Research

Fredrik Malm (L)

Mr. Speaker! This is a special day in the Riksdag, namely the annual research day. And it is therefore appropriate that we also debate our report on research on this day.

In the committee, during the morning, we have listened to, among other things, a professor in behavioral science measurements at Umeå University and also a professor in cognitive neuroscience from Karolinska Institutet, which has been incredibly valuable. I believe that everyone in politics knows how incredibly important it is to listen to the research and take part in the expertise that exists. This applies, of course, to the entire society.

Mr. Speaker! I begin by moving to approve the proposal in the report.

Sweden is a fantastic country if we look at what has been achieved historically in the field of education and science. Sweden is a research nation. There are strong institutions of higher education, and they have contributed enormously to development, not only in our own country but in the whole world, with innovations, inventions, and research that form the basis for large, extensive, and important breakthroughs within medicine, technology, economy, industry, welfare, and much more. And of course, we shall continue to do this. Many of the great societal challenges that we now face, not least the climate issue, will also require more knowledge and research so that we can solve them.

Education is also important from an ideological perspective. For me as a liberal, it is about the individual's liberation and freedom. Research benefits the entire society, but it is nothing without its researchers. It is people who invest an enormous amount of time and mental effort in delving into often specific, narrow, and nerdy questions in order to constantly increase their own knowledge and contribute to everyone's increased well-being.

Research is also important for us to become more resistant to conspiracy theories, disinformation, self-appointed experts, and fortune seekers in general. Knowledge strengthens society's resilience. A well-educated populace, Mr. Speaker, becomes much harder for an extremist to incite. A group that is well-educated becomes harder for a demagogue to manipulate and deceive with simple solutions. Research plays an enormously important role in strengthening, protecting, and developing our freedom and democracy. It is, of course, a substantial difference between what the scientific community as a whole concludes when they drill deeper into issues and produce climate reports and climate panels, or vaccines against corona, compared to what a person invents in a few hours by googling around and watching clips on YouTube.

The government and the Riksdag have high ambitions for research in Sweden. Next autumn, the research policy bill – the "research bill" as it is called in political language – will be presented, and then we will take further steps to strengthen higher education, research, and innovation power for Sweden in the long term. Not least, this is about strengthening quality and excellence, which has also had great support in the education committee's various reports. This is incredibly important for Sweden to be competitive in the future so that our prosperity can increase.

Mr. Speaker! Education, knowledge, innovation, and research need nourishment to grow. That is why we as politicians have a great responsibility to ensure both resources and good conditions for the academy as a whole. Colleges and universities should, of course, always focus on what matters, for example when appointing positions – merits, competence, and academic expertise.

There should not be, and must not be, doors within the academy or into the academy that shut out individuals based on, for example, gender. Therefore, we also mention in the report that the government has decided to continue to mandate the relevant authority to support the higher education institutions in their work with gender mainstreaming also during 2023.

As a Liberal, I am also particularly proud that the issue of research on women's health has been highlighted in the government's propositions. Regarding the budget for this year, we can observe that thanks to this, there has also been an extension and a strengthening of the initiative on research on, among other things, women's health.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Mats Wiking (S)

Mr. Speaker! Today we are debating the Education Committee's report on research. I naturally stand behind all our reservations, but I move for approval only of reservation 2.

That researchers can freely choose research areas and research methods, as well as freely publish the results of the research, is fundamental for the quality of research and for a functioning democracy. Research policy also has a responsibility to direct resources toward solving pressing societal problems and contributing to a competitive business sector, but it must simultaneously provide good conditions for free knowledge-seeking. It is fundamental that politicians or political parties must never control the results of research or which methods should be used or exert pressure on individual researchers.

Sweden shall, both nationally and internationally, safeguard the freedom of research and promote open science. Safeguarding the freedom of research is particularly important in a time of fact resistance and threats and hate against researchers.

Mr. Speaker! With this said, it is also not possible to avoid mentioning the government's interference in the appointment of boards for our universities. Sweden's universities are sharp in their criticism of the government and view the government's actions as a lack of confidence in the competence of the current boards. We Social Democrats have full confidence in the appointment of the universities' boards, and we believe that academic freedom should prevail here as well.

Mr. Speaker! A report from 2022 conducted by the Swedish Association of Universities and Colleges, SUHF, shows that more researchers and university teachers experience an increasingly harsh climate at our educational institutions. The report describes more hate and threats from students and colleagues, and those surveyed say that they therefore avoid expressing themselves on sensitive subject areas and issues. The report also shows that it is women who are subjected to most of the threats and that the perpetrator is known by the person who is subjected to them.

