Sweden

The Swedish research landscape is pluralistic. The Government provides public funding to several research funding organisations, HEI’s and other authorities, who in turn are self-determining within the framework of laws and regulations. This means that policies and guidelines often do not instruct how to implement open science, but that authorities have the opportunity and responsibility to apply the changes in the way that best suits their respective organisations. In addition to the public sector, there are also private research funding organisations and HEI’s who work to promote open science. Research infrastructures are funded by research funders or HEI’s, and the research infrastructures are most often directly affiliated with one or more HEI’s.

Because of the pluralistic landscape coordination is a key factor for the national development of open science, and it provides favourable conditions for bottom-up development. Several HEI’s, authorities, research infrastructures and organisations in Sweden are working on EOSC-relevant activities and services without necessarily being directly linked to EOSC, as part of the more general development toward open science. Key actors in Sweden include:

The Swedish Research Council (SRC) is the Swedish mandated organisation in the EOSC Association and advises the government in the EOSC Steering board. SRC is tasked with coordinating and promoting Swedish involvement in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). SRC also advices the government on research policy and has the EOSC-related task of coordinating, monitoring and promoting collaboration in the national work towards open access to research data.  SRC is Sweden’s largest governmental research funding body, with a specific task to fund research infrastructures of national interest. Sunet (Swedish University Computer Network) is part of the Swedish Research Council.

Higher education institutions are tasked by the Swedish government to promote the transition to an open science system through research and education environments that support, encourage and provide information on open science as a practice. One way of doing this is through engagement in EOSC.

Swedish research infrastructures and databases are important national contributors to EOSC and EOSC-related areas. The Swedish infrastructure landscape include stakeholders that are well advanced in integrating EOSC-relevant practices into their core operations, as well as stakeholders whose primary purpose is to provide EOSC-relevant services and training.

The Association for Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF) functions as a coordinating forum for the HEIs to discuss and collaborate on issues relating to higher education policy, such as open science.

The EOSC Coordination Group, administered by the SRC, brings together delegates and deputy delegates from Swedish organisations that are members of the EOSC Association. The group  serves as an opportunity for further coordination and knowledge exchange to facilitate active participation in the association.

The Swedish National Library is tasked by the Swedish government to coordinate, monitor and promote collaboration on open access to scholarly publications. Within that task they developed the national guidelines on open science published in 2024.

More on

The Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act: https://www.government.se/information-material/2009/09/public-access-to-information-and-secrecy-act/

Swedish research funders: https://www.government.se/government-policy/higher-education-research-and-space/research-funding-in-sweden/

The Swedish Research Council (SRC): https://www.vr.se/english.html

The tasks of the Swedish Research Council: https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-lagar/dokument/svensk-forfattningssamling/forordning-2009975-med-instruktion-for_sfs-2009-975/

List of Swedish HEI’s: https://www.uka.se/swedish-higher-education-authority/about-higher-education/universities-university-colleges-and-other-education-providers/higher-education-institutions