Below you will find SWOT analyses of the different fields of Biosciences, geography, environmental sciences and agricultural and forest sciences in Finland. The analyses have been compiled by discipline-specific groups of researchers. The development proposals have been outlined by the Academy’s Research Councils. At the end of each section, you will find links to bibliometric data on that specific field as well as PDF versions of the material for printing.
Agricultural sciences | Biochemistry and Biophysics, Cellular and Molecular Biology | Bioinformatics | Ecology, Evolutionary Biology | Environmental sciences, Environmental studies | Food sciences | Forest sciences | Genetics, Developmental Biology, Animal Physiology | Geography, Regional Studies, Urban Studies | Microbiology | Neuroscience | Plant Biology
Agricultural sciences: SWOT analysis and development proposals
Agricultural sciences: Strenghts
- Compact organisations and increased collaboration, multidisciplinarity
- Good methodological know-how; the boreal environment
- Research at good international level overall; increased internationality via EU projects; Finland a major player in rural studies
- Good employment rate among graduates; doctoral candidates required to have published articles; last stages of doctoral studies secured through funding from foundations
- Access to funding to increase international engagement
- Availability of infrastructure
- Research collaboration also with industry outside Finland
Agricultural sciences: Weaknesses
- Rigid infrastructure and culture/researchers, expensive equipment dependent on graduate students; continued decreases in number of technical staff, loss of valuable tacit knowledge about infrastructures
- Unclear roles of sectoral research and universities (teaching, basic research and applications)
- Lack of graduate schools and Centres of Excellence; low outward mobility of early-career researchers; reduced appeal due to insecurity related to the research career
- Insufficient theory basis of agricultural projects to be accepted as projects funded by the Academy of Finland; agricultural projects unable to show true multidisciplinary collaboration
- Inability to address the whole of Europe
- Dissertation requirements more focused on quantity than quality
- Networks not legal entities
Agricultural sciences: Opportunities
- Demand for agricultural research; agriculture speaks to people as people, not as consumers; increased sense of local identity (e.g. food security, local foods)
- Possible competitive advantage from further increase in multidisciplinarity; emphasising the added value of collaboration; good partnerships; multidisciplinary, thematic programmes; developing stronger cooperation with basic sciences
- Internal development of the discipline: larger groups
- External development of the discipline: strategic partnerships in multidisciplinary cooperation
- Developing funding agency expertise and lobbying
- Keeping up to date and involved in research through international collaboration; increased front-loading of research through Finnish experts’ involvement in international organisations such as the FAO, the OECD and the World Bank
- Risk investment together with funding agencies
- Agriculture vs the biobased economy
- Completely reconstructing manufacturing systems taking into account emissions, energy, sustainable animal production, plant protection, etc.; moving from the concept of sustainability to a concept of resilience
- Progress in genome research
Agricultural sciences: Threats
- Inability to contribute positively to social debate
- Agriculture associated with negative things (e.g. emissions, animal welfare, GMOs)
- Scientists from other countries (China) outstripping Finnish scientists in progress of research
- Finland a small country; weaker networking and emphasised small size due to low mobility; returning researchers left empty-handed
- Bias, lack of value debate
- Narrow expertise, lack of agility (researchers, infrastructures) in direction of research
- Weak appeal of agriculture (student base)
- Weak appeal of research careers
- Tough funding situation for sectoral research
- Deteriorating infrastructures, acquisition of new infrastructure not possible
Agricultural sciences: Development proposals
- State-of-the-art methods, equipment and, for example, research barns and well-maintained fields and long-term field experiments are key elements in the international competition in high-quality research in the natural sciences and technology. Research in economics and the social sciences as well as modelling experts in different fields make good use of the results achieved in the aforementioned research environments. Data from extensive and long-term field experiments, for instance, are valuable and necessary for future research.
- Finland must secure resources (incl. committed, permanent technical staff) for the maintenance and development of nationwide, multidisciplinary research infrastructure. This can be done, for example, by increasing cooperation between different actors, so as to share costs between research teams from different fields. At the same time, efforts should be made to increase and enhance the utilisation and availability of data.
- There is a growing demand for research in agricultural sciences. Researchers need to hone their ability to anticipate emerging fields and recognise how environmental changes affect research problems. They need to be more agile in targeting research based on the changes in the environment. Advancing new fields requires more support from funding agencies to fields or themes that may be strange to them (need for high-risk funding in agricultural sciences).
- Problem-solving within agriculture increasingly requires a multidisciplinary approach, and enhancing this approach is essential for the progress of the field. It is also a competitive advantage. In system-level research, the latest knowledge comes from combining expertise from several different fields. Therefore, there is a need to strengthen the collaboration between agricultural sciences and the basic sciences. In addition, we need even more research cooperation between Finnish and foreign universities, university departments and research institutes. This development could be supported through, for instance, a graduate school in agriculture and joint, thematic research programmes.
- Finland must increase the international mobility of postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the field of agriculture. In terms of front-loaded research knowledge acquisition, it would be useful to have more Finnish experts working at international organisations such as the FAO, the OECD and the World Bank.
