Major investment in Swedish research

In connection with this autumn's Budget Bill, the Alliance Government will present a new proposal for meeting the challenges facing Sweden. This will entail strengthening employment policy, enhancing Sweden's future growth potential and improving welfare.

Today, the party leaders in the Alliance for Sweden will present the main features of their upcoming research initiative.

Research is an indispensable part of human culture. The growth of knowledge and the search for explanations have a value in themselves. The resources available for research also have a major impact on Sweden's future potential. Good conditions for research open the way for innovations, contribute to growth and deepen our knowledge of the world around us. This emphasises the importance of initiatives that focus on high-quality research that is innovative and internationally competitive.

The Government's policy is oriented toward the future. The research initiative is part of a larger vision, which, in the long term, will strengthen Sweden as a successful industrial and service nation, but also as a welfare society.

The Government is to propose investments in research and innovation which will entail successive increases in central government support during the period 2009-2012, to reach a permanent increase of SEK 5 billion in 2012. Since the largest reinforcement will be allocated during the first year, total additional funds for the four-year period will amount to almost SEK 15 billion.

Work on the research and innovation bill is being led by Minister for Higher Education and Research Lars Leijonborg, who is available to answer further questions.

Investment for the future

This is the largest, single extra investment ever to have been made in Swedish research. It is based on two central insights:

• In the era of globalisation, Swedish competitiveness must build on the high knowledge content of our export products, which is why research, development and innovation are key components of growth policy.
• Without new knowledge, the greatest challenges to mankind - such as the greenhouse gas effect, the energy crisis, water shortages, widespread poverty in parts of the world, the impact of current demographic changes, prolonged international conflicts and the risks of pandemics - cannot be dealt with successfully.

The largest additional investment ever to have been made in Swedish research

Strengthening resources allocated to research is one of the largest reforms to be undertaken by the Government during its term of office.

• The extra funds for 2009 alone exceed all the additional resources provided for in the latest Social Democrat research bill.
• An idea of the size of the current investment can also be gained from the fact that it is larger than the sum of all funds allocated in all the research bills in the period 1994-2006.

To enable a comparison with previous terms of office, a diagram showing permanent increases in the resources allocated by research bills and their accompanying budget bills is shown below.

Diagram in the attached file: Level of permanent increases in the last four research bills (the last year of each period).

If, instead, a comparison is made of total resources allocated to Swedish research in each research policy bill and its accompanying budget bill, the picture becomes even clearer. One reason for this is that the Alliance Government's initiative means that resources will be considerably and permanently strengthened even during the first year of the period.

Diagram in the attached file: Total additional resources in research bills and accompanying budget bills, per period.

Medicine, technology and climate are priority areas

In terms of actual amounts, the largest increases will benefit research into medicine, technology and the climate.

The largest increase in resources will take the form of direct appropriations to universities and higher education institutions, but the Swedish Research Councils and the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems will also benefit from significant increases in appropriations.

Table in the attached file: Permanent reinforcements in SEK million per year and area

The Government has used three guiding criteria in prioritising the strategic areas:

• Research that can help to find solutions to important global problems and challenges, such as work to combat climate change, the fight against serious diseases and other health problems, and the adaptation of energy systems. It is obvious, for example, that the fight against the greenhouse gas effect is aided by technological breakthroughs.
• Areas in which Sweden is already conducting world-class research. In all of the priority areas there are researchers and research groups of world class.
• Areas where companies in Sweden are already conducting their own research and development, and where state investments strengthen the development and competitiveness of the business sector and of Sweden as a country.

Examples of research projects that are to receive more support in this regard are the fight against major diseases that affect large sections of the population, such as Alzheimer's and cancer; new communications solutions in the intersection between mobile broadband and IT; and new energy solutions for reduced carbon dioxide emissions, greater energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.

Research in humanities and social sciences will also receive higher appropriations.

One explicit aim of the investments proposed in the bill is to create and strengthen research environments in Sweden that are of absolute world class.

Innovation is an important theme

Innovation is an important theme in the upcoming bill. This is manifested partly in the design of a number of new structures and instruments for the Swedish research system, and partly in the fact that a number of specific innovation issues are dealt with that are of importance to the development of the business sector and society.

Further details of investments will be provided later, both in connection with the Budget Bill in September and when the research and innovation bill is presented in October.

More basic research stimulates R&D investments in the business sector

Total R&D investment in Sweden - including the money spent by the business sector for this purpose - has, at about four per cent of GDP, long been extremely high by international standards.

Before the election, the Alliance pointed to the link between major research investments by companies such as Ericsson, AstraZeneca, Volvo, etc. and state investments. Companies' R&D is hugely dependant on well-financed basic research under state management. It is unrealistic to believe that these and other companies would continue to invest large amounts of money into research in Sweden if similar investments were not made in high-quality academic research.

With the proposal that has now been approved for Swedish research, Sweden's ability to compete for research investments will improve significantly. Add to this the Government's efforts to have the large research facility, ESS (European Spallation Source), located in Lund.

International comparison

The programme presented here is also considerable by international standards. One would have to go as far as Asia - to China and Singapore, for example - to find greater approved increases in terms of percentages.

Despite the fact that many EU countries have expressed the ambition to reach the one-per-cent goal in accordance with the Lisbon strategy, few countries have actually made binding budget decisions to that effect.