Chapter 7

During the 90’s a window for specific research politics opened, which both acknowledged the social relevance of research and thus captured a more inclusive approach. This benefited not only interdisciplinary research but also feminist research and in addition a distribution of academic institutions regionally in Sweden. This chapter concerns the research political motions during this exciting decade of the 1990. A number of research bills have been submitted since these of the 90s, but none of them has shown the kind of explicit link between research and politics as the one presented in this chapter.

Diffractions in Research Political Tendencies

Science does not enter a chaotic society to put order into it anymore, to simplify its composition, and to put an end to its controversies, It does enter it, but to add new, uncertain ingredients to all the other ingredients that make up the collective experiments. When scientists add their findings to the mix, they do not put an end to the politics; they add new ingredients to the collective process. (Latour 1998)

The late-modern era

If we try to analyse how and where research and knowledge production is being done, it seems many of us are working in a late-modern society. Some people are even beginning to talk about postmodern research organisations (Smith, Webster 1997). I am going to discuss a number of tendencies in contemporary knowledge production and their research-policy context. I am particularly interested in understanding how the relationship between research and politics, i.e. research’s social contract, appeared in the 1990s, when, for example, information technology became a highly dominant area of knowledge and technology development. Using a number of research policy documents and drawing on a number of well-informed researchers, I am going to point out some dominant characteristics of the “contract negotiations”, which were hard and bore a closer resemblance to the powerful oscillation of a pendulum than a clear linear movement. But first

Some concepts

Knowledge production

A good friend and highly respected professor within the hardcore of natural science reacted strongly when I used the term “knowledge production”. He wondered what had become of the pure, beautiful discovery of concealed truths with this kind of terminology. I myself was schooled in this highly stable, Popperian knowledge tradition. It is disquieting when people like me very gently suggest that tendencies in this knowledge tradition are a form of paradigm blindness. As a concept, knowledge production suggests problematisation of where and how knowledge is generated in our society. My view of knowledge and research processes is based on a far more complex problematisation found in parts of feminist research and in other knowledge-reflecting schools (for the most part, poststructuralist streams of understanding). Hence my choice of terms. The vision of purity and orthodoxy are the distinguishing features of the modern project (Liedman 1997). Purity of doctrine is linked to the orthodoxies in science. As Georg Henrik von Wright points out, each science can be said to build on certain orthodoxies, which cannot be queried when the quality of the ongoing research is being assessed. Orthodoxies are necessary to ensure that research does not end up in chaos. But von Wright also believes that great progress, the events that make the history of science such a dramatic and exciting chapter in the biography of the cultures, occurs when the ‘purity of the doctrine’ is queried and the ‘unbelievers’ triumph. For this reason, it is never in the interest of science that orthodoxies are confirmed, rather the opposite, that they are doubted … (von Wright 1986, p. 126).

Diffraction

I prefer to use the term diffraction instead of reflection, perhaps partly to cause readers to raise their eyebrows, but mostly to follow Donna Haraway. Diffraction is a metaphor for efforts to make a difference in the world. Allow me to quote a passage that explains my preference.

My invented category of semantics, diffractions, takes advantage of the optical metaphors and instruments that are so common in Western philosophy and science. Reflexivity has been much recommended as a critical practice, but my suspicion is that reflexivity, like reflection, only displaces the same elsewhere, setting up the worries about copy and original and the search for the authentic and really real. Reflexivity is a bad trope for escaping the false choice between realism and relativism in thinking about strong objectivity and situated knowledges in technoscientific knowledge. What we need is to make a difference in material-semiotic apparatuses, to diffract the rays of technoscience so that we can get more promising interference patterns on the recording films of our lives and bodies. Diffraction is an optical metaphor for the effort to make a difference in the world. (Haraway 1997b, p 16)

Knowledge production in late-modern social change

The forms of production of knowledge have gradually changed since the Second World War. In the first phase, active knowledge policy allowed realisation of the possibility of promoting social renewal and strengthening the economy’s driving forces through technological and scientific research. Although many branches of science have had a strong international basis, the continual strengthening of the internationalisation of research can be regarded as a long-term and indisputable trend.

