normal. The Norwegian radio quoted pollution control officials as having said that radioactivity in the Oslo area was 50 percent higher. Since morning, Swedish officials had focused on the Soviet Union as the probable source of the radioactive material, but Swedish Embassy officials here said the Soviet authorities had denied knowledge of any problem until the Government announcement was read on television at 9 P.M.

The first alarm was raised in Sweden when workers arriving at the Forsmark nuclear power station, 60 miles north of Stockholm, set off warnings during a routine radioactivity check. The plant was evacuated, Swedish officials said. When other nuclear power plants reported similar happenings, the authorities turned their attention to the Soviet Union, from which the winds were coming. A Swedish diplomat here said he had telephoned three Soviet Government agencies - the State Committee for Utilization of Atomic Energy, the Ministry of Electric Power and the three-year-old State Committee for Safety in the Atomic Power Industry -asking them to explain the high readings over Scandinavia. All said they had no explanation, the diplomat said. Before the Soviet acknowledgment, the Swedish Minister of Energy, Birgitta Dahl, said that whoever was responsible for the spread of radioactive material was not observing international agreements requiring warnings and exchanges of information about accidents.

Tass, the Soviet Government press agency, said the Chernobyl accident was the first ever in a Soviet nuclear power plant. It was the first ever acknowledged by the Russians, but Western experts have reported at least two previous mishaps. In 1957, a nuclear waste dump believed related to weapons production was reported to have resulted in a chemical reaction in the Kasli areas of the Urals, causing damage to the environment and possibly fatalities. In 1974, a steam line exploded in the Shevchenko nuclear breeder plant in Kazakhstan, but no radioactive material is believed to have been released in that accident. Soviet authorities, in giving the development of nuclear electricity generation a high priority, have said that nuclear power is safe. In the absence of citizens' opposition to nuclear power, there has been virtually no questioning of the program. The terse Soviet announcement of the Chernobyl accident was followed by a Tass dispatch noting that there had been many mishaps in the United States, ranging from Three Mile Island outside Harrisburg, Pa., to the Ginna plant near Rochester. Tass said an American antinuclear group registered 2,300 accidents, breakdowns and other faults in 1979. The practice of focusing on disasters elsewhere when one occurs in the Soviet Union is so common that after watching a report on Soviet television about a catastrophe abroad, Russians often call Western friends to find out whether something has happened in the Soviet Union.

Construction of the Chernobyl plant began in the early 1970's and the first reactor was commissioned in 1977. Work has been lagging behind plans. In April 1983, the Ukrainian Central Committee chastised the Chernobyl plant, along with the Rovno nuclear power station at Kuznetsovsk, for ''inferior quality of construction and installation work and low operating levels.'' Donald T. Regan, the White House chief of staff, said today that the United States was willing to provide medical and scientific assistance to the Soviet Union in connection with the nuclear accident but so far there had been no such request.

Source: New York Times