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Biochemistry and Biophysics, Cellular and Molecular Biology: SWOT analysis and development proposals
Biochemistry and Biophysics, Cellular
and Molecular Biology: Strenghts
- Genuine discussion between universities on several levels
- Number of publications produced by universities in the molecular-level biosciences second highest among Web of Science publications
- Several high-level graduate schools in biosciences
- Local training complemented by summer schools in biophysics arranged by international synchrotron and neutron research centres
- Highly international field for decades, good networks
- Biocenter Finland infrastructure collaboration
- Sufficient competence and expertise in protein crystallography
- Biosciences well covered by CSC – IT Centre for Science
Biochemistry and Biophysics, Cellular
and Molecular Biology: Weaknesses
- Alarming drop in success rates in Academy of Finland calls after introduction of full cost model
- Inefficient financial follow-up systems
- Biotechnology not in high favour among investors
- Lack of fluent, charismatic Finnish advocate for basic bioscience research
- Only a few Centres of Excellence in the field
- Small number of international students and researchers
- Return by postdoctoral researchers to Finland difficult due to scarcity of university positions
- Work abroad and networking by professors hindered by discontinuation of Senior Scientist funding
Biochemistry and Biophysics, Cellular
and Molecular Biology: Opportunities
- Interest of local investors in biosciences must be increased in order to attract the interest of international investors
- Active information campaigns to raise the esteem of the discipline and basic research
- A great deal to offer to other disciplines
- Increasing the number of Centres of Excellence
- Continuing joint national projects of Biocenter Finland
- Potential for breakthroughs in structural research provided by novel nanoimaging methods
- Good opportunities for postgraduate students for networking and work at other computational bioscience centres thanks to CSC and European collaboration in supercomputing
- Discontinuation of the full cost model
- Closer integration of teaching and research at universities
- National intensive courses to increase student networking
- Making good use of international collaboration networks in training
- Developing university services to attract more foreign researchers and students to Finland
Biochemistry and Biophysics, Cellular
and Molecular Biology: Threats
- Decreasing esteem of and funding for basic research
- Biosciences not in favour among investors
- Abolishing the national graduate school system
- Research career not an attractive option
- Recruitment of high-quality students challenging
- Low completion rate of studies
- All resources should not be invested in early-career researchers; established teams also need support
- Top researchers staying abroad permanently
- Decrease in funding for Biocenter Finland
- Poor framework conditions for structural research if steps are not taken to ensure sufficient measurement time for Finnish protein crystallography scientists at international crystallography measurement stations
- Development of novel nanoimaging methods uncertain if Finland does not join the European XFEL
Biochemistry and Biophysics, Cellular and
Molecular Biology: Development proposals
- A major challenge is to make bioinformatics services available to bioscience researchers, that is, to provide services to researchers with no in-depth skills in bioinformatics.
- Establishing research infrastructure and networking with European infrastructure is of key importance.
- The activities of Biocenter Finland and other national joint projects must be continued and further developed.
- CSC and European collaboration in supercomputing provide postgraduate students with good opportunities for networking and work at other computational bioscience research centres.
- Steps are needed to ensure that Finnish protein crystallography scientists have enough measurement time at international crystallography measurement stations.
- Finland’s joining the European XFEL is highly important for the development of novel nanoimaging methods.
- Steps should be taken to make good use of the potential provided by novel nanoimaging methods in structural research.
- The quality control of materials used in research should be improved. For instance, protein materials (both commercial and self-produced) used by researchers are not always of the quality they should be. In some cases, it concerns micro-heterogeneity, in some cases even major problems. These may sometimes strongly affect the functions of proteins.
- Permits for animal experiments are applied for from the National Animal Experiment Board. Currently, the Board processes only Finnish- and Swedish-language applications. There are, however, several research teams in Finland who use English or whose principal investigator does not speak Finnish; consequently, the Board should also process English-language applications.
- Efforts should be made to have more Centres of Excellence; the field is currently underrepresented in terms of Centres of Excellence.
- Finland should reinforce the esteem of the discipline and basic research through active information campaigns to attract the interest of policy-makers, present and future students, the general public and investors.
- There is a need for a better integration with different disciplines, such as materials science and medicine, nanoscience and nanotechnology, and food science. The discipline has a great deal of skills and competencies that are in high demand in other fields as well.
- Steps are needed to provide researchers with enough time and room to learn new things.
- The well-functioning, national graduate school system/network based on competitive funding should not be abolished.
- Steps should be taken to investigate whether it is possible to discontinue the full cost model. The model has adversely and alarmingly affected success rates in Academy of Finland calls and significantly complicated financial follow-up.
- The proportion of international research funding should be increased. For this purpose, universities should develop academic support services to help researchers apply for international funding.