This was the argument of the Swedish Council for Planning and Co-ordination of Research (FRN) in its strategic analysis of Swedish research at the end of 1999⁷⁶.

FRN pointed out that an important tendency in the reform of the knowledge system is the increase in the number of knowledge actors outside academia. This poses new international and financial requirements, not least regarding processes related to formulating problems, participation, transparency throughout the entire research chain and active mechanisms for transfer of knowledge. It also lays down requirements for the presence of the critical function that social science and the humanities can provide. At the same time, the new constellations of actors entail different, new collaboration for research support and choice of direction. Whether we sympathise with this tendency or not, we can observe an increase in the rate at which different knowledge-producing alliances are formed. They are increasingly set up as projects that organise knowledge to resolve specific identified problems. One of the tendencies of the contemporary era appears to be a web of constantly changing projects carried out within the framework of new types of platforms for ad-hoc knowledge production.

FRN noted that when companies attempt to describe the value of their knowledge processes, they talk about intellectual capital and intangible assets. Herein lies a fundamental distinction between creating value from trade in material goods and creating value from trade in intangible services. In the former case, goods change hands against economic compensation and the buyer ends up with the item, but not the underlying knowledge process. The seller loses the goods, but keeps the process. In the latter case, value is created through the seller sharing the knowledge process itself. In this case, both the buyer and the seller gain access to the knowledge process and are given the opportunity to develop and further increase the value together through joint activities.

Many of the major challenges facing society today require understanding of complex systems - how they are conceived, developed, governed and form explicit or implicit value structures. It applies to our technical / organisational infrastructures, for example within communication, energy supply, the food industry and also to more abstract systems like the way our daily experience of events is shaped by the media. In many cases, complexity is related to a potential vulnerability and risk. Developing understanding of complex patterns requires substantial effort, also in terms of method. Of course, different understandings of knowledge must be mobilised to interpret the complexity of human – non human (machine) interactions of various kinds or the complexity of the system of trust that allows us to co-exist in multi-ethnic societies.

I entered a a research conference in 2000 in Denmark⁷⁷, where the role of universities in a late-modern society was discussed. The central themes were university structures, knowledge production and gender constructions, where academic knowledge production was perceived as distributed well beyond traditional borders. Main topics of discussion were the contextualisation and fragmentation of knowledge production, erosion of an epistemological core (ontic dumping) and the results of academic work as instrumental products or intellectual processes. The following challenging questions were formulated.

If a new concept of knowledge, which is partial and fragmented, is gradually appearing within parts of the knowledge-generating Western universities, and Western societies are turning into ‘knowledge societies’ (i.e. increasingly dependent on research and technology) how are we to understand

1. the privileged position of partial perspectives on knowledge at the late-modern universities,
2. the epistemic culture of expert knowledge systems, which is being built up within and outside (but still linked to) universities; and
3. the consequences of new technologies for knowledge production in general and within universities in particular?

How are we to understand knowledge production in light of the access of formally marginalised groups (read: women and immigrants) to participate in power definitions / preferential interpretations and the simultaneous restructuring of the institutions? More specifically, what should we think of the potential difference that integration of these groups into the institutions and knowledge productions would generate?

By way of a summary, we can see that late-modern social change has challenged the organisational constraints and principles for Western universities. The guarantee of life-long qualifications, the authority of research and scientific knowledge and the idea of universities as a source of enlightenment and truth have been made the subject of debate on a cultural and institutional level. Western universities have become mass institutions and their authority has been queried. In these shifting circumstances, we can ask what will be the stamp of approval for knowledge production in the future and how are the institutional structures going to be organised? How are we to understand the processes of change and which visions can be developed, if the future institutions of higher education are given these new conditions and challenges?

