Research infrastructure

Report of the thematic expert group: Research infrastructure

Description of the theme and its relevance

This paper takes as it’s basis the findings of the recent Nordic conference on Research
infrastructure “Global challenges – Regional Opportunities. How can Research Infrastructure
and eScience support Nordic competitiveness” held in Stockholm 12-13 November 20081.

There is a large potential for promoting science and competitiveness through increased
Swedish-Finnish cooperation on research infrastructures, especially in scientific areas of
particular strength in our countries, such as energy, climate, health, welfare and eScience. As
critical mass is becoming the most important aspect of research infrastructures, the Nordic
countries are becoming very small on the global research scale. It is evident that leading
research infrastructure is a key element for world leading science, attracting the best talents and
scientists on the international arena and thus also the knowledge based industry.

However, it is important to emphasize that large research infrastructures must be seen as
platforms for science and excellence in research. The scientific output of a large research
infrastructure is primarily measured in its success in attracting the best talent. Should a
geographical region benefit from hosting such a successful facility, then this is seen an added
bonus. It is often the case that the building and development of a research centre, including high
tech facilities, result in spin offs in terms of commercialisation of results and services and also in
terms of merits for those who build and create the facilities.

Scientific endeavour does not recognize borders, and international cooperation on research
infrastructures has a long tradition. Last year Sweden formulated a roadmap for its infrastructure
needs (“The Swedish Research Council’s Guide to Infrastructure 2008”2) and Finland is just
about to release it’s national roadmap3 (National-Level Research Infrastructures: Present State
and Roadmap). Simultaneously, in December 2008, ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on
Research Infrastructures) published the updated edition of its roadmap4.

There are similar goals in the roadmaps for our two countries. Sweden and Finland, in
cooperation also with the other Nordic countries, ought to seize new opportunities and join
forces in realising infrastructures of common interest, which would have impact also on the
European level and beyond.

1 http://www.vr.se/2.41c4c50b1195b50750780003634.html

2http://www.vr.se/ansvarsomraden/forskningspolitiskafragor/forskningsinfrastruktur/vetenskapsradetsguidetillinfrastrukturen.4.61663a161121008575380002821.html

3 http://www.tsv.fi/tik

4 http://cordis.europa.eu/esfri/


There are key areas in which Sweden and Finland have unique prerequisites for setting up
world leading new research infrastructures, which utilize existing data sources collected over a
long time span for administrative purposes by government authorities and other surveillance
bodies. Typically, these data sources have not been harmonized and efficiently adapted for
research. They exemplify research infrastructures that are based on distributed resources rather
than constituting one geographically localized facility.

One example of such a distributed data infrastructure concerns data on climate and the
environment, much of which today lacks coordination within and between countries, and where
access for use in research is limited. Another example relates to the goldmine of our population
based registries (Statistics Sweden and Statistics Finland) for research in the domain of welfare
and health. If population data were efficiently coordinated and coupled with biological
information from clinical biobanks, then Sweden and Finland would lead the international
scientific forefront when it comes to translating the molecular revolution into practical tools for
early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of common diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular
disease, diabetes, rheumatism etc. Similar data prerequisites exist in the other Nordic countries.
The advantage is very big for science, for public health and in terms of reduced societal costs
from an accelerating disease burden. The ongoing development of eScience tools and
principles is relevant and timely in order to extract knowledge from these multiple sources of
complex and very large data sources.

eScience opens up new exciting approaches to conduct scientific research. The new
information and communication tools allow data and methods to be shared across geographic
and thematic border. The development and use of tools from computer science, mathematics,
statistics and informatics will facilitate work in many research areas, particularly those with
exceptionally high demands on data storage and processing such astrophysics, bioinformatics,
epidemiology, environmental monitoring.

