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Intro
First and foremost I would like to extend a warm thank you to Dr. Krull and the other panel members who contributed to this very thorough and highly qualified report.
You have been able to - not only review the Danish Council for Independent Research - but also unveil some interesting perspectives on our entire Danish research community.
It is very useful to receive such external reflections on the Council’s performance and I encourage everyone here to read the report. After all, you may just be able to find a passage or two about yourself.
Evaluation report in general Next, I would like to say congratulations to DFF and to the Danish research community.
Overall, the evaluation is very positive and yet a reminder of Danish research’s great performance.
I think that it is evident from the evaluation that DFF is doing a really good job and is an important contributor to this performance.
And even though many feel that the success rates of applications to the Council are too low, there is almost unanimous support to the Council from its stakeholders.
DFF performance and reputation DFF plays a crucial role for the career of many young researchers, for whom a grant from DFF is seen as an important stamp of excellence.
It impresses me to see a public institution with this kind of support from its stakeholders.
However, we shall not rest on our laurels and neither should DFF. We should all strive to be prepared for the future and luckily the evaluation provides some pointers for improvement.
Let me mention just a few.
More women in science
One of the recommendations that concern us all is the issue of the low ratio of female researchers in Denmark, particularly at senior level positions.
The report reminds us that we are not particularly excellent when it comes to supporting female scientists in pursuing a research career. From my point of view this means that we are currently missing out on a huge potential.
We should make use of our entire pool of talent – not only half of it.
The panel applauds the Council’s one-year initiative, the YDUN-programme where 17 top female researchers have just been given the opportunity to lead a research team.
But, as it is rightly pointed out, such a programme cannot stand alone.
I agree with the panel that we should all take this challenge very seriously.
Multidisciplinarity
Another seemingly ever present challenge for research funders around the world, and indeed also for DFF, is the issue of cross-disciplinarity.
I assume that we can all agree on the importance of applying a holistic approach in solving our societies’ challenges. This includes DFF who has taken steps to secure a better support of cross-disciplinary research.
But it is not an easy task to implement this sort of cross-disciplinary funding scheme and I know that this is something DFF is working on.
Mobility and internationalisation
Finally, the evaluation panel also finds Danish researchers’ mobility to be relatively low.
I like the way the panel has chosen to formulate this issue as an opportunity rather than a challenge for the Danish research system.
And I agree that our researchers should make use of the opportunities to go abroad and come back with new knowledge and insights on other ways to deal with societal and scientific challenges.
There is no doubt that research funders like DFF should strive to support them in doing so.
The future looks bright
In conclusion, I would like to say that from my perspective the future for research and innovation in Denmark looks bright.
In 2012 a review of the Danish research and innovation system was conducted by an international panel.
This review contributed to the recent merger of three former councils into the new Innovation Fund Denmark.
Last year Dr. Krull chaired an international evaluation of the Danish National Research Foundation.
The evaluation formed the basis for a three billion Danish kroner injection of capital to the foundation as well as a fine tuning of the foundation’s instruments and strategic considerations.
With this new evaluation of DFF in hand, we are well equipped to further improve our research funding system.
The evaluation shows us that there is still room for improvement. Overall, however, the two evaluations of DFF and the Danish National Research Foundation send a clear message that we have a well-functioning funding system.
In other words we are on the right path.
Therefore, I do not see the need for larger reforms of the system in the near future.
The evaluation and its recommendations will now be the basis for political discussions between the parties behind the establishment of Innovation Fund Denmark.
I do think that the recommendations send an important message to us all: do not get too comfortable!
We should always think ahead and look for ways to improve our research funding system.
And I think that this report is a valuable contribution in this regard.
No doubt I and my ministry will be reading your recommendations more than once in the near future.
Thank you to the panel once again for a job very well done