Natural sciences
Below you will find SWOT analyses of the different fields of natural 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.
Chemistry | Computer and information sciences | Geosciences | Mathematics and statistics | Physics | Space science and astronomy
Chemistry: SWOT analysis and
development proposals
This SWOT analysis is based on the international evaluation of chemistry research in Finland 2005–2009, as commissioned by the Academy of Finland (Publications of the Academy of Finland 1/11).
Chemistry: Strengths
- Finnish chemistry research at a high international level, covers all significant areas
- Several top international teams in Finland
- Chemistry a strategically important discipline
- Good research connections to industry
- High-quality doctoral training
- Top-level research infrastructure
Chemistry: Weaknesses
- Not enough support for basic research
- Research spread out across many universities: some units of sub-critical size and under-resourced
- Generic research at times threatened by highly applied research
- Funding for doctoral training short-term, inefficient supervision
- Not enough networking, especially in terms of international mobility
Chemistry: Opportunities
- Creating a long-range plan for maintaining the high level of research infrastructures
- Increasing internationality and researcher mobility
- Further enhancing the efficient utilisation of international research funding
- Reinforcing the core resources of research, making the funding for application-oriented research more long-term
Chemistry: Threats
- No plan in place for keeping research equipment up to date
- Withering away of small research units, in the absence of joint research strategies and unit-to-unit networking
- Emphasis on industry-driven applied (often short-term) research at the expense of basic research
- Not enough doctoral training, inefficiency
Chemistry: Development proposals
- Finland must secure the standard of research infrastructures as well as the level of core funding.
- There is a clear need to increase international networking and researcher exchange.
- Finland should also further support and increase the recruitment of doctoral-level foreign researchers.
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Computer and information sciences:
SWOT analysis and development proposals
Computer and information sciences: Strengths
- Three Centres of Excellence and several cutting-edge groups
- Increased cooperation both within the discipline and with other disciplines at universities
- Very flexible collaboration between business companies and universities, wide participation in networks of Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation
- Good level of Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral training; established international Master’s programmes at several universities; good employment rate among Master’s and doctoral degree holders
- Sizeable overall volume of research
Computer and information sciences: Weaknesses
- Funding mostly external, fragmented and multi-source, making the conducting of basic research more difficult
- Too much of the research accounted for by Master’s and postgraduate students, the structure of research groups not optimal
- Insufficient outward mobility, need for removal of obstacles
- Much publishing at conferences, computer and information sciences therefore not completely commensurable with other disciplines
- Difficulties in securing funding for maintenance and acquisition of medium-priced infrastructures as well as for programming laboratories
Computer and information sciences: Opportunities
- Many practices in the field as indeed the whole of society transformed by the internet; need for more direct internet-based research; computer and information sciences in a key position
- Inward mobility increasing fast, especially through new international Master’s and doctoral programmes
- Finland a “good investment” thanks to its solid economic situation and infrastructures
- Clearer career opportunities for young researchers through the tenure-track system
- New businesses created in Finland thanks to a structural transformation in the field
Computer and information sciences: Threats
- Finnish Government cutting back on funding for research; Finland unable to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the structural changes occurring in the field; diminishing role of basic research; researchers increasingly moving towards applied research
- Untapped innovations left sitting on the shelf at universities
- Information technology unable to attract new talents to the field; challenges posed by the ongoing generational change
- EU and Strategic Centres providing funding for ever larger projects; universities left without funding if they neglect to protect their own interests
- With the changes in funding, what will happen to the network-based doctoral programmes that are of great importance to the discipline?
Computer and information sciences: Development proposals
- Outward mobility must be increased among graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and senior researchers; obstacles to mobility must be removed.
- Finland needs more basic research in computer and information sciences, since the research is presently too directed by external funds from, for example, Tekes and Strategic Centres.
- Publication practices need to be changed: less publishing at conferences, more in high-quality journals and electronic publications. This will improve comparability with other fields of the natural sciences.
- More funding is needed for the maintenance of medium-sized research infrastructures and programming laboratories and for personnel costs as well.
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Geosciences: SWOT analysis and development proposals
Geosciences: Strengths
- Definite societal need for geoscientific research and knowledge to solve major global threats
- Good national and international networking as well as cooperation between universities and research institutes
- Increased exposure and citation rates thanks to open access publishing, especially in European Geosciences Union series
- Growing need for doctoral graduates, good employment situation also outside academia
Geosciences: Weaknesses
- Lack of a joint forum: lack of joint discussion forum and exposure
- National and international exposure (particularly in the EU) not equal to status as a major solver of societal issues
- No national strategy, makes decisions on infrastructure investments especially difficult
Geosciences: Opportunities
- Finland’s excellent location (in terms of research) in the boreal forest, as an EU background concentration area, and on the edge of the Arctic Circle; Finland’s interesting soil as regards ore geology (also commercial potential)
- Potential to solve natural disaster threats and utilise the Arctic region thanks to multidisciplinary research that encompasses all geosciences
- Developing the collaboration between research institutes and universities; increasing the cooperation between the Kumpula and Otaniemi Campuses; strengthening collaboration with the commercial and the public sector
- Making good use of research institute infrastructures, especially their long time series
- Making better use of international measurement campaigns and of research experience gained from such exercises
- Expanding research into special Finnish characteristics to also incorporate other circumstances (e.g. geological soil type)
Geosciences: Threats
- The crippling of the position of research institutes: many geoscientific studies based on long, coherent time series; possible loss of invaluable observation data and time series due to crumbling infrastructures (e.g. closing down or relocating measurement stations); great number of research staff at research institutes, loss of staff would discontinue many significant lines of inquiry
Geosciences: Development proposals
- The geosciences need a joint forum of discussion on a research strategy, especially concerning research infrastructures. The forum could also be a platform for other national-level opinions and discussion.
