Shift money from agricultural subsidies to research – and spend it wisely

Tobias Krantz, Minister for Higher Education and Research, Sweden. (Photo Pawel Flato)

As all of you know, the aim of strengthening the Knowledge Triangle is to interlink three policy fields – education, research and innovation. Each of these three parts of the triangle is important. We need to strengthen the links between the different parts, but we also need to strengthen each part in itself.

To start in the middle, with research I, as minister for research, obviously have to start by requesting more money. Sweden calls for a shift in the EU-budget, from agricultural subsidies to research investments. That would give a much higher added value to the Union.

But we also need each member state to invest more, because the pluralism of the research funding on the European continent is one of our big advantages.

Quality assessments

All research funding have to be based on quality assessments and that is one our big challenges. How can we improve our systems for measuring quality?

Some, including me, would say that new knowledge is important just for the sake of it. Others, also including me, claim that it’s important that research can be commercialised and generate growth. I cannot chose one of those positions, we need both.

However, I can understand that in times like ours, when there’s been quite a bit of economic turmoil, the public debate tends to focus on the possibility of research creating growth.

That brings us to the next part of the triangle – innovation. We should be honest. Investing the amounts we do in research, Europe doesn’t get enough out of it. Some call the problem of turning scientific breakthroughs into profit “the valley of death”. In Sweden we are less drastic and call it “the research paradox”.

I’m fine with the fact that not all research can be commercialised. My own thesis in political science was a critical study of the debate on Swedish regions. I couldn’t really see any commercial potential in that one. And that’s okay, I’m sure it did some good anyway. But I’m not fine with great ideas, a new miracle drug or a groundbreaking new technique to combat global warming being left in a desk drawer just because our system for innovations wasn’t good enough.

There is a lot we, who are involved in research policy can do – I’ll come back to that. But we cannot bridge the valley or solve the paradox by ourselves. We need help from other policy areas and from the private sector. Taxation policy and industrial policy are two important pieces of the innovation puzzle. A good entrepreneurial climate is another must.

But, for today, let us focus on what we can do on our own turf. We must make it easier to have multiple careers. It must be possible to travel back and forth between a career in the academy and one in the private sector. I believe that many researchers are hesitant to take a leap of fate and leave the safety of the university for the more insecure business world. I think the common thought is that an academic career will benefit more from publishing the research result, in comparison to commercialising them.

It’s my experience that brilliant researchers are not always great businessmen, although some are. In Sweden we have the extraordinary example of Alfred Nobel who both invented the dynamite and commercialised it to make the fortune that today is used to fund the Nobel Prize. But Renaissance people like Alfred Nobel don’t come around that often.

Instead I believe in match making. Universities should be better at helping their employees find a venture capitalist to help fund the development of their own inventions. Universities could and should do more to help their employees commercialise their inventions.

Higher-quality higher education

The third part of the triangle is education. As minister for higher education, I’d like to focus on the universities. I guess I’ll run the risk of sounding like broken record but I believe higher education’s main needs are money and higher quality.

But universities also need to be more modern. Some would say that’s impossible. They would say that the words “modern” and “university” are opposites.

[But] Like everything and everyone else universities have to adapt and adjust to the world around them. And what could have higher potential to be more modern than an institution who’s main purpose is to create new knowledge?

We live in the era of globalisation and I would say that the pressure on universities has never been greater. Every university wants to have the best of the best – students, teachers and researchers. Decades ago the top universities in Sweden had to compete with each other for the best students, or the top researchers. Today, they have to battle Harvard, Oxford and the University of Kyoto as well. If that isn’t pressure to modernise and improve – I don’t know what is.

So what characterises a modern university? I would say that two things come to my mind.

Openness. A modern university must be open. To new ideas, to new methods and to new ways of cooperating. In today’s world there are no boundaries. For example – a student doesn’t have to take all courses needed for a masters degree in one university, in one country our even on one continent.

Autonomy. An open, modern university must be free to explore all the new opportunities. In many ways the old structures are holding universities back. I can certainly say that that’s the case in Sweden. We have laws and rules telling the universities what they can and, mostly, cannot do. They have to ask the government for permission to do anything out of the ordinary.

Obviously that is not an efficient system. We are preparing a reform to make the universities more free, as I know many other countries have done, or are planning on doing. It’s not easy finding new ways for the universities to exist. I think we can learn a lot from other countries and exchange experiences.

I think all of us here today agree that education, research and innovation are vital to Europe’s future. Some would argue that introducing new words like “the knowledge triangle” is just cosmetics. I would however say that the purpose is bigger than a new word to put on posters. The term “the knowledge triangle” emphasises the need for a joint European strategy on this field. I hope this being a priority during the Swedish presidency can be the starting point for a renewed effort to build a stronger bridge to overcome that valley of death.

Let me end by saying a few words on a more general note. The financial crisis has affected us in many ways. I would like to stress that, when combating the crises, it’s important not to loose the long-term perspective. Investments in knowledge – education and research – are absolutely vital in building a European economy that will be able to combat both these crises – and crises to come.