The results also show that most of the threats come from within the academy, and that makes the problem extra large. We risk that the public debate is taken over by those who are the loudest and most hardened. Here, the academy needs the support of society and politics to be able to be free and unbound and not feel restricted regarding what may be said and expressed.

Mr. Speaker! Research has for a long time been characterized by insecure employment. We debate this constantly. We can see that almost every third researcher today is employed on a fixed-term basis. It cannot continue like this. We Social Democrats therefore strengthened the research budget during the last parliamentary term, and we did so, among other reasons, to create more secure employment in the long term for a large group of our researchers. This is also important from an equality and work environment perspective. Insecure employment and a deficient work environment make it particularly difficult for women who want to pursue an academic career. Furthermore, women are subjected to sexual harassment in higher education more often than men.

Mr. Speaker! In a study from the Swedish Research Council based on nearly 39,000 questionnaires, students, doctoral students, researchers, and other staff have answered questions about the work environment and sexual harassment. The study shows that what we call unwanted sexual attention, for example questions about private life or glances, affects women and primarily doctoral students to a greater extent. It is also seen that many women risk leaving higher education due to a pressured work situation and the difficulty of combining an academic career with family life and work. Here, our educational institutions have a journey to make when it comes to equality and work environment responsibility.

Mr. Speaker! The need for increased investment of funds for research is great. Therefore, it is important for us Social Democrats to continue investing long-term in research and to increase the state research grants. During the previous parliamentary term, the S-led government implemented a level increase of the state funds for research of 3.75 billion during the period 2021-2024.

The research and innovation bill also contained initiatives for research within climate and environment, health and welfare, digitalization, skills supply and working life, as well as a democratic and strong society. These are measures that strengthen Sweden in the international competition.

Mr. Speaker! Sweden also needs a special initiative on research infrastructure that can be used by research but also by industry. A review of state research funding is needed to ensure that the agency organization effectively supports high-quality research and innovation. It must be clearly adapted to societal development and promote national and global collaborations as well as access to research infrastructure. The Social Democratic government therefore appointed, on June 1, 2022, a government inquiry with the task of conducting such a review.

Mr. Speaker! Space issues are becoming increasingly important for Europe and here in Sweden. Our geographical location, our technical and scientific expertise, and already existing infrastructure give us a unique opportunity to belong to the leading countries in the space field.

Space research today has great importance for socially significant issues such as economy, security policy and climate work. In order to be able to regulate this important work, we need to adopt a new space act. It is a task that was initiated during the Social Democratic-led government.

The government should promptly submit such a proposal to the Riksdag. At the same time, there is a great need to strengthen resources for both space research and a national satellite program.

Mr. Speaker! Last but not least, I want to point out that the polar research conducted through the icebreaker and the research vessel Oden is extremely important for increasing knowledge about climate change and the security-politically important polar regions.

A polar research vessel is an important resource for Sweden and our attractiveness as a partner. Now that Odens days are numbered, a new polar research vessel is needed that would consolidate Sweden's position as a leading country within polar research.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Marie-Louise Hänel Sandström (M)

Mr. Speaker! I want to begin by expressing my approval of the committee's proposal in the report. There are many motions and requests, and we know that there is a great interest. But we reject those proposals, and I move for approval of the committee's entire proposal in the report.

As my colleague Fredrik Malm told, we have had a research day in the Riksdag today. It has been extremely interesting. For us in the Education Committee, it is of course about education, learning and the brain's development. It is very exciting.

We were in the second chamber. It was packed with researchers and politicians who wanted to talk about meeting complex challenges with the help of research. It was incredibly interesting. It is extra fun to now continue to debate research, because research is one of our most exciting areas.

During Sweden's EU presidency, I have in recent months participated in two different seminars that were very exciting, with participants from all over the EU.

One seminar was about science and the public. It is about getting information out to the population so that one can use the research and understand that the research is very important. We had a broad discussion about how it is done in Europe and how, for example, politicians meet the public. They were very interested in our network here in the Riksdag, the Society of Members of Parliament and Researchers. It is a very good way to meet and discuss such important issues.

The second seminar was about AI and medical research. We know that medical research has been revolutionized with the help of AI. We see how we can now treat diseases in a completely different way. We see new opportunities within research in healthcare.

We can make clearer images through, for example, X-ray with digital versions of our X-ray machines. We can facilitate the analysis of medical data, accelerate drug development, and even precision medicine. It is extremely important. We can use AI in many good ways.