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Bioinformatics: SWOT analysis and development proposals
Bioinformatics: Strenghts
- Strong ICT tradition
- Domestic and Nordic medical databases
- Great need for doctoral graduates
- Funding readily available for travel and international mobility
- Existing infrastructure; Finland highly active in international initiatives
Bioinformatics: Weaknesses
- Proportionally too few students with an active interest in mathematics
- Communication difficult because of fragmentation in the field
- Risk-taking and related paradigm shifts not supported in review of transdisciplinary applications
- Typically not enough mathematics in biology curricula
- Students too long guided by their supervisors even after completing their doctorate (does not concern bioinformatics only)
- No long-term funding schemes to cover the needs of infrastructure services
Bioinformatics: Opportunities
- Shortage of bioinformaticians in most subfields of biology and medicine
- Omics a fast-growing field
- Potential to induce paradigm shifts
- Existing business potential, possible to create added value for available tools
- Service production being investigated
- Finland a potential pacesetter for a “dry lab” thanks to the country’s strong ICT competence and skills
Bioinformatics: Threats
- Progress of science impeded by conservative funding due to old practices
- Core of informatics not sufficiently understood by majority of biologists
- Falling behind the progress of the rapidly developing field
- Interdisciplinary communication does not flourish as long as training is not integrated
- Finland not very attractive to international top researchers (does not concern bioinformatics only): insufficient funding and lack of tenure-track system at most universities
Bioinformatics: Development proposals
Securing basic research in bioinformatics
- Bioinformatics applications are in high demand in most subfields of biology and medicine. New types of data also create new research problems in algorithmics and data analysis. Applications are generated through basic research, for which funding must be secured.
- Research can make good use of Finland’s strong ICT tradition and unique domestic and Nordic medical data reserves.
- Funding for high-risk research needed, without it science cannot reinvent itself.
Applying bioinformatics in other disciplines
- All bioscience research teams must involve expertise in bioinformatics. The outsourcing service model is suitable for processing routine-type measurement data; in most cases, however, data analysis requires in-depth knowledge of the research problem being studied.
- Universities/The state shall be in charge of the maintenance of IT infrastructure; it is not the task of a specific discipline. However, this requires permanent funding schemes.
Promoting interdisciplinarity
- Research in biosciences must be directed from purely descriptive research towards a direction where the final synthesis is a mathematical model. Far too many bioscientists have insufficient basic-level education in natural sciences. Mathematical thinking must be reinforced even at school.
- A genuinely two-step degree can be seen as a means to improve interdisciplinarity; after the Bachelor’s degree, all students must apply for a separate Master’s programme.
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Ecology, Evolutionary Biology:
SWOT analysis and development proposals
The SWOT analysis and the development proposals are based on the international evaluation of ecology and evolutionary biology in Finland in 2006–2010 (Publications of the Academy of Finland 3/12).
Ecology, Evolutionary Biology: Strenghts
- Strong research teams in ecology and evolutionary biology
- Globally significant ecological research by all units, at its best world-class
- Active collaboration in researcher training between units
- Long-term datasets valuable national assets; play a key role in research on and understanding of environmental changes
- Comprehensive network of field stations
Ecology, Evolutionary Biology: Weaknesses
- Research on peatland ecosystems at several units; poor collaboration
- Strong forest research; however, industry not investing in research but relying on government research funding instead
- A few Finnish top experts in theoretical ecology and evolutionary biology; however, narrow cutting edge and limited to a few units only
- Rigid and uncertain recruitment
- Application for EU funding at certain units
Ecology, Evolutionary Biology: Opportunities
- Very high-level teams of theoretical and empirical population genetics; closer collaboration with government research institutes would generate major benefits for both research institutes and university research teams
- Joint professorships of universities and research institutes
- Highly networked doctoral training programmes
- Expansion and internationalisation of project funding
- Supporting and diversifying postdoctoral careers
Ecology, Evolutionary Biology: Threats
- Resources for units not increasing along with performance; resources even diminishing
- Inter-university graduate schools based on national collaboration networks at stake due to proposed graduate school reforms
- Uncertain funding for equipment of field stations; equipment in need of improvement and updating
- Securing operations of museums and botanical gardens in times of economic austerity
- Funding for long-term datasets drying up
Ecology, Evolutionary Biology:
Development proposals
- Steps should be taken to maintain and make good use of high-level theoretical research in ecology and evolutionary biology and related latest technological knowledge and know-how, particularly in research programmes of sectoral research institutes.
- There is a need to reinforce and further develop collaboration between units through Academy of Finland funding, particularly in research on peatland and forest ecosystems.
- Research teams should be supported by research liaison officers at units and organisations in application for international funding.
- Long-term efforts are needed to develop field station operations (e.g. US LTER model) and the network of field stations should be better integrated into global collaboration.
- Long-term datasets are national assets and highly contribute to the competitiveness in research. They should be secured and made good use of.
- Steps should be taken to support the digitalisation of museum collections.
- Steps are needed to secure the funding for national collaboration networks of doctoral training, and international postdoctoral training through, for instance, the Marie Curie scheme.
- The societal impact of high-level research in ecology and evolutionary biology should be improved, particularly by diversifying and increasing dissemination of information.
