Brian Moss University of Liverpool

Water Research in Finland2002–2006International Evaluation

Dams, river engineering, drainage

Erosion, biocides, nutrients

Introduced species

Peat erosion, biocides

Mercury, acidification

Brian Moss, UK; Wolfgang Fennel, Germany; Namasivayam Chinnaiya, India; Dan Rosbjerg, Denmark; Sybil Seitzinger, USA; Pauline Snoeijs,Sweden; John Stegeman USA

•The goal set by the Steering Group was to assess the scientific quality of Finnish aquatic research and to evaluate the structural state of this field in Finland as well as to obtain recommendations for the further development of aquatic research.

Quality of research

• Our overall view was that Finnish research in aquatic sciences is easily comparable in quality with that of other wealthy countries. The lists of publications that we examined contained many examples of papers in international journals for which standards and rejection rates are high. For many such journals the acceptance rate is now between 20 and 30%.

• Suffice it to say that Finland has a system of recognition through its Academy professors and its Centres of Excellence, and that we find the standards it imposes in giving this recognition to be comparable with those used elsewhere.

Prof. Kaarina Sivonen

Prof.Mikko Nikinmaa

• By 2006, 507 staff with 404 research active (103 support and administrative)

• 60% in Universities, 40% in Institutes

• Fall in % of women from 59% PhD students to 12 % Professors (Finland overall, 47% PhD students, 23% Professors

• Total costs: Universities K€45.8, Institutes K€ 50.2 per year per person

• Produce 1.31 professional articles(Universities 1.09 Institutes 1.62) plus 0.59 popular contributions per year, so around 2 publications per person per year

• Excellent value for investment(UK about three times higher costs)

People

Finnish Research Funding

• Total around 5.25 billion Euro

• Business (for own interests) 70%

• Government 30%, totalling about 1597 million Euro

• Government Research funding of M€ 1597

• Academy 14%• Tekes 28%• Core University 26.1%• Institute core 16.2%• Other 15.6%

Investment in water research

• Of M€ 1597 Government core funding, total invested in water research is M€ 12.3

• Plus 11.6 million raised by the scientific community from grants and contracts from inside and outside (EU) Finland

• Thus 0.8% of government funding is spent on water research and water research accounts for about 0.46% of total research spending in Finland

• Virtually no contribution by business interests to environmental research

We recommend that there is a need for some revision in the balance of allocation of funds nationally to favour the area of water research (and of environmental issues in general), particularly because of Finland’s immediate and substantial dependency on natural resources.

Baltic Ice Cover

Recommendations

• Career structure for PhD, Post doctorals and permanent posts

• Educational organisation• Integration of modelling• Subject content• Datasets and Long term ecological

research sites• Instrument replacement• Outreach

Career structure• Graduate students impressively articulate

• Many difficulties with funding

• Need for system with guaranteed funding for those selected on merit

• Perhaps fewer total PhD students, completing in 3/4 rather than up to 7/8 years

• Commented on in other reviews

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Universities

• Concerns over provision of secure posts in Universities

• Very difficult situation for mid-career scientists

• Need for orderly pyramidal permanent career structure

• Commented on in 1986 review of Hydrobiology and in reviews of other areas

• Finnish system is out of line with many other countries

Career structure

Quality of work is no lower in Institutes with a permanent career structure

Educational organisation

• Problem with separation of physical, chemical, biological and social research into separate departments or Institutes

• Mitigates against integrating knowledge, especially in models that can predict future effects and problems as well as give deeper understanding

• Under-recognition of Finnish research on water by the international community, partly self-inflicted

Chief Seattle

All things are connected

• Recommendations to establish Department of School of Water Sciences that does this from the undergraduate level upwards

• Recommendation that Academy post-docs spend at least one year in a laboratory outside Finland to help infiltrate new ideas

• Recommendation that future plans for the Institute of Marine Research be urgently reconsidered as the proposals would go directly against such integration and hamper modelling and understanding particularly of the Baltic

Land use, forestry and agriculture

River hydrology, chemistry & ecology

Weather and climate

Blooms and fisheries

People and cities

• More attention to stream ecology and use of pristine northern Finnish ecosystems to influence concepts of high ecological status for the Water Framework Directive

• Linking of ecology and engineering in stream and river restoration to achieve really imaginative solutions

• More manipulative experimental studies on whole catchments and lakes

• More linking freshwater and peatland research

• Encouragement of work on processes of biogeochemistry which is currently very limited

• Major emphasis on climate change implications (physical, ecological, social and interactions)

Some specific recommendations for future research

•Inventory of long -term data sets and planned funding to maintain the best and make them available on the web

•Continued support of field stations

•Proper funding to maintain monitoring of designated Long-term (Socio-)Ecological Research sites (Helsinki Metropolitan; Lepsämänjoki Agricultural Watershed; Lammi Southern Boreal; Lake Päijänne; Northern Häme; Bothnian Bay; Pallas-Sodankylä; Northern)

•Mechanisms to foster replacement of expensive analytical machines and ship facilities shared by the scientific community

•Outreach: popular articles, radio broadcasts, displays•Institute web sites excellent•Target of one popular item for every formal scientific paper from a project

•An excellent scientific community performing very well by international standards•A need for considerable reform in career structures•A need for more integration of subject areas•A nation perhaps not investing enough in research on water particularly in view of Finland’s dependence on its natural resources at a time of great threat from climate change and ecosystem destruction

Preservation of an equablebiosphere or enhancement of GDP ?