Changing science & innovation policy: The Gothenburg U-GOT KIES Centre Spring 2024 Workshop

During the workshop, Professors Susanna Fellman, Uwe Canter and Magnus Gulbrandsen talked, respectively, about changing science and innovation policy in Sweden, Germany and Norway. They drew both upon their scientific expertise and their societal involvements in policy. Professor Maureen McKelvey (Director of the Gothenburg U-GOT KIES centre) chaired the following session.

Professor Maureen McKelvey explains this workshop.

- I ’ve organized the workshop in this way to tap into what is happening right now and provide the opportunity for reflections and learning. Call it another experimentation with the format of our bi-annual workshop at the Gothenburg U-GOT KIES centre. Moreover, what is changing now is related to some broader debates in society about the relationships between the knowledge economy, innovation, and challenge to the universities. One view can be summarized more as “leave science alone and enable autonomy” while another view is “make universities and science directly responsible to society”.

For the first view of ‘leave science alone’, natural & medical scientists and many economists have long argued that governments should support – but provide autonomy – to research and universities, as a mean to stimulate common goods and public goods, which will benefit everyone in society in the long term. For the second view ‘make it directly responsible’, many current debates focus on outcomes & impacts, including more pro-actively using science to change society, through concepts such as mission-driven policy and the responsible research & innovation agenda.

These are important topics to discuss at the workshop, as they affect how we govern and fund research, and may also affect future careers for young scientists. While there seem to be international trends at different epochs, each country also has nuanced debates about motivations, expected outcomes and the role of universities. Many countries also tend to use another country as their ‘role model’ to imitate. In fact, one motivation to bring together these participants was the reflection at a Gothenburg U-GOT KIES steering committee meeting, approximately: ‘Germany thinks it is imitating Sweden, but Sweden is about to change’.