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Environmental sciences, Environmental
studies: SWOT analysis and
development proposals
Environmental sciences, Environmental
studies: Strenghts
- Multi- and interdisciplinary research
- Atmospheric physics at the international cutting edge of research
- Versatile expertise and international networking
- Topical research questions with great societal relevance
- Research stations and extensive research networks
Environmental sciences, Environmental
studies: Weaknesses
- Research scattered in small research teams
- Interdisciplinary discussions partially superficial
- Lack of a multidisciplinary and competitive cluster of excellence
- Scattered research infrastructures
- Difficulties in competing for international funding and talented researchers
- Young discipline: lack of Academy Professors
- No graduate school
- High age of doctoral candidates
- Low researcher mobility
Environmental sciences, Environmental
studies: Opportunities
- Increasing importance of environmental issues both in Finland and internationally
- Finnish environmental research able to contribute to solving environmental issues of BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China)
- Growing significance of urban studies
- Combining approaches from the natural sciences and the social sciences to produce results with great societal relevance
- Intensifying collaboration between universities and sectoral research institutes
- Establishing a multidisciplinary graduate school in the field
- Reducing fragmentation by combining research into an extensive research programme
Environmental sciences, Environmental
studies: Threats
- Fragmentation and small research teams
- Scarcity of funding
- Lack of long-range planning and development strategies
- Current funding situation at universities not supportive of the progress of the field
- Business sector not interested in funding research in the environmental sciences
Environmental sciences, Environmental
studies: Development proposals
- The operational preconditions of small, scattered environmental university groups should be improved by pooling them into larger components so as to facilitate the achievement of a critical mass in research. Sufficiently large groups would also contribute to increasing interdisciplinary collaboration needed in solving environmental challenges and to intensifying interdisciplinary discussion.
- There is a need to increase the links between basic and applied research by intensifying the cooperation between universities and sectoral research institutes. This would strengthen the relevance of research in solving practical environmental problems and speed up the practical utilisation of research knowledge.
- The scattered research infrastructures in the field need to be centralised and given clear, joint rules. This centralisation would allow for a more efficient use of the infrastructures, a quicker infrastructure upgrading and the recruitment of specialised staff to run them. As part of this infrastructure development, Finland needs to establish a national panel of consumers.
- Disintegration in the environmental sciences can also be reduced by founding a graduate school based on national-level collaboration. The educational contents should take into account scientific objectives but also the growing demands of expert work in both the private and the public sectors.
- The national and international mobility of researchers needs to be promoted by removing the social obstacles to mobility. In addition, there is a need to increase mobility to the BRIC countries.
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Food sciences: SWOT analysis and development proposals
As part of the review of scientific research in Finland 2012, the fields of food sciences and nutrition were analysed by a joint task force.
Food sciences: Strenghts
- Highly valued and acknowledged status
- High international esteem (good overall standard according to previous international discipline evaluation, Publications of the Academy of Finland 2/06)
- Joint graduate school (ABS)
- Doctoral training in food and nutrition research of high quality
- Multidisciplinarity
Food sciences: Weaknesses
- Maintenance of modern laboratory infrastructure (equipment) challenging due to increasingly rapid method development
- Need to continuously update national food composition database
Food sciences: Opportunities
- Consortium between different actors
- National strategy for food research
- International cooperation (Nordic Countries (NordForsk), EU (joint programmes), China)
- Collaboration with business and industry in both basic research and development of applications (products)
Food sciences: Threats
- Lack of long-term funding
- Future position of network-type ABS graduate school
- Food sciences and nutrition not included in national classification of disciplines
Food sciences: Development proposals
- National collaboration and distribution of work as well as a need for long-term funding are among the key future challenges of the field. In the preparation of research projects and programmes, existing joint discussion and implementation forums should be used, such as the strategy work of national food research, the Strategic Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation (SalWe) and international cooperation, particularly with the Nordic countries (NordForsk) and the EU (joint programmes). Integration into a cluster might intensify cooperation and result in, for instance, improvements in research infrastructure and a clearer distribution of work in research.
- The maintenance of modern laboratory infrastructure is of utmost importance to food and nutrition research. The rapid development of methods calls for specific investments in infrastructure, which, in turn, should be further developed in cooperation with different actors in the field.
- It is crucial to ensure the continuation of a network-type graduate school (such as the Finnish Graduate School on Applied Bioscience: Bioengineering, Food and Nutrition, Environment, ABS). The possibilities to develop a national graduate school into a Nordic graduate school should be investigated together with the benefits this would bring.
- The development of food sciences and nutrition is partly threatened by the poor (lack of) classification of the discipline. Steps should be taken to improve this situation.
