The science systems in Russia and, even more so, the Baltic States have undergone radical change in the years following the break-up of the Soviet Union. Although this report does not aim to provide a thorough description of the Soviet science system1, it is nevertheless useful to give a very brief outline of the structures which Baltic and Russian policy-makers were confronting at the outset of systemic reforms in the early 1990s.

The report gives an overview of the existing legislation in the Nordic countries regarding the collection and re-use of health-related personal data in medical research. It also looks at how ethical review is integrated in the regulatory frameworks, including in the European general data protection regulation that will come into force May 2018.

This report has been prepared for the Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration (NeIC) Board to facilitate future decisions in the Nordic region in the area of high performance computing and related topics. An external expert, Dr. Robert Pennington, Deputy Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was engaged as a special advisor to NeIC for the project. He consulted with Nordic researchers, Nordic HPC systems staff, NeIC staff, as well as other researchers who have been engaged in similar activities in other countries. 

Distribution of health is one of the challenges facing the Nordic countries and Europe. Although health and life expectancy have improved in the Nordic countries, inequalities in the distribution of health persist. The difference in mortality rates among different socio-economic groups, for instance, has grown greater. Although inequalities in the distribution of health may be viewed as a health-economic problem, this is above all an egalitarian issue related to the future development of the welfare state.

The report gives an overview of research activities, funding and funding systems of relevance to research on health and welfare-related issues in the Nordic countries 2005-2010. Based on these findings, the report also provides policy recommendations to Nordic political circles, research funding agencies and NordForsk.

As markets are opening up and capital, talent and other resources are becoming more mobile, the competition for investments in research and innovation has become increasingly fierce and continues to intensify.

Against this background, a case can be made for initiating a joint Nordic effort aimed at profiling the region in the global marketplace in order to attract foreign investments in research and innovation. On a global market, the individual Nordic countries are very small and may find it difficult to make their voices heard. At the same time, the region has a long history of regional collaboration and several collaborative projects and Nordic initiatives are already underway to address the challenges of globalization. While there are certainly differences among the countries, in a global context the similarities are far more important.

Hence, the ambition of the NordForsk policy brief “Branding the Nordic Research and Innovation Area” is two-fold; Firstly, to create a branding methodology which takes the special conditions of the Nordic region and the notion of research and innovation investments as point of departure. Secondly, to put forward a suggestion for a branding strategy, firmly grounded in Nordic strengths and set within the emerging global context of research and innovation investments.

This report is both an update and an extension of two previous reports with the same title: “Comparing Research at Nordic Universities using Bibliometric Indicators” from 2011 and 2014. With the current report’s use of more years, more institutions and more subject fields, the figures are not directly comparable to the figures in the former two. Therefore, it should not be seen as an update of the former two reports; rather it replaces these.

The main conclusion of the report is that we find relatively stable differences between the Nordic universities, university colleges and university hospitals. We find different research profiles and specialisations, and we find institutions with different volumes of research activity. By describing these differences, we want to bring attention to dimensions that one-dimensional global university rankings cannot capture.

Some Nordic higher education institutions score on a very high international level with regard to citation impact and shares of highly cited papers, at least in some of the major areas of research, while most Nordic institutions do not, although the majority of them perform above the world average. “World class” research is being conducted at a few Nordic institutions, but not at most of them.

The present report “Comparing Research at Nordic Universities using Bibliometric Indicators, Second report, covering the years 2000–2012” is replacing the previous report from 2011 covering the years 2000-2009, basically building on the same methodology but adding more information. In this second report, publications from the social sciences and the humanities are included (not in citation analysis), and new time intervals are applied. Both reports use data from Thomson Reuters and a Nordic network for validating the data, developing the indicators and analysing the results. The discussions in the network have been paramount for the production of this second version and the presentation of data.

A publication from the NORIA-net "Bibliometric Indicators for the Nordic Universities".

This report consists of two studies, each providing extensive data on researcher mobility in the Nordic region and beyond. In each of the reports different aspects of researcher mobility is analyzed with the help of a wide range of data and varied methodological approaches. This makes the description rich in terms of perspectives on mobility and underlines the complexity of the issue. Together they provide a basis for understanding patterns and trends of researcher mobility across the Nordic region as well as different types of incentives and obstacles promoting and inhibiting such mobility.

Excellent research infrastructures are a prerequisite for conducting competitive research of high international quality in dynamic environments. Thus, research infrastructures are topics of common interest for the Nordic countries where Nordic cooperation can make an international contribution.

The NORIA-net "Nordic Research Infrastructure Network" (NRIN) was initiated as a preparatory action in order to strengthen Nordic cooperation on research infrastructure policies, strategies and funding. NRIN has focused on describing similarities and differences between the Nordic countries on research infrastructure policies and aimed to identify actions suitable for cooperation. Although existing national research infrastructure roadmaps are not directly comparable, research infrastructures prioritised in all or most of the Nordic countries, will serve as a platform for increasing Nordic cooperation.