The contract discussion

The fields of science currently most obviously challenging the boundaries between research and politics, between science and society are primarily the new technological areas of information and communication technology, biotechnology and nano technology. We see how “negotiations” are taking place to determine the role of research in society, which can be expressed in terms of research’s social contract. By no means are these negotiations a purely modern or late-modern undertaking, rather they have been going on for centuries. The negotiating institutions have been religious, governmental, private and commercial institutions.

Gro Hanne Aas (1999) stated that using the concept of a contract is one way of developing relevant and more complex understandings of the relationship between science and society in an era that requires a different kind of accountability than was acceptable in the past. Her starting point was the Norwegian official study “Organisation for holism and diversity in Norwegian research”⁷⁸ (a.k.a. the Grøholt report), which resulted in a major reform of the research council in 1993. It was this report that launched the idea of a contract between science and society in Norway. It pointed out the old contract, when science enjoyed an elevated position and indisputable legitimacy, is no longer to be applicable. Now we are trying to negotiate a new contract, which cannot rest on the old truths and matters of course. The negotiations start from different requirements regarding research from parts of society outside the academic institutions. These requirements may relate to ethics, legitimacy and cost awareness. Research has to accept that it must be accountable in a new way, according to the Norwegian research report.

The contract between research and politics in modern Western societies is thus in a period marked by turbulence and substantial change. I interpret feminist research as one of many catalysts in this process. During his term as Minister of Education, Carl Tham raised the question of the political content of science, thus marking a turn in the official argument, which is of central importance, even for feminist research. Carl Tham focused on certain cases of science being steered towards social goals and, as cited in the introduction, drew attention to a number of them at the Swedish Council for Planning and Co-ordination of Research’s Breakpoint Conference on 15 March 1995⁷⁹.

My questions are directed at the science community, which has great influence and therefore is also basically political in its nature. Why have we failed to give science better social control? Is it reasonable to accept that technology is exclusively determined by the market? Can we find public support for a research policy that not only takes our immediate needs into account, but that also actually makes a contribution towards dealing with humankind’s problems? Is it not basically this that is demanded of us? Should we not formulate a policy of hope?

Research policy movements

The main research-policy questions of the 1990s have been whether research resources are being used efficiently and whether society is getting an adequate return on its investments in research. The problem is whether it is even possible to answer the latter question – and if it is, then who is to pass judgement? Uncertainty keeps on forcing us to ask new questions about how society’s research resources are to be directed, managed and coordinated to counteract the interscientific needs of research and society’s desire for research results.

Bertel Ståhle (1996) describes the situation thus in a Swedish Government Official Report⁸⁰ on the research-policy landscape in the Nordic countries in the 1990s. The Official Report forms part of the research funding report⁸¹, that was led by Susanne Eberstein and was one of the starting points for the research bill “Research and society”⁸².

Before I start commenting on the various research bills that were presented in Sweden in the 1990s, I would like to present some more general features of Swedish research policy during recent decades by quoting Bertel Ståhle from the same report. He claims that there are several special features in the development of research policy that support the claim that research policy in the middle of the 1990s was in a new phase deviating from the main lines characterising the research systems in the OECD countries in previous “research policy periods”. From the Second World War until the beginning of the 1960s, the main goal was to build up research institutions, and research was an end in its own right. However, research was mostly into nuclear physics and nuclear power, military research, outer space and more general ‘big science’ focusing on priorities in the major industrial countries. In the early 1960s, voices started emphasising the role education, research and technology play in the economic development of society. Towards the end of the 1960s, there was a stagnation in the development of resources. In the 1970s, research policy was dominated by the view that research could resolve all of society’s problems. Research was supposed to be a useful tool in social policy and improve the environment, health, social welfare and quality of life. Sectoral research was the new in-thing, and the decade was marked by applied research governed by society and focused on specific sectors. The social relevance of research was emphasised in quality criteria, which in turn gave rise to tensions between the various different actors in the research system. During the 1980s, research policy became increasingly oriented towards technology and innovation. A boom in research programs was recognized. R&D was regarded as an important factor for Sweden in the international market competition.