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Forest sciences: SWOT analysis and development proposals
Forest sciences: Strenghts
- Several groups at the international cutting edge of their own field (especially SMEAR)
- Practical approach
- Long time series
- Production of useful basic research
- Solid traditions and strong expertise
- Research premised on multidisciplinarity (also researchers from the basic sciences)
- Forestry a vital component of the national economy
- New research problems offered through the enhancement of production chains while taking into account environmental requirements
- Increased international cooperation
- International culture of publication, focused on refereed publications
- Finnish dissertations at the cutting edge of the field
Forest sciences: Weaknesses
- Being stuck in a rut, rigid
- Cliquey atmosphere
- Practical approaches
- Traditions (if too many and too dominant)
- Narrow internationalisation in some areas
- Lack of means to fund high-level international and multidisciplinary research teams
- Top-down culture of decision-making
- Focus on national research questions because of the infrastructure in the field
- Systematic approaches in finding, offering and financing new opportunities
- Non-refereed reports seen by the international scientific community and funding agencies as low-quality research (clearer client segmentation)
Forest sciences: Opportunities
- Versatile and top-level expertise in bioeconomy solutions
- A future based on renewable energy and materials
- Full utilisation of forests as a global carbon sink together with sustainable usage
- Improving the image of research to attract talented students
- Collaboration in researcher training
- Cooperation in international research teams
- International networking of early-career researchers, seeking specialty areas for knowledge networks
- Increasing true multidisciplinarity
Forest sciences: Threats
- Low profile of forest sciences, marginalisation: overshadowed by biosciences
- Low appeal of postgraduate studies, unless internationalisation of steering and research groups becomes more systematic and high-quality
- Some fields of forest sciences (with no resources to maintain international collaboration) at risk of atrophy due to a lack of researchers
- Research and postgraduate studies in forest sciences not attracting the best students
- Lack of good international students
- No openings and opportunities in international research teams and networks
Forest sciences:
Development proposals
- The regeneration of an internationally competitive Finnish forest industry depends on a more efficient and versatile integration of both theoretical and applied research in all areas of research. Supporting wood production, wood processing and biotechnological applications etc. through basic research and international networks would increase Finland’s opportunities to reach a recognised position in particular in areas relevant to plantation forestry.
- Traditional export of expertise needs support from high-quality science as well as systematic and target-oriented planning. In addition, as part of this, it requires an assessment of the significance of international research experience. The goal is to, for example, develop forest inventory and conduct ecological studies with Brazil, China and India for monitoring, reporting and verification in accordance with REDD-plus requirements.
- Responses to challenges arising from changes in the operating environment (e.g. climate change, sustainable development, material values, bioeconomy) should be formulated so as to better link forest research to other fields of expertise. In addition, new fields of cooperation should be offered an opportunity to make use of long-term field experiments and data collected from them.
- The system of doctoral programmes should be developed as a collaboration between universities and research institutes, based on a new national structure. The education should be sufficiently wide-range and fulfil the needs of the scientific community also in technological and economic areas as well as in forest mensuration. The preconditions for recruiting foreign postgraduate students should be improved by developing a sufficient scholarship system and by increasing the supply of teaching in English even at the Master’s level.
- The broad and permanent international dimension of Finnish forest-related research should be further expanded so as to induce positive impacts on research. An increase in international experience would also have ripple effects on the researcher community.
- Finland’s international position as a major forest research nation should be promoted by bold investment in research infrastructures in fields with emerging potential. Forest research focusing on the challenges of globalisation has to be made more competitive at the national level.
- The distribution of work and special tasks between university units and sectoral research units must be developed in a target-oriented fashion so as to reduce the market and competition pressures to decrease the financial preconditions.
- Regardless of the outcome of the structural development of sectoral research, Finland must see to that forest research will maintain its key role in Finnish research into natural resources and the environment when the social impact of forests will be defined from new starting points.
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Genetics, Developmental Biology,
Animal Physiology: SWOT analysis
and development proposals
Genetics, Developmental Biology,
Animal Physiology: Strenghts
- Internationality and strong traditions
- Increasingly rapid development
- Infrastructure and service network thanks to support from Biocenter Finland
- Versatile use of infrastructure and novel methods
- Excellent graduate school system
- Internationalisation supported by doctoral programmes, funding for meeting travels
- Finnish postdoctoral researchers in high demand internationally
- Launch of tenure-track system at some universities
- Striving for transdisciplinarity and making good use of discipline interfaces
Genetics, Developmental Biology,
Animal Physiology: Weaknesses
- Difficulties in receiving funding
- Lack of EU-level integration, resulted in scarcity of EU funding
- Fragmentation in animal physiology
- Poor outward mobility by postdoctoral researchers
- Employment, short-term predictability and planning of career path
- Insufficient bioinformatics in terms of demand: all information cannot be used due to lack of comprehensive bioinformatics
Genetics, Developmental Biology,
Animal Physiology: Opportunities
- Integrative fields, widely boost biosciences from medicine to ecology
- Wide-scale use of model organisms and bioinformatics
- Clarification of research career, particularly tenure-track system attracts best talents
- Attractive, rapidly developing and inspiring field
- Development of sabbatical leave system
- Development of FiDiPro (Finland Distinguished Professor) programme to include even early-career researchers
- New breakthroughs in doctoral programme networks to remove gaps in the field
- Creating business activity: present applications increasingly closer to basic research
- Increasing EU contacts and funding
- Ideal use of infrastructure
- Disseminating knowledge and know-how and use of infrastructure to other fields
- Collaboration between sciences and business enterprises to develop new knowledge and know-how and technology
Genetics, Developmental Biology,
Animal Physiology: Threats
- Challenges in recruiting next-generation researchers, unattractive career path, decreasing overall appeal
- Decreasing university core funding
- Discontinuation of funding for Biocenter Finland and dissolving existing infrastructure and service networks: infrastructure programmes, particularly continuation and coordination of funding for Biocenter Finland highly crucial to genetics, developmental biology and animal physiology
- Neglecting maintenance and upgrading of equipment; high staff turnover in infrastructure maintenance
- Changes in doctoral training system/responsibility delegated to universities
- Discontinuation of competition for graduate school positions; decreased possibilities of high-level groups to receive doctoral students, decrease in graduate school courses and quality standards
- Increasingly lower mobility, results in lower quality of science
Genetics, Developmental Biology,
Animal Physiology: Development proposals
First of all, it should be stated that genetics, developmental biology and animal physiology are separate disciplines that have their own problem settings and approaches. They have, however, a number of contact points, particularly in terms of methodologies but also conceptually. It seems that Finnish genetics and developmental biology are currently closer to each other than to animal physiology. The development of animal physiology has led to a situation where much work is done on the sub-cellular level whereas traditional approaches on the whole-organism level are less common, maybe to some extent even threatened. These factors should be actively considered when discussing the development needs in these fields.