It is also important to always include ethics for AI. It does not always work in the best way. But we shall always include it as opportunities. AI also means that many opportunities exist within technology and the automotive and aviation industries. A lot is happening now, and it is moving very fast.

There is something called ChatGPT, which surely everyone recognizes. There are many discussions here. Is it an opportunity? Is it just something scary, or could it be a fad? It is important that the ethical aspects always come along and also the critical thinking.

I went in and asked Chat GPT what is important about research. A lot came up. I am going to read a short summary.

In summary, research is important to promote knowledge, solve problems, promote innovation, support education, and contribute to well-founded decisions and political actions. Through research, we can strive to understand the world better and work towards a better future.

It is a fairly good summary, one could say. I can almost say that I wouldn't have been able to do it better myself, but I could, of course. One can still be very pleased that ChatGPT is very quick to learn. Machine learning is about this.

Mr. Speaker! Just as Fredrik Malm mentioned, we produce a research policy proposition during every parliamentary term. The previous one arrived in December 2020. Now we look forward to the new research policy proposition in 2024.

The work with it has begun. Many are already eager and are submitting consultation responses before the consultation period has even expired. They want to be involved in discussing how to improve and influence research and facilitate governance. Very many consultation responses will be submitted. There are almost a hundred consultation bodies.

The Moderates' and the government's focus lies on excellence, internationalization, and innovation. It will be very exciting to work with that. In a little over a year, we will hopefully be here with a very good research proposition.

Mr. Speaker! Sweden has a very good reputation when it comes to the high quality of research. We must, of course, maintain that. But the competition is very great globally. We must fight hard to maintain our excellence and quality.

Therefore, we must also prioritize when we invest in research. We must see what prominent environments and research areas exist. This applies to strategic goals within, for example, the technology area.

Mr. Speaker! The members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs spoke here just now about arms exports and also arms research. Unfortunately, Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine has caused the interest in research within the defense industry to increase very much.

Space research is also very topical. It applies within environmental work but also within defense research. These are also two areas that the government prioritizes.

Mr. Speaker! After the 2022 budget decision, the research funders have been tasked, in consultation with higher education institutions, to work on the development of a funding model to achieve a more quality-funded distribution of research grants. How the research grants are distributed is very important. It is something we have worked on very much. The Government wants to review the state funding of external research. It is important that it supports research and also innovation that is of high quality but also is adapted to societal development.

National collaborations shall be improved, but international collaborations must also be able to function well. It is also a priority that there shall be good access to research infrastructure.

There are also funders within the EU. The EU's framework program for research and innovation, Horizon Europe, is a very important part of research funding. There are also foundations that fund research. Within the humanities, there is, for example, the Riksbanken Jubileumsfond. Within the private sector, there is, for example, Cancerfonden which works for cancer research.

Mr. Speaker! Despite the fact that there are many funders and much high-quality research, we see a decreasing proportion of Swedish researchers. Swedish researchers do not come as doctoral students. They do not stay after their higher education or university studies.

Sometimes they say it takes too long. It is too uncertain economy. The business community does not see the benefit of them having defended their dissertations. We must, of course, change that if we want to maintain the research and have capable Swedish researchers in Sweden who will also emerge internationally.

The Moderates want to see increased cooperation with academia, the municipalities, and the business sector. It is extremely important. We must facilitate so that research reaches out into society, that technology can be used and commercialized, so that the real benefit of the research can be seen. There, we have something important to do.

The Moderates also want to create better research conditions for researchers so that they get a good research environment that is more economically stable and which gives them opportunities when they subsequently enter the workforce.

Mr. Speaker! An important issue is the freedom of research. It is, as we know, regulated in the constitution. Even in the Higher Education Act, it is clearly stated that academic freedom shall be protected.

In order to achieve further improvements, UKÄ, Universitetskanslersämbetet, has received an amendment in its regulatory letter regarding an in-depth study on how one can work more to promote academic research.

Finally, I want to mention the Ethical Review Act, where a discussion has been held here. I know myself as a researcher that it is quite complicated with applications to the Ethical Review Authority. There is a lot to fill in, and it can take a long time. The important thing is that human integrity is not violated. Ethical reviews are now also required within the humanities. These take a long time for the researchers and reduce academic freedom, and therefore the Moderaterna and the government want to review the Ethical Review Authority and how its work should function.

In conclusion, Mats Wiking from the Socialdemokraterna mentioned that he is still angry about how the boards in the educational institutions have been handled. I just want to say that the Moderaterna and the government are working to ensure there is less political governance. We believe it is important with professional governance of the educational institutions.

(Applause)

(cont. § 7)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)