So, what was the dominant research policy in the 1990s? According to Bertil Ståhle, research policy in the 1990s focused heavily on the actual R&D system itself, the political organisation of research (perhaps more so in Norway than in Sweden) and research-policy instruments. There was a call for simplification, transparency, flexibility and planning. Research policy was peppered with terms such as management by objectives and results, strategic research, program allocations, national coordination and national research strategies. Basic research and applied research were increasingly integrated – as we have seen first hand in technoscience. There were ever stronger signals about the need to bridge traditional boundaries between domains and disciplines. Prestige words included quality, effectiveness, efficiency, relevance and usefulness. Means proposed to achieve these ends included prioritisation, specialisation and concentration, competition between researchers and groups of researchers for research resources on commercial “market conditions”, post-graduate study and internationalisation.

Whereas research policy in the 1970s was egalitarian and nationalised, research policy in the 1990s was more elitist – quality and relevance were the most important indicators of competitiveness - spearhead research in an international context was given priority.

Hans Landberg (2000, pp.14, 15, 21) studied Swedish research policy in the 1990s, finding an increased focus on application-oriented research and a shift towards a sectoral orientation. This was mainly a result of EU research programs and the formation of the research foundations in Sweden, but was partly also due to changes in the balance of power between research-funding authorities (for example between the Swedish Natural Science Council NFR and the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth NUTEK, between the Swedish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Bank of Sweden Fund, and between the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research). Powerful counter-reactions developed within the established research world, which were most clearly manifested in the government report “Research 2000”⁸³ published in autumn 1998. The counter-reaction took the form of a head-on attack on sectoral research. The government report proposed that the substantial subsidies allocated to sectoral research should be transferred to research councils, which were regarded as oriented towards disciplines and governed by researchers.

Landgren points out that the most momentous change in Swedish research policy in the 1990s was the investments in small and medium-sized colleges. There was a major breakthrough in 1995 when the government decided that small colleges should be given fixed resources for research. Thus, the genie was released from the bottle and, with the government as a strong driving force, the development has accelerated faster than most people expected: on 1 July 1999, the colleges in Karlstad, Växjö and Örebro were given university status. Add to that the Blekinge Institute of technology was given a technical faculty, i.e. university status within technology. Despite the fact that they have far fewer research resources than large colleges and universities, the new universities and smaller colleges have very high levels of ambition and are willing to fight for research resources.

The 1990s’ research bills

I am not going to go into the two government bills on research presented in the 1990s in any great detail here. However, I would like to mention some predominant features of these bills, in order to identify movements that may help explain the reactions and counter-reactions in the development of research policy in Sweden.

Unckel’s research bill

In February 1993, Per Unckel, the conservative government’s Minister for Education presented the bill “Research for knowledge and progress”⁸⁴. At the time, the government’s research policy aimed to prepare the ground for science to reach the forefront of knowledge. The overriding goal for the new research policy, as it was expressed in the preparatory committees’ special research strategy, was to help create long-term conditions that nurture a competitive Swedish knowledge community and thereby promote both breadth and international expertise in Swedish research.

The government’s first priority was goal-oriented research projects in strategic areas. This prioritisation was closely linked to a specific government bill⁸⁵ concerning proposals for research using “Employee Monetary Funds”, which formed the foundation for the Swedish government’s decision to set up a number of research foundations, i.e. that several billion Swedish kronor were placed in foundations organised according to private law and independently of the state. The regulations in the articles of association for the foundations guaranteed that these resources would be used for research projects in strategic areas in order to improve the competitive ability of trade and industry and help resolve environmental problems, etc.

The second priority was to improve the exchange of knowledge between the scientific institutions and research and development departments in companies. This was founded on the fact that the government gave priority to research in areas of particular interest to Swedish companies. Chosen areas included biotechnology and (as it was called back then) microelectronics.

The bill drew attention to the great need for more trained researchers. The government presented a plan to double the number of doctorates by the year 2000 and called for investment in promising young researchers, plus efforts to increase the number of women researchers.