- The need for and development of bioinformatics are key requirements for the future development of genetics, developmental biology and animal physiology. This also concerns several other biological fields. This would require active development of independent research to make the support (knowledge and know-how) long-term and to serve research. Recruitments should be made within, for instance, the FiDiPro programme, but targeted at early-career researchers.
- Universities should provide academic support services to researchers for the preparation of applications (secondary data required by the EU) with a view to increasing EU funding.
- Instruments should be launched to support networking at the European level.
- Steps should be taken to ensure sufficient infrastructures in terms of both equipment and staff. It is important to keep this flexible in terms of new technologies and equipment. The continuation of Biocenter Finland should be supported.
- High-risk funding could be an alternative to programmes, for instance. High-risk funding could be used even more widely as an Academy funding instrument, but how does one distinguish high-risk projects from ordinary low-risk projects?
- The physiology of organisms could be promoted by supporting collaboration with ecologists and evolutionary biologists.
- There are concerns about the future of doctoral training, if graduates schools are increasingly managed by universities. At the same time, it is interesting to notice the decreasing confidence by university staff (professors) in their employers.
- The discontinuation of the full cost model would significantly promote the progress of all disciplines.
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Geography, Regional Studies, Urban Studies:
SWOT analysis and development proposals
Geography, Regional Studies,
Urban Studies: Strenghts
- Strong basis and long tradition as a discipline
- Wide-ranging basic-level education (most often includes elements from natural sciences and human geography)
- High-quality research, partly at the international cutting edge
- Generational change largely over, new generation of researchers with energetic approach to research (shows success of researcher training)
- Natural potential to contribute to solving many grand challenges facing society
- Good exposure in society (universities’ third mission)
- High-quality Finnish publication channels, crucial role in researcher training
Geography, Regional Studies,
Urban Studies: Weaknesses
- Resources of senior researchers spent on implementing constant changes
- Scientific progress dependent on individual researchers (especially in such a small field)
- Continued difficulties in utilising the resources of postdoctoral researchers (no tenure-track system)
- Non-compatibility between the diverse discipline and statistical classifications (e.g. difficulty in compiling statistics on all publications in the field)
- Geographical Society of Finland not sufficiently dynamic in developing the discipline
- Finnish publication series (especially Fennia) not Web of Science publications
- Image does not match reality (outdated generalist label)
- Constant changes in the university system strain on personnel resources
Geography, Regional Studies,
Urban Studies: Opportunities
- Considerable added value for researcher training through active development of national doctoral programme in geography
- Increasing number of foreign researchers coming to Finland thanks to international appeal of the discipline
- Attractiveness of the discipline maintained thanks to societal relevance and interest
- Ability to produce research breakthroughs on a broad basis, long tradition of interdisciplinarity
- Increased profiling: clearer “distribution of work” between units, strengths emphasised, more researcher mobility
- Strong societal relevance of education in geography
- Good exposure of senior researchers in high-quality international scientific journals: supports the ambition of younger researchers, promotes the international dimension of their publications
Geography, Regional Studies,
Urban Studies: Threats
- Small number of professors in physical geography, causes pressures to integrate with geosciences
- Constant changes and managerial challenges: weaker university appeal as an employer, risk of brain drain
- Applying for research funding from foreign sources (especially the EU) very arduous, further reduces senior researchers’ willingness to apply for international research funding
- Increased internal conflicts and competition for resources in new operating environments and larger units created due to external pressures (e.g. pressures to develop geography as a geoscience)
- Diversity becomes a scattering factor
- Weaker institutional visibility due to structural reforms
Geography, Regional Studies,
Urban Studies: Development proposals
- Public awareness of geography, regional studies and urban studies should be further increased in select areas of strength: generation of societally relevant knowledge and know-how; and focusing of research on a variety of global development challenges. This would primarily be a task for the researchers and research environments in the field.