NRIN recommends that efforts are put into current initiatives which have a direct impact on Nordic research infrastructure cooperation. This report contains recommendations on how to expand and add value to Nordic research infrastructure cooperation. The major national research funding agencies in the Nordic countries have been members of NRIN.

"Nordic participation in the EU Framework Programmes - Best practices and lessons learned". The Policy Briefs 1-3 2011 describe and analyse key aspects of Nordic research cooperation in a European context, both at the research policy and -strategy level. This report looks into Nordic researchers' participation in FP7 compared to FP6, the outcome of participation, as well as main challenges and success criteria for participation. By NIFU and Technopolis in cooperation with NordForsk (2011).

While preparing its report, NRIN (NORIA-net Research Infrastructures Network) commissioned an evaluation of Nordic participation in international research cooperation. A pilot project for this evaluation examined the NORDSYNC membership of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF).

The main findings are that ESRF has been very rele­vant to highly competitive research communities and that the NORDSYNC membership has succeeded in a strong involvement by leading research groups in the Nordic countries. The report presents lessons learnt from NORDSYNC, but also recommendations on how to strengthen Nordic use of research infrastructures. 

NRIN recommends that efforts are put into actual initiatives which have a direct impact on Nordic research infrastructure cooperation. Based on this pilot evaluation, NRIN recommends that the Nordic countries’ international memberships in research infrastructure organisations should be evaluated on a Nordic level.

This evaluation concerns two research programmes using Nordic Centre of Excellence (NCoE) as financing instrument:

• Food, Nutrition and Health, three centres
• Welfare Research, two centres

The evaluation of the two programmes covers the period from their start to their final activities in 2013. The overall purpose of the evaluation of the two NCoE programmes has been to analyse the added value achieved based on the original objectives of the programmes. In addition, the analysis concerns how the NCoE programmes have developed in the course of their programme period.

In the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the European Commission and NordForsk of July 2012, NordForsk agreed to carry out actions related to ERA priorities within its remit by the end of 2013, to the extent possible within the framework of national legislation and owner, the Nordic Council of Ministers. This executive summary includes a brief description of NordForsk’s main achievements under the following areas of the MoU: cross-border cooperation, research infrastructures, quality of research, and plans for the future.

This policy brief focuses on the possibilities for further increasing Nordic cooperation on research infrastructures. This is done through analysis of current policies and positions, and through a discussion of contextual factors.

This report is based on the work of the NORIA-net on Registers and Biobanks (NRB), a Nordic working group of key actors involved in Nordic research and research policy at the national level. This NORIA-net has focused its activities on how to overcome existing obstacles that impede Nordic data sharing and has proposed ways of enhancing coordination to strengthen Nordic register-based research.

Register-based research within the field of health and wellbeing has great potential for producing knowledge that can be used to improve the capacity of the Nordic welfare states.

Nordic register-based research has the potential to attract international interest and to enable the Nordic research community to take the international lead in this field.

The legislation on biotechnology varies markedly from one Nordic country to another. The aim of this report is to give the reader information of the current status in the different countries and a chance to compare the legal situations. Sixteen important areas of biotechnology have been chosen for this overview:

• Assisted reproduction
• Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD)
• Preimplantation genetic screening (PGS)
• Abortion
• Prenatal Diagnosis and/or screening
• Organ and tissue transplantation
• Embryo research
• Cloning
• Clinical research on humans
• Human biobanks
• Ethical committees
• Genetic testing
• Advanced therapy medicinal products
• Genetically modified organisms
• Animal experimentation
• Legal status of Council of Europe Biomedicine Convention and its additional protocols

Ethics is a field of emerging importance to NordForsk, and the Nordic Committee on Bioethics adds new perspectives to the ongoing activities within NordForsk. Based on the feedback received about Legislation on biotechnology in the Nordic countries – an overview 2014, the report clearly filled a gap for researchers and stakeholders working within the field. We are pleased to publish this updated version, and hope it serves its purpose of enhancing the understanding for each other’s regulatory framework within biotechnology in the Nordic countries.

The report describes a knowledge base for cross-border development of research that uses Nordic registers, biobanks and clinical studies, and offers suggestions for policy implications. Separate reports are provided on the Nordic Trial Alliance (NTA), the Nordic eScience Action Plan 2.0 and Open Access to research data from a Nordic perspective.