The bill expressed the government’s desire to increase the possibilities for small and medium-sized colleges to do research, not least to maintain a high level of expertise outside the major cities. Special research funding was proposed for colleges that collaborated with universities and colleges with permanent research organisations. Research support was also proposed for small colleges that established joint research projects with industrial companies.

With Unckel’s research bill, the government paved the way for more complex forms of knowledge production resembling what Gibbons et al. (1994) called mode 2 and strengthened the “contract” between academic research and trade and industry. At the same time, the bill maintained a traditional view of knowledge through unambiguous passages about the significance of basic research, cumulative knowledge growth, and the nature and purpose of research as seeking “the truth”. The bill did not challenge people’s understanding of knowledge processes by using terms such as interdisciplinarity. It was permeated by an overwhelmingly optimistic belief in the power of science.

Tham’s research bill

In September 1996, the social-democratic government’s Minister of Education, Carl Tham, presented the government bill “Research and Society”⁸⁶. This bill underlined the ever-growing significance of research and new technology in the development of society and the importance of high-quality, relevant knowledge that can be better applied and meet society’s needs. The social relevance of research is ascribed great importance in all research. The state bodies that fund research saw a change in their instructions with new requirements that the relevance of the research to be granted funding was to be given special importance.

This bill founded its understanding of research on problematisations, conscious risk ideology and nuanced reasoning about the significance of research in many different contexts. It was stated that possibilities and also problems were created through the major social and political changes that came about as a result of the internationalisation of economies, the labour market, science and culture. I would like to cite a passage (pp. 17, 18) that contrasts with the undisputed optimism in science in the previous research bill.

Some of the changes we are seeing nowadays are direct consequences of new knowledges and technology. Research and its applications reshape every aspect of society. The development of information technology is revolutionising many people’s work, living conditions and view of the world. It is leading to new design, new methods and systems, and developing new approaches, cultures and patterns of comprehension. […] Biotechnology […] puts complex ethical issues on the agenda. Through these and other results in science, our views of humankind, society and nature are called into question. Research and new technology thus have a powerful, and probably growing, ability to bring about change. The direction they take is decided partly by researchers’ curiosity and the assessments of the research community. […] The major problems mentioned above cannot be resolved only, or even mainly, by new research and technology, but rather through social and political measures. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that new knowledge and technology will make important contributions. This applies nationally and internationally, to specifically Swedish issues and global problems. Therefore, the issue of how research resources are used is an important political question.

The bill also contained a more in-depth discussion about knowledge production in society, pointing out the major ongoing changes regarding its forms and conditions. The traditional, institutional and disciplinary frameworks are being complemented by new ones, marked by interdisciplinarity, heterogeneity, globalisation and integration of production and consumption of knowledge. Where Unckel’s research bill afforded opportunities for more complex, boundary-crossing knowledge production by focusing on collaboration between university research and trade and industry, Tham’s proposition drew the consequences of this development and also gave it explicit descriptions, a broader context and instruments. This was done not least through the emphasis on interdisciplinarity, research ethics, gender research, support for small and medium-sized colleges, and collaboration with the regional labour market.

The general guidelines for research policy in the proposition, which I consider still apply are:

1. The focus of research must correspond to needs in society.
2. General research-policy decisions must be made by central government forces, while bodies with specialised knowledge within the affected areas make decisions concerning distribution of funds and activities.
3. Research financed by public funds must be subject to high quality requirements.
4. Research must be useful.
5. Colleges must increase their collaboration with the local community.
6. Research-ethical problems and the responsibilities of researchers in these issues must be afforded attention. 7 Equality within research communities must increase similar research with a gender perspective.
7. The links between education and research must be strengthened.
8. All universities and colleges will be allowed to administer their own research resources.
9. Swedish research shall contribute to international research and actively collaborate with research in other countries.
10. Sweden shall work to ensure that research funded by the EU provides broad support for development in Europe.

