Inertia and change in Scandinavian public-sector research systems: the case of biotechnology

This article reviews and analyses recent reforms of research funding in Denmark, Norway and Sweden where research councils traditionally have been the dominant funding mechanism. It analyses how the research council system is affected by changes in the political, economic and cognitive environments of public-sector research (PSR) and how the councils try to adapt to the changing conditions. Inspired by institutional theory the article starts with a discussion of path-dependency in PSR systems. A survey of the development of research councils in the Scandinavian countries traces the changing organisation and orientation of research councils in relation to political, economic and technological processes, and in particular how they have adapted to the emergence of a new research area, biotechnology, where the boundaries between science and technology, academic research and commercial application, are blurred. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.