Sweden
Overview
European Commission
Mandated Organisation
EOSC Steering Board representatives
Sweden has a long history of public access to records created by public authorities. The Swedish principle of public access dates back to 1766 and is regulated in the The Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act, a part of Sweden’s constitutional laws. The principle of public access assumes openness as the norm, in a way that is similar to the FAIR principles’ “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”.
Most of Sweden’s higher education institutions (HEI’s) and several research funders are public authorities and adhere to the principle of public access. This aspect of the Swedish framework is important to understand the development of open science in Sweden, since research data and research results from public authorities are managed within context of the principle of public access.
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
National Events
Tripartite Event | Nordic & Baltic Countries
The tripartite national actors in the Nordic and Baltic countries organise their first EOSC tripartite event in Tallinn on Tuesday, 4 October 2022, with the support of the EOSC-Nordic project. Representatives from the European Commission, EOSC Association, Nordic and Baltic...
Policies
National guidelines for promoting open science in Sweden (2024). Guidelines developed by the National library of Sweden with goals and priorities that contribute to comprehensive and coordinated development of open science.
Swedish position paper on the next EU research and innovation framework programme, FP10 (2024). The position paper includes EOSC under the headline “Impact”.
The Lund declaration on maximising the benefits of research data (2023). The declaration was presented during the Swedish presidency of the EU council on a conference on how research infrastructure provides new possibilities and benefits for society. The declaration support EOSC and emphasise the importance of accelerating open science.
National roadmap for open science (2021, in Swedish). SUHF developed the roadmap in collaboration with several Swedish HEI’s. It aims to clarify the responsibility of HEI’s in the development of open science and the measures needed at HEI’s to accelerate open access to research data and research results. The roadmap has been complemented by guidelines for implementation (2024, in Swedish). Both documents can be found here, among other open science-relevant recommendations.
Open access to research data – vision and guiding principles (2020, 2024). The SRC produces strategic EOSC-compliant materials to support the national development of open access to research data.
Knowledge in collaboration – for societal challenges and strengthened competitiveness (2016/17:50, in Swedish). Research Bill adopted in April 2017. The bill set the goal that open science should be fully implemented in Sweden by 2026.
National guidelines for open science
These national guidelines are intended to provide support and guidance for the different stakeholders in Sweden who have overarching responsibility in the transition to open science. Download nowPeople
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Why open science?
Stockholm University explores the growing support for open science, the rising costs for open access publishing and the need for change in research assessment -
Sumithra Velupillai
Sumithra Velupillai, Senior Research Officer at the Swedish Research Council, interviewed at the EOSC Symposium 2023 in Madrid
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Swedish national policy event
12 October 2023, Stockholm -
NTE Nordic & Baltic
4 October 2022, Tallinn
News from Sweden
Members and Observers from Sweden
EU Projects
Please find here the EOSC-related projects where members from this country are involved as partners.