Goals and objectives

It is timely to form a “united front” that gives the Nordic research region a top position in relation
to the rest of the world. The outcome will be a strong and visible region capable of reaching
results on a scale that individual countries cannot reach on their own as well as attracting the
best talents, scientists and R&D divisions of companies. The future of and the needs for
infrastructure and eScience are also in line with the future of several of the most important
Swedish and Finnish industries.

Through investments in and use of world leading research infrastructures Sweden and Finland
have the opportunity to be forerunners in a wider Nordic cooperation and in the Baltic Sea
Regional strategy to strengthen competitiveness in research and innovation.

Proposed actions

• Develop systematically better and easier access to existing small- and medium-sized
research infrastructures in both our countries.

• Exchange experiences of strategies and best practises for financing, management and
organisation of research infrastructures.

• Special attention should be paid to promote common use of advanced research
infrastructure in teaching and training at the master, doctoral and postdoctoral levels to
enhance the quality of university education. Focus should be put on areas of common
strength, with the aim to secure critical mass and foster new generations of researchers
in important future areas and also to increasingly attract international expertise to our
countries.  

• Cooperation on e-science
o Promote Nordic efforts to set up e-science education and to develop e-new
infrastructures and tools.
o Create the best conditions for utilizing e-science tools over the complete chain
from high speed data network, grid-resources, high performance computing,
organization of databases, and applications in areas of excellence and common
interest in the social sciences, medicine, climate research and the physical
sciences
o Sweden and Finland can become global forerunners in developing new
methodologies, legal frameworks and management procedures to overcome
obstacles to the sharing of data, tools and resources on a Nordic level.

• We should also support the establishment of international facilities in our countries, such
as MAX IV (synchrotron for x-ray radiation), EISCAT-3D (upgraded radar facility for
environmental and ionosphere research where existing radar stations are located in
northern Sweden, Finland and Norway), and ICOS (European distributed infrastructure
for monitoring of green-house gases).

• Swedish-Finnish cooperation on international and ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on
Research Infrastructures) projects should take place when interests match.

Prerequisites for the implementation (financing, organizations, etc.)
NordForsk should take a more pronounced role as a facilitator in evaluating infrastructure
projects and participation in international research infrastructures, as well as in securing
funding. A coordinated process should be established so that investments complement each
other. This is urgent in order to reduce redundancy and obstacles from the currently
uncoordinated research infrastructure processes in our Nordic countries. Lack of dialogue and
coordination might make it impossible to have a strategic view on the future of research
infrastructure.


5 http://www.norden.org/webb/news/news.asp?id=7857&lang=6

In particular, Sweden and Finland may establish a task force to explore common interests in
pan-European research infrastructure on the ESFRI roadmap as manifested in the countries
respective infrastructure roadmaps and suggest ways to realise them in cooperation. This may
be extended to the other Nordic countries.

There are some specific research infrastructures for which an initial co-operation may start
immediately

- a Swedish-Finnish consortium for partnership with the international nuclear-hadrons
physics facility FAIR which will be constructed in Germany

- cooperation between the Swedish and Finnish national bio-bank infrastructures for
medical research that can be part of the ESFRI bio-bank project BBMRI.

- a Swedish-Finnish initiative for specific Nordic e-science projects within the recently
published Nordic action plan for e-science5

- a Swedish - Finnish cooperation on national language technology infrastructures, which
may take initiatives for the European CLARIN infrastructure project and it may be timely to start to explore cooperation related to  

- the synchrotron-radiation facility MAX IV, which will be constructed in Lund and which
will be open for Nordic-Baltic participation 

- Infrastructures for climate and atmospheric research which are on the ESFRI roadmap,
e.g. the large upgrade of the radar facility EISCAT-3D and ICOS (monitoring stations on
green-house gases).

Research infrastructure needs large investments. Therefore we need to synchronize
investments and to develop ways to make it easier to use each others facilities. This could
forcefully support ambitions to increase research collaboration and research financing. An
increased cooperation between Sweden and Finland has the potential to influence future
upgrades of the ESFRI roadmap on research infrastructure in areas of important common
interest.