- National geosciences publication series should either be discontinued or included in the ISI database (e.g. Boreal Environmental Research and Bulletin of the Geological Society of Finland)
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Mathematics and statistics: SWOT analysis and development proposals
Mathematics and statistics: Strengths
- Very high level of research internationally, great impact: citation impact above average; analysis, discrete mathematics and inverse problems research especially strong
- Strong international dimension of research; networking self-evident
- Centres of Excellence, Academy Professors and the Finland Distinguished Professor Programme: positive impacts, ensure the supply of top scientists and resources for them
- Many promising young researchers: may (if provided with enough resources and favourable conditions) help in avoiding the vacuum left by retiring professors; the field still attractive to talented students
- Good employment rate among doctoral graduates; mathematics and statistics increasingly used by industry
Mathematics and statistics: Weaknesses
- Threats in theoretical statistics: researchers scattered across different departments, lack of representation in many evaluation panels
- Lack of postdoctoral positions within the universities
Mathematics and statistics: Opportunities
- New possibilities thanks to cooperation between applied and pure mathematics
- Opportunity to achieve great scientific impact with funding for small projects; would also further improve researcher mobility
- Statistics, computational methods and simulation growing in demand
- New possibilities thanks to cooperation with computer science and other neighbouring fields
Mathematics and statistics: Threats
- Limited resources available for basic research due to excessive orientation towards applications; danger in tying research to short-term benefits and outside interests
- Overall funding for research in Finland decreasing; at the same time, competition for international funding getting increasingly fierce
- Responsibility for funding decisions transferring from the Academy of Finland to universities; risk of resource allocation not being based on purely scientific criteria; network-based and/or multidisciplinary doctoral programmes at risk, as well as postdoctoral positions
- Aim towards ever larger projects not advantageous in terms of the basic nature of mathematics
- Narrow definitions of universities’ research profiles, high-quality mathematical research often neglected
Mathematics and statistics: Development proposals
- Universities must be guaranteed sufficient core funding and that funding should enable versatile research into mathematics as well as facilitate educational reforms.
- Finland must maintain and further develop the system of Centres of Excellence.
- Further measures are needed as regards the promotion of postdoctoral research careers.
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Physics: SWOT analysis and
development proposals
Physics: Strengths
- Physics research of high quality internationally, well networked and well profiled
- Strong tradition of publication in the best journals of the field
- High-quality training system, Finnish physicists highly respected abroad
- Some high-level infrastructures also in Finland (O.V. Lounasmaa Laboratory, Helsinki Institute of Physics, JYFL Accelerator Laboratory)
- Finland highly visible actor in international infrastructures in which it is engaged
Physics: Weaknesses
- Not enough support for basic research
- External funding directs research short-sightedly
- Lack of systematic and permanent funding system for research equipment
- Doctoral training not efficient enough
- Decrease in number of early-career researchers transferring abroad
Physics: Opportunities
- Better organisation of infrastructure funding, introduction of permanent funding system for research equipment
- Clearer research career paths thanks to tenure-track programmes
- Increased internationality through recruitment of foreign professors and by taking advantage of international programmes (e.g. Erasmus Mundus, Marie Curie) and funding sources (e.g. ERC)
- Increasing Nordic collaboration
- Stepping up the recruitment of researchers from and the cooperation with BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China)
Physics: Threats
- Difficult to maintain and upgrade infrastructure due to lack of funding
- Opting out of new international research infrastructure projects
- Insufficient numbers of high-level students due to a narrow recruitment base
- Performance management of universities: decreased domestic mobility due to excessive profiling
- Insufficient foundation for hot spots due to lack of core funding
Physics: Development proposals
- Finland needs to increase its investment in mobility, particularly in recruiting top foreign scientists to Finland and in encouraging young Finnish researchers to go abroad.
- The number of doctoral degrees should be cut slightly and doctoral training made more efficient.
- Finland should more actively participate in international research infrastructures such as CERN ESFR and FAIR.
- Experimental research and fundamental condensed-matter theoretical research must be strengthened.
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Space science and astronomy:
SWOT analysis and development proposals
Space science and astronomy:
Strengths
- High-quality research, world-class in select spearhead areas; Finland involved in large international projects in collaboration with top countries; Finland has strong international network, good position as partner; good cooperation between disciplines, between science and technology and between research and industry; Finland successful in securing funding from EU Framework Programmes
- Close connections between education and research, for example through the national doctoral programme and the CubeSat picosatellite education programme; good employment rate also outside the field, thanks to training that provides research, industry and project experience; healthy age distribution in the community
- Field generates great interest among the general public, good media exposure
Space science and astronomy:
Weaknesses
- Lack of critical mass: small research teams, low volume of space industry
- Reactivity: decisions on large international projects made by big countries
Space science and astronomy:
Opportunities
- International opportunities: ESA and ESO opportunities for new science discovery and technological innovation; BRIC opportunities for new breakthroughs; increased EU investment in space activities
- Small country: good cooperation within universities and with research institutes and industry
- Finland’s unique location in terms of stratospheric research, environmental monitoring and satellite reception
- Space research very competitive in both national and international research funding
Space science and astronomy:
Threats
- Decreased funding available to research due to negative financial development in Europe
- No means to maintain and upgrade research infrastructure due to lack of funding
- Weaker quality of researcher training as national graduate schools are discontinued
Space science and astronomy:
Development proposals
- Looking at research infrastructures, it is important to note that neither ESA nor ESO are included in Finland’s or the EU’s infrastructure roadmaps, as is the case with many other large-scale infrastructures. In drafting a national research strategy, it is of crucial importance to take into account all research infrastructures.
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