Renewal of research policies and instruments

1.4 Renewal of research policies and instruments

In 2015, the government introduced a Long-Term Plan for Research and Higher Education (LTP) with a ten-year planning horizon, including binding budget targets in several areas for the first four-year period. The idea of a long-term plan including multi-year budgeting was first launched by the government in a white paper concerning research from 2013.¹⁴ After a change in the government in late 2013, the first actual long-term plan was presented in late 2014.¹⁵ This plan included a clear ambition to increase the funding available to promote excellent research: ‘Norway has many good academic environments, along with a highly developed business community in a number of areas, but we have the potential to be even better. In addition to a general commitment to quality in research and higher education, the Government will prioritise special efforts in world-class science. This is necessary to stimulate more breakthroughs and greater international visibility for Norwegian research, as well as to benefit from the knowledge found among the foremost international experts’ (p. 5, English version).

A clear target was set to increase the share used on R&D in the state budget until the public R&D investments reached 1% of GDP. This target was met already in 2016, partly due to a slower growth curve of GDP. Nonetheless, the government followed through the ambition to increase the investment in world-leading academic groups, especially through the funding instruments of the RCN. The largest investments were made in PhD recruitment positions with an increase of more than 600 research fellowships, research infrastructure with an increase of NOK 400 mill., and incentives to take part in highly competitive EU framework programmes with NOK 400 mill. In the same period, programmes related to research excellence at the RCN (SFF and FRIPRO) saw a cumulative increase in annual budgets of more than NOK 300 mill. (2018 compared to 2013), representing a nominal growth of 33%

compared to a 26% increase in the total RCN budget (excluding basic funding for research institutes).

As foreseen by the first LTP, the government presented a revised long-term plan in late 2018 with a rolling ten-year planning horizon that included binding budgetary targets for the first four years.¹⁶ Unlike the first LTP, this revised version did not include world-leading academic groups as a strategic priority, but included the ambition to increase quality of research on the basis of three overarching objectives that concern Norwegian research and higher education as a whole:

• enhancing competitiveness and innovation capacity

• tackling major societal challenges

• developing academic and research communities of outstanding quality

In addition, the LTP identifies five long-term priorities that ‘reflect areas where Norway has a competitive advantage or a special need for knowledge’. These thematic priorities are:

• Seas and oceans

• Climate, the environment and clean energy

• Public sector renewal and better public services

• Enabling and industrial technologies

• Societal security and social cohesion in a globalised world

The objectives and strategic priorities of the LTP are intended to inform priorities also within the existing budgets of organisations that perform and finance research. In relation to the RCN, the LTP’s

14 Meld. St. 18 (2012–2013). Lange linjer – kunnskap gir muligheter.

15 Meld. St. 7 (2014-2015). Long-term plan for research and higher education 2015-2024.

16 Meld. St. 4 (2018-2019) Long term plan for research and higher education 2019-2028

15 steering signals are translated into budget priorities in the RCN’s yearly proposal to the government for the new state budget on research.

In contrast to the first LTP period, the concrete budgetary targets for the upcoming four-year period (2020-2023) are concentrated around two ambitions: The development and use of new technologies (Teknologiløftet), and research for renewal of industries and adaptation to a post-carbon society (Næringsløftet).¹⁷ These priorities are also reflected in the proposals by the RCN for the next state budget in 2021, which may leave less room for increased investments in ground-breaking research.

1.4.1 In search of increased leeway in RCN budgets

The report from the commission on productivity discussed above was later followed up by a government review (områdegjennomgang) of RCN activities conducted by a committee chaired by Siri Hatlen and with the lead author of the 2012 RCN evaluation included as one of its members.¹⁸ The new committee was mandated to provide its assessment and recommendations on two main questions: 1) Whether funding possibilities for high-quality research projects at the RCN could be expanded by redirecting funding from thematic programmes to relevant high-quality projects submitted to the more competitive open arena for independent projects (FRIPRO), and 2) Whether the administration of RCN programmes was cost-effective. We will concentrate here on the answer to the first question.

The committee observed that the complexity of the RCN programme portfolio is high, with a multitude of calls for proposals containing varying requirements and assessment criteria. A simplification of this system is seen as a measure that could both reduce administrative costs and relax tensions between potentially conflicting programme goals and assessment criteria. In this process, the committee advised the RCN to focus on scientific quality as a more consistent criterion across all research programmes. More specifically, the committee suggested that the RCN could finance a larger number of the proposals submitted to the highly competitive open arena (FRIPRO) by moving relevant proposals to less competitive thematic programmes. This is seen as a measure to increase scientific quality in thematic programmes and give more room to other high-quality projects in the open arena.

Many of the organisational changes that have since been carried out in the RCN can be seen as a follow-up of the critical review of its funding practices conducted by the commission on productivity and its subsequent recommendations. A first reform was initiated at the end of the leadership of Arvid Hallén, reducing the number of thematic programmes and increasing the funding opportunities for basic research within them. In some cases, funding from programmes with a thematic focus, such as Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), was distributed through the open arena (FRIPRO).

Current CEO of the RCN John-Arne Røttingen introduced further reforms when he took over in 2017.

This included a comprehensive change in the RCN’s application process. All research-oriented projects (forskerprosjekter) were organised under one common process for both thematically-defined programmes and the open arena for curiosity-driven research. This united process was facilitated by a common set of criteria used in the assessment of all proposals. After the first assessment made by panels of experts (according to the criteria of excellence, impact and implementation), the proposals would in principle be candidates for funding from both thematic programmes and from the open arena, depending on their relevance. It is too early to assess the effects of this new assessment procedure since the first round of grants was distributed in December 2019.

17 Meld. St. 4 (2018-2019). Long term plan for research and higher education 2019-2028

18 Områdegjennomgang av Norges forskningsråd (2017)

16 The RCN's funding opportunities as they are today (2020), is depicted in Feil! Fant ikke

referansekilden.Figure 6. These cover the spectrum from curiosity-driven open arenas to thematic or field-restricted arenas. There are two open arenas, one primarily geared towards researchers in the institute and higher education sectors (Feil! Fant ikke referansekilden.Figure 6, right-hand side), and the other for business-oriented research (Feil! Fant ikke referansekilden.Figure 6, left-hand side).

The thematic portfolios (Feil! Fant ikke referansekilden.Figure 6, middle) cover research performed in all three sectors. These portfolios correspond to a large extent to the priorities set out in the government’s LTP.

Figure 6 RCN funding programmes (2020).

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