- Finland should make better use of the international visibility of Finnish researchers in the field both in researcher training and as a resource for the whole research community. This would primarily be a task for the researchers and research environments in the field.
- The research in geography, regional studies and urban studies is very varied. To prevent the scattering of research, support is needed in particular in those fields that have become or are becoming areas of strength in each university and research environment. This would primarily be a task for universities and research environments.
- The statistical classifications on geography, regional studies and urban studies should be further developed so as to better account for the variety of the research. At present, much of the research is recorded incorrectly in the statistics.
- Finland should also see to that the universities provide a wide range of education as required in teacher training in the field of geography, regional studies and urban studies. The universities would bear the main responsibility for the structural requirements of teacher training.
- There is a need to constantly raise the level of researcher training in the field by developing the recruitment practices, educational content and quality of doctoral studies and by securing resources for these studies as part of the development of university graduate schools. This would especially be a task for various actors and universities responsible for researcher training in the field.
- Efforts should be made to secure good framework conditions for research by talented doctoral graduates, by expanding the university tenure-track systems and by increasing funding for Academy Research Fellows and university researchers. This would be a task for research funding agencies and universities.
- Outward researcher mobility should be supported by evening out mobility-related risks (supporting return to Finland, employment as a researcher, flexibility required by researchers with families). Research funding agencies and (to some extent) universities and other research environments will be in a key position in providing this support.
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Microbiology: SWOT analysis and development proposals
Microbiology: Strenghts
- High-quality education, no oversupply of doctoral graduates
- Good employment rate among doctoral graduates
- Links to other disciplines, transdisciplinarity
- Good international networks
- Strong basic research
Microbiology: Weaknesses
- Publications of average quality
- Public awareness and esteem
- Fragmentation at the national level
- Poor funding system, instability, fluctuations
- Research slowed down due to too much bureaucracy
- Postdoctoral periods spent mainly in Finland
Microbiology: Opportunities
- Growing significance of and need for the discipline: more extensive utilisation of microbes, increasing number of microbial diseases (emerging microbes)
- Great potential for innovations that can be implemented quickly
- Improving social impact
- More effective integration with business life
Microbiology: Threats
- Importance of microbiology not understood: loss of applications, problems with microbial diseases
- Increased efficiency measures and administration, lack of core funding
- Decrease in funding from the Academy of Finland
- Continued differentiation of basic research and applications
- Failure to stop decrease in scientific impact
- Equipment becoming increasingly outdated
Microbiology: Development proposals
- As a very multibranched and transdisciplinary discipline, microbiology is in a key position as regards both health-related challenges and industrial processes of great economic significance. It is therefore very crucial that the importance of the discipline is understood in the whole of society. This can be promoted through popular public campaigns and by incorporating microbiology into school curricula.
- Microbiology is heavily focused on basic research but also closely linked to practical applications. The introduction of the full cost model in the competition for funding has been seen as a highly negative development. Solid, long-term and comprehensive basic research is an absolute prerequisite for the development of exploitable applications. The funding offered by the Academy of Finland is the financial lifeline for high-quality and far-reaching basic research.
- A more functional environment of research, development and innovation requires state-secured core funding but also better links to the corporate world in order to improve the utilisation of the promising applications that stem from basic research. This requires clear connections to business companies. One possibility is to further develop the activity of the Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation. In addition, the benefits of doctoral training for business activities should be marketed more effectively.
- International researcher mobility should be encouraged.
- Fragmentation poses a structural problem for microbiology due to the small number of researchers and the boundaries between faculties. Even though the field is well networked internationally, there is little national activity and collaboration between different sub-fields. An umbrella organisation could improve the national networking in the field.
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Neuroscience: SWOT analysis and development proposals
Neuroscience: Strenghts
- Well-developed campus structure (with opportunities for interdisciplinary networking)
- Critical mass
- Good systematic doctoral training
- Biocentres
Neuroscience: Weaknesses
- Limited activity in the Finnish pharmaceutical industry, small number of units (e.g. Tekes funding only for Finnish firms)
- Insufficient coordinated EU lobbying on Finland’s areas of strength
- Still too modest infrastructure funding; more funding required for new neuroscience technology and related expertise
Neuroscience: Opportunities
- Networking and intensified cooperation in the Finnish neuroscientific community (maybe establish a new organisation under the Academy of Finland and Tekes, with a direct link to EU funding structures?)
- Systematic international collaboration models
Neuroscience: Threats
- Changes in the structure of the doctoral education system
- Failure to recruit young, motivated researchers
Neuroscience: Development proposals
- It is excellent that neuroscience is now (as of 2010) an independent category in the classification of scientific disciplines. The discipline has to be understood in a broad sense. For example, the status of psychology in the classification should be re-evaluated.
- Mental disorders constitute a huge human and financial burden in the EU, which must be taken into account in science policy and funding.
- There is a need to increase EU-level networking. Finnish neuroscience needs a “common voice” in EU-level discussions. An advisory board/programme under the Academy of Finland and Tekes could represent Finnish neuroscience and act as a link to the EU.
