Abstract
This essay analyses the growth of an “innovation paradigm” in Swedish research policy from the 1990s and analyses how this paradigm is expressed in the government’s recent research policy bill that is currently being implemented. The discussion of the bill highlights some apparent paradoxes. First, the bill uses the notions of basis research and innovation interchangeably. Thus, for example, it proposes to increase the Swedish Research Council’s resources for supporting basic research, but it also demands that the council direct more of its resources to support work that is important for the country’s high-tech industry. Second, the bill strongly emphasises economic as well as academic competition. Scientific and economic competitions are described as if there were no significant difference between the two. The bill assumes, for instance, that the quality of research can be measured by its success on a (publishing) market. The analysis of the bill relies on the notion of performativity. The bill is seen as a performative act aiming simultaneously to change the practices of research and the language in which it is discussed. If the bill’s policies succeed, the paradoxes mentioned above will fade away as traditional research practice disappears.
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Notes
- 1.
On Vinnova’s homepage, it is said that the government has, in its instructions from 2009, “given Vinnova the task to make Sweden a leading research nation where research of high scientific quality is conducted”. http://www.vinnova.se/sv/Om-VINNOVA/VINNOVAs-roll-och-uppgift/. According to the agency’s “vision and goals”, however, focus is strictly on economic issues, in particular economic growth. http://www.vinnova.se/sv/Om-VINNOVA/Vision-och-mal/. Both accessed 12 April 2010.
- 2.
Vinnova’s publications are readily available at http://www.vinnova.se/.
- 3.
This was the KK foundation whose task it is to support growth-inducing collaboration between universities and private business in the service sector (the acronym refers to the Swedish words for knowledge and competence) (http://www.kks.se/medel/SitePages/Samproduktion.aspx) Accessed 13 February 2012.
- 4.
Vinnova is an abbreviation for the “innovation systems agency” (Verket för innovations system).
- 5.
http://www.triplehelix.dk/programmeframe.htm. Accessed 29 March 2010.
- 6.
This is from a call for applications concerning “challenges” issued by Vinnova in April 2011: http://www.vinnova.se/sv/Utlysningar/Effekta/Utmaningsdriven-innovation/. Accessed 12 January 2012. Vinnova devotes one section of the call to defining “green growth”. It is used in order to emphasise the importance of environmental issues, like sustainable growth but without the social ambitions inherent in that concept. Thanks to Anders Ekström for directing my attention to this document.
- 7.
He has since been replaced by another liberal who was then replaced by yet another liberal.
- 8.
The word “collaboration” is used almost as frequently but in different contexts, namely, in discussions concerning international collaboration, collaboration between university and industry, and collaboration between disciplines – in the latter case because interdisciplinarity is strongly promoted within the innovation paradigm. Collaboration is not described as a broad characteristic of successful research in the same way as competition is.
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Widmalm, S. (2013). Innovation and Control: Performative Research Policy in Sweden. In: Rider, S., Hasselberg, Y., Waluszewski, A. (eds) Transformations in Research, Higher Education and the Academic Market. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 39. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5249-8_3
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