helsinki

Finland is on target to meet its goal of a research funding level of 2.9 per cent of gross national product by next year, as both public and private sources of funds increase at a rate envied by its European neighbours.

The increase in funding places this nation of five million people among the world's biggest spenders on research. The new money is accompanied by policy changes which have led to a greater concentration of effort in areas of strategic importance, such as information technology and molecular genetics, and greater coordination of academic and industrial research.

The change in fortune has allowed Finland to implement within 18 months nearly all the recommendations made by the European Molecular Biology Organization which coordinated an external review of Finland's performance in molecular biology (see Nature 385, 666; 1997). These include the establishment of a new FM30 million (US$5.5 million) institute for genomics and bioinformatics research in Helsinki which coordinates input from three other new university genomics centres, and a similarly organized institute for structural biology.

To support these initiatives the Finnish Academy of Sciences, which distributes much of Finland's basic research funds, has set up new programmes in microbiology, cell biology and transgenics, as well as a five-year programme for genomics, and a smaller programme in microbial ecology. It has made genetics one of the priorities of its new PhD programmes. “The changes were made easy for us, because the new money meant we were spared the difficulties of reallocating money from other areas,” says Reijo Vihko, president of the academy.

The ministry for research has recently agreed to maintain direct funding for biotechnology which was due to stop this year.

Finnish scientists seem to be using the new money efficiently. The number of Finnish papers per capita published in refereed journals has doubled over the past decade, overtaking the productivity of Germany, Norway and the United States. Finland's rate of return from European Union research programmes is the third highest among the 15 states in the union.

Steady progress: Finnish R&D spend since 1983.

In the past few years the academy has managed to lower the average age of gaining a PhD from 38 to 34, and the total number of graduate school positions is set to rise. The experimental centres of excellence programme, which some Finns believe concentrates research funds too heavily for a small country, will be expanded.