This report focuses on registers and biobanks as research infrastructures for innovative research on health and welfare. The Nordic countries have very similar and unique healthcare and welfare systems. The personal identification number (PIN) for each citizen makes it possible to carry out longitudinal research and research based on a combination of health registers (e.g. healthcare data, biobanks, register on the prevalence of different diseases and causes of death) and social registers (e.g. education, employment, migration, gender representation in democratic decision-making). In contrast to the rest of the world, the Nordic countries have very long time series at the population level, considered to be a unique “goldmine” for research. The proposed longitudinal data infrastructure is particularly well suited to studying changes in the Nordic welfare model over time and for setting up a unique basis for personalised medicine/precision medicine that could guide medical practice in real time, including social and behavioural aspects.

This publication describes the focus and strengths of Nordic climate change research, and encompasses both collaborative Nordic research efforts and activities carried out in each of the Nordic countries.

The Policy Briefs 1-3 2011 describe and analyse key aspects of Nordic research cooperation in a European context, both at the research policy and -strategy level. This second report looks into the interactions between national, Nordic and European research policies, in light of Nordic priorities regarding internationalisation of research cooperation. By NIFU and Technopolis in cooperation with NordForsk (2011).

The objective of the Nordic eScience Action Plan 2.0 is to motivate and describe concrete lines of actions that are necessary to continue and further develop the implementation of an integrated Nordic eScience Strategy covering higher education, research and ICT infrastructure.

This study aims to provide ‘strategic intelligence’ about areas of research excellence in the Nordic area, where it might be possible to add value through the use of cross-border funding instruments.

This report responds to the request by the Nordic Committee of Senior Officials for Education & Research within the Nordic Council of Ministers to NordForsk to produce an overview of current knowledge within the area of Open Access to research data and identify possible joint frameworks and the corresponding implications. 

The Nordic countries share a set of values and notions of responsible conduct of research. However, national guidelines and procedures differ considerably. Against this background, NordForsk invited experts to a seminar on Research Integrity procedures and professional research ethics review processes in the Nordic countries. The aim of the seminar was firstly to obtain a comprehensive picture of the ethical procedures and practices, as well as of the legal frameworks. Secondly, the purpose was to use the input received as a first frame of reference for a NordForsk policy regarding ethical perspectives on research programmes supported by at least three Nordic countries.

This report includes a summary of the presentations at the expert seminar which took place in Oslo, 9 April 2014, and gives an overview of the situation in each of the five Nordic countries.

This NordForsk Policy Brief is about the idea of ‘Nordic Added Value’, namely the justificationfor acting at the Nordic level, in relation to research. It explores the changing meanings of the ‘added value’ of cooperation in research at both the Nordic and European levels. It shows that the Nordic cooperation in practice already strong and considers the implications of possible futures on the continuing value and effectiveness of the cooperation. It makes a number of policy suggestions for increasing the strength and effectiveness of the Nordic cooperation in the future.

Research on societal security issues has developed separately in the Nordic countries. The recent emphasis at the political level on Nordic solidarity in the face of disasters, acts of violence and cyber attacks has created a clear demand for collaborative research across the region. NordForsk has supported a pre-study framing a programme on the subject.

At their summer meeting in Finland in 2007, the five Nordic Prime Ministers decided to strengthen efforts related to Nordic research and innovation. They asked the Nordic Council of Ministers to draw up a proposal that would promote Nordic top-level research in close cooperation with trade and industry. The Nordic Prime Ministers met again in April 2008 at the Riksgränsen ski resort in Sweden, where they drew up the Riksgränsen Declaration which laid the foundation for the largest joint Nordic effort to promote research and innovation ever undertaken, focusing on climate, energy and the environment. 

The Prime Ministers’ pioneering Nordic cooperative effort became the Top-level Research Initiative. This book describes some of the important results from the initiative by the five Nordic Prime Ministers: Geir H. Haarde, Jens Stoltenberg, Anders Fogh Rasmussen,Fredrik Reinfeldt, Matti Vanhanen.

This policy paper presents in brief the major findings from the main report "Sport Sciences in Nordic Countries. Evaluation Report".

Stem cell research has grown rapidly in this decade and the scientific achievements have created hopes for new treatments of severe incurable diseases. As a result of the research, the economic prospects are also growing. At the same time, ethical questions related to the sources of some stem cells, i.e. human embryos, have stimulated intense debate among scientists, ethicists, health professionals, patient organisations and the public.

The Nordic region has the potential to become a global role model in developing innovative, research-based solutions for preventing chronic diseases. This paper sets out a vision of how scientific research, through new mindsets, new part nerships and new platforms, can make a signifcant contribution to improving health standards by curbing the global crisis of chronic diseases.

This study is the third in the series. The subject, Nordic urban research, is one that is increasing in importance. In 2007, for the first time in history, half of the world’s population live, work, consume and pollute in cities. In the European Union, 80% of all citizens already live in urban areas. Consequently, many of the challenges we currently face, such as ensuring continued economic development, sustainable energy, public health and environmental quality are in part urban-based. In commissioning this study, NordForsk wished to explore the potential of Nordic research cooperation in the field of urban research as one means of meeting these chalenges.