These guidelines indicate a change in terms of ideology and assessment compared with the previous proposition, which is partly determined by party politics. But even taking this into consideration, I still think that the guidelines together with the slightly more advanced analysis in this bill indicate a greater presence and clarity in terms of relevant and prevailing research and knowledge processes compared to the previous research bill. Nor can the differences between the two bills be explained merely by changes in developments over time. What is certain is that Tham’s research policy was much more provocative to the research establishment. There are probably many reasons for this. I interpret the main challenge of this research policy to the system that performs research – demanding much more awareness about their own research activities and better argumentation for the relevance of activities – as providing ample opportunity for experienced provocation. The changes called for in the system that funded research were also met with resistance, not least because these organisations have long traditions and are reluctant to change.

The challenges are often linked to requirements about relating to the ever-changing realities and, as mentioned above, presence in the relevant and prevailing knowledge production processes. Mats Benner (2000) claimed that In the same way as industry’s noisy workshops were at the heart of the development of the industrial society, the “shop floors” in the universities – laboratories and experiments – are perhaps the current era’s most important source of social and economic change. What happens in the lab shapes our future, how we will live, grow old, work and communicate. Information technology and gene technology are only the most recent and clearest examples of how technologies, originating from research, are revolutionising our living conditions.

Attempts to balance the pendulum

The bills mentioned above and a number of official government reports⁸⁷ demonstrate how fashions in research policy swing back and forth like a pendulum. The negotiations related to research’s social contract have been hard and complicated.

What type of contract can we see between research and politics, just after the 1990s? Perhaps we can glimpse some of the contents of the contract in the bill “Research for the future – a new organisation for research funding”⁸⁸, which the minister Thomas Östros presented three months into the year 2000. This bill came as a response to the turbulent situation in the research-funding system in the second half of the 1990s having serious repercussions throughout the entire research community. The bill entailed a compromise. The old, discipline-oriented knowledge production was given its clear, reproductive organisational form in the Swedish Research Council with its three specialised councils (defined by disciplines) and governed by a board with elected researchers in the majority. We could see a tendency in adjustment to more present knowledge and research processes in the merger of the research councils for natural science and engineering science. Sectorial research stayed on and was reorganised by topics into two research councils and one agency – the Research Council for Work and Social Issues, the Research Council for Environment, Agriculture Sciences and Spatial Planning and VINNOVA (The Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems).

The bill proposed continued negotiations between research and politics, between science and society be given special organisational form in the Research Forum. This body was to be charged with facilitating dialogue and collaboration between researchers, research funding bodies, the public and others who were directly or indirectly affected by research. Within the framework of the Research Forum’s activities, it would be possible to openly discuss overriding research-policy issues that were not the concern of a single financing body. The bill gave examples of important questions such as ethical aspects of research, gender research, equal opportunities, research into sustainable social development, the conditions necessary for and opportunities afforded by interdisciplinarity, critical perspectives on science, etc. It was suggested the board to consist of representatives from the parties in parliament, all the research councils and other important authorities that finance research. Whether the negotiations that affected research’s social contract were actually carried out within the Research Forum is not easy to see. It seems more likely that the real power arenas situated themselves elsewhere.

The view of knowledge production underlying the proposals concerning organisation was partially hinted at in the introductory texts, as well as in the government’s judgement of and suggestions for the various councils. Terms used included the sudden developments in society and science and globalisation, research as an important growth factor, curiosity-based basic research, scientific quality, relevance, flexibility, joining forces, efficiency, collaboration, internationalisation, rejuvenation and renewal. Although it was stated it was no longer possible to draw sharp boundaries between basic research and applied research, between research and development work, between research initiated by researchers and research intended to resolve specific issues in society, it was still easy to revert to a linear view of the knowledge process. This was particularly apparent in the Swedish Research Council, which was given the sole task of promoting quality, since free, curiosity-based research plays a central role as the springboard for other research (page18). This approach was reiterated in the passage Through the importance of free, basic research as a basis for other knowledge development, the Swedish Research Council will constitute the core of the new research organisation and will play a key role in developments in all sectors of society and policy areas (page 20). In this case, the government chose “to keep science straight” and not abandon the modern project⁸⁹. Minister of Education Thomas Östros reinforced this view of knowledge at the Swedish Council for Planning and Co-ordination of Research’s Breakpoint Conference on 5 April 2000, when he claimed that the higher (scientific) seminar is an excellent method for unveiling truths. Indeed, it would be a good thing if the whole of society worked like a higher seminar.

