Has the Research Council Forgotten About Basic Research?
We are pleased to see that the Research Council's new strategy (only in Norwegian) highlights the major global societal challenges the world is facing. When discussing possible ways to meet these challenges it points out the importance of innovation and business development in private and public sector. However, it is with concern we notice that the importance of basic research in this complex picture is as good as non-existent.
"Basic research" as a concept occurs only twice in the document – and then in the context of applied research, innovation and value creation, or in conjunction with business-oriented research. The strategic importance of basic research as a value in itself is absent.
In the strategy draft, the Research Council views basic research, applied research, innovation and value creation in context to contribute to the UN's sustainability goals and to renewal in private and public sector. However, this requires interdisciplinary activities that are firmly rooted in basic research. The higher education sector's most important contribution to a good link between research and innovation is to educate candidates with relevant knowledge and research expertise, as well as to publish research results for free use. These aspects are not present in the Research Council's new strategy.
Focus on Innovation and Business
The higher education sector has an important role in innovation and social development, and we are actively working to strengthen this role. The complex connections between research and innovation appear to be greatly simplified in the strategy document. In addition, the contribution of free and independent basic research to social development, including educating the workforce of the future, is under-communicated. The Research Council has a special responsibility for basic research in Norway, and must ensure that this core part of the value chain does not suffer.
Our recommendation is that the Research Council first and foremost creates a strategy for research, and not a document that is primarily focused on the relationship between research, innovation and business. The societal challenges of the future cannot be solved without also enabling predictable and long-term conditions for basic research. This is the Research Council's primary task, in collaboration with the higher education sector. Here, the educational assignments of the institutions are of particular importance, with the need for instruments that support academically disciplined and curiosity-driven basic research closely linked to education.
Little Emphasis on Sustainable Research with Ethical Perspectives
While the term "basic research" is sub-communicated in the document, "competition" is given more space, and occurs as much as 17 times. It gives the impression that the main message of the strategy is to strengthen competition for research funding in a field that is already highly competitive. This is a challenge that can be referred to as the "academic arms race", in which everyone involved has to use enormous resources just to participate and assert themselves in the competition.
We encourage the strategy document to reflect more clearly on the consequences of the strong competitive orientation in research, and has suggested that it promotes what can be called sustainable research (see David Norris' et al. Comment «Health tips for research groups», Nature, vol 557, May 16, 2018.). We expect the Research Council to take a closer look at a researcher's working life and the work conditions for the individual researcher in the strategy, and to avoid reinforcing a competitive element that already contributes to the loss of talent and skewed development of academic staff.
The competition aspect should therefore also be seen in the context of the gender perspective, which the document says surprisingly little about. We see a special need for placing skewed gender balance on the agenda with regard to technology's impact on society, and have suggested that the Research Council draws up its own Policy for Gender Balance and Gender Perspectives in Research and Innovation (pdf, only in Norwegian) as a basis for the strategy.
We support the Research Council in giving strong emphasis to the DORA Declaration, which expresses the need to improve the ways in which the outputs of scholarly research are evaluated, in the strategy document. Beyond this, surprisingly, the term "ethics" or "ethical" does not appear. We have expressed the expectation that research ethics with underlying perspectives must be highlighted in a research strategy from the Research Council of Norway in 2020.