- There is limited activity in the Finnish pharmaceutical industry. Projects driven by Tekes and the Academy of Finland should be made to also include foreign business companies (e.g. SMEs in the EU) in joint projects. For instance, the funding channelled to Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation could be used for this purpose.
- FiDiPro funding should be targeted at younger foreign top researchers.
- The recruitment of foreign researchers needs to be done using local selection methods, as is done in the project by the University of Helsinki and Wuhan University, for instance. This type of local pre-selection could to some extent work, for example, in India.
- Infrastructures in the field of neuroscience still receive insufficient funding. New technology and related expertise is expensive and more funding is needed.
- The funding of doctoral programmes should continue to be based on competitive funding and this funding should be wholly distributed by the Academy of Finland.
- Finnish universities have quite good profiles in the field of neuroscience. However, there is a need to further promote networking in joint projects where the fields of the different universities complement each other.
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Plant Biology: SWOT analysis and development proposals
The SWOT analysis and the development proposals are based on the international evaluation of plant science in Finland 2005–2009 (Publications of the Academy of Finland 3/11).
Plant Biology: Strenghts
- Overall high standard of research
- Added value generated to international research in the field by forest research, climate change research and research on northern plant species
- Some researchers at the international cutting edge
- Doctoral students with wide experience and good methodological competencies to do research
- Supported by national doctoral programmes, also network-based
- International publishing characteristic of all units involved
- Researchers free to define their research topics; improves creativity and generates new breakthroughs
- Strong sense of collegiality at most research units
- Very high-level and partly excellent infrastructures
Plant Biology: Weaknesses
- Decrease in average number of citations of publications
- Too descriptive research done by some units
- Some small units, difficult to achieve critical mass
- Lack of long-term research strategies
- Lack of bioinformaticians
- Dissertations take too much time
- High quantitative requirements for dissertations at some universities
- Short-term funding for dissertations
- Some researchers working on dissertations not involved in doctoral programmes
- Lack of staff specialised in use of infrastructures
- Partly inefficient use of infrastructures and scarcity of operating models for joint use
Plant Biology: Opportunities
- Increased networking between model species research, forest research, climate change research, research on northern plant species, including international collaboration
- Developing new funding mechanisms to promote strategic planning, cooperation and cutting-edge research
- Increased multi-level systemic approaches and methodologies (molecular biology, physiology, ecology)
- Strengthening skills and competencies and infrastructures in bioinformatics
- Basic research in plant biology provides great potential to, for instance, energy, forest and food sectors
- Infrastructure strategy for the needs of optimal joint use, maintenance and development of infrastructures
- Fields stations serve increasingly better research in plant biology, also support international research collaboration
- Increasing use of new international research infrastructures in plant biology
- Introducing tenure-track system at universities
- Increasing funding for and improving recruitment of postdoctoral researchers
- Developing funding mechanisms for return of postdoctoral researchers to Finland
- Focusing on quality and impact of individual dissertations instead of quantity
- Improving supervision and follow-up of dissertations
- Developing national information system for disseminating information on postgraduate training courses
- Increasing international visits within doctoral programmes
- Decreasing competition for funding between potential partners through, for instance, consortium cooperation
Plant Biology: Threats
- Failure to increase number of citations of publications
- Lack of critical mass and continued isolation of some units
- Continued descriptive research at some units
- Decreasing resources for basic research
- Failure of national efforts to develop plant biology
- Poor research infrastructure funding, inefficient use
- No long-term plan for efficient use, upgrading and development of research infrastructures
- Creativity and progress of science hindered by lack of mobility
- Delayed development of tenure-track system
- Continued focus on number of dissertations instead of quality
Plant Biology: Development proposals
- The universities and research institutes should strengthen their strategies for research in plant biology. In the implementation of strategies, the general and unit-specific recommendations made by the discipline evaluation of plant science should be considered. Through the development of strategic research collaboration, a sufficient critical mass should also be secured at small research units. Multi-level, systemic approaches and methodologies in research should be strengthened to encourage networking between model species research, forest research, climate change research and research on northern plant species. This will also increase potential for international research collaboration. Skills and competencies in bioinformatics should be significantly improved.
- Steps should be taken to formulate a joint strategy for plant biology covering centralised upgrading, acquisition and joint use of infrastructures. The use of international research infrastructures should be increased. Efforts should be made to secure sufficient investments in hiring staff specialised in use of infrastructures.
- Steps should be taken to establish a cooperation forum to ensure the continuation of national cooperation in doctoral training. All doctoral students should participate in graduate schools and doctoral programmes.
- Efforts should be made to shorten the time used for completing dissertations and doctoral degrees, primarily by decreasing the number of dissertations but at the same time maintaining the high quality standards. Long-term funding for doctoral students should be increased.
- Steps are needed to actively promote researcher mobility at all stages of the research career, and researchers should be encouraged to international mobility even at the early stages of the career. Open and international recruitment should be increased. The tenure-track system should be introduced at all universities.
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