However, this straightforward image of research does not apply to the other two research councils and the research and development authority, which are dominated by a more distributed knowledge production. If nothing else, the complexity of the applied field entails requirements for other research and knowledge processes, as is demonstrated in the text of the bill. The compromising attitude of the bill created opportunities and laid down limitations for knowledge production aimed at needs relevance, which goes far beyond the commercial needs in our globalised society governed by market demand.

Research policy and a college specialising in applied IT

Östros’ research bill discussed IT research, stating that research related to information technology is being carried out within a range of different disciplines or in interdisciplinary collaboration across a broad field. In addition to different types of technical research, the area also covers research areas such as mathematics and physics as well as social science and the humanities (e.g. informatics, media and communication and aesthetics). The government deemed that the largest joint effort in the IT area was being done within the framework of the R&D program NUTEK (the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth) was responsible for. In the bill, the government pointed out that the efforts made by various different financing bodies together constituted a purpose-oriented Swedish investment in IT research. The government believed that the increased focus on user aspects and broader research outlines, as reported by the funding bodies, corresponded well to the government’s general priorities.

The bill claimed that it was important to take advantage of the lead Sweden currently has regarding development and application of modern information technology in production processes and design of services. The government also believed it was important to persue R&D from a broader social perspective. The research-funding authority that was ascribed special responsibility for IT research became Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA). One of the priority tasks was to coordinate, develop and focus on efforts within the IT area. Knowledge development in this context was primarily placed in an innovation perspective and linked to economic growth, ecologically sustainable development and social change.

We can see how Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) clearly related to these research-policy signals, partly through its specialisation in applied IT and partly through the Institute’s interpretation of the “third task”, which was formulated as “developing business and society”. This interpretation was one of the cornerstones in the Institute’s activities. The quality and development program for 2000 emphazised research and education to be useful to society illustrating the view that knowledge is not only generated within the ivory towers of academia and that learning is promoted by means of a reciprocal crossing of boundaries between theory and practice. The developments we are seeing in the area of IT in many cases have almost eliminated the gap between basic research, applied research and development of products and services.

The regional significance of BTH can also be seen in light of the discussions linking research and regional development policy. “Regional challenges and national R&D policy – on the way to a national innovation system for public activities” was the topic of a conference⁹⁰ arranged by the Swedish Council for Planning and Co-ordination of Research (FRN) the same month as the bill on the re-organisation of research funding was submitted. The issue of innovations in government-funded research was high up on the agenda, where attention was drawn to hidden needs for innovation throughout the entire public sector linked to care services, schools, support for the elderly, infrastructure, etc. These activities are mostly performed locally and regionally, meaning the needs for research can be identified on these levels. The link to small and medium-sized university colleges is obvious. It is therefore important to ask whether in the future we will be able to speak of innovation policy for the public sector – often with a regional and local focus in its application – as a parallel to the innovation policy that is being developed so intensively for the regional goals within industrial policy? On a general level, we see tendencies towards the role of universities and colleges shifting from public service (the old, autonomous university structure) to public investment (the significance of the university colleges for regional development and employment⁹¹).

The backlash

As mentioned in the beginning of this chapter a number of research bills have been submitted since these of the 90s, but none of them has shown the kind of explicit link between research and politics as the one of 96/97 presented in this chapter. The criticism from the established universities seems to keep the understanding of autonomy and the linear model as the dominant discourse. A backlash occurred in the very end of the 90s for this research policy of trying to bring society into science and not only focus science into society. Carl Tham had to resign and the whole governmental research funding was reorganized with severe consequences for interdisciplinary research and gender research.