State-of-the-art research infrastructure (RI).[1] plays a key role in enabling and developing research in most scientific domains, but they also represent an increasingly large share of the research budgets. Optimizing investments, operational costs and use of RI is therefore important and must involve national as well as international collaboration and a close dialogue between funders, RI managements and user communities.
I have been asked by NordForsk to investigate RI activities in the Nordic countries and to discuss with the Nordic Research Infrastructure Co-operation Committee (NRICC), an advisory body to the NordForsk Board, what measures can be taken to strengthen RI cooperation at the Nordic level. Nordic research cooperation clearly has a value in itself but can also help strengthening national initiatives as well as national participation in international collaborations. Cooperation on RI at the Nordic level can lead to increased availability if national infrastructures are open for cross-border usage, reduced costs if investments and operational costs are shared, a stronger voice in European initiatives, more coordinated national RI roadmaps, and finally, strengthened research and Nordic research collaboration.
Many countries have developed specific national systems for long-term planning and financing of national and international RIs, often referred to as “roadmaps”. The Nordic countries all have such roadmaps in place but with some differences, for example in sharing of responsibilities for portfolio management between ministries and agencies. However, the national roadmaps are structured in a similar way, in two parts: 1) the strategic objectives for the RI policy area over the coming years (“landscape analysis”) and 2) lists of specific proposals for highly prioritized RIs. A brief overview of the national systems for RIs is presented in Chapter 3 in this report.
The national cooperation is taken one step further by the well-established European cooperation on RI. The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) provides a process that gathers input from both the research community and the national funders and sets priorities. ESFRI, and in particular the ESFRI Roadmap, is crucial both for strengthening the impact of European research and for national research and research infrastructure strategies.
The first ESFRI roadmap was published in 2006 and most likely has been the role model for the national roadmaps of the Nordic countries. The latest published ESFRI roadmap from 2021.[2] lists 41 operating RIs and 22 so called “projects”.[3], RIs that are under construction. Legal forms that facilitate the establishment and operation of both single sited and distributed RIs are set up by the European Commission, in particular the European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) and Joint Undertakings (JUs). The involvement of the Nordic countries in such operations is presented and discussed below.
There is no Nordic RI roadmap. The reason is most likely that the national and European levels capture the needs for most of the strategic planning and RI cooperation. There are however several RIs that are jointly owned and/or operated by the Nordic countries using different models for cooperation and ownership: Nordic Optical Telescope, EISCAT 3D, NeIC, and the European Spallation Source for which Sweden and Denmark are host countries and majority owners.
With this report I hope to be able to contribute to further common Nordic activities related to RI. The status and follow-up of some earlier recommendations and initiatives are presented in Chapter 4 together with a detailed presentation of the Nordic RI Hubs initiative from 2020. Chapter 5 presents several recommendations to NordForsk as well as to the national funding agencies and their committee NordHORCS (Nordic Heads of Research Councils).
[1] For one definition see COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 651/2014 of 17 June 2014
[2] https://roadmap2021.esfri.eu/
[3] The ESFRI Projects are RIs in their preparation phase, which have been selected for the excellence of their scientific case and for their maturity, according to a sound expectation that the Project will enter the Implementation Phase within the ten-year term.