The worlds of science and politics meet behind the scenes

Researchers avoid doing politics; politicians do not read research reports. Yet the worlds of science and politics meet behind the scenes.

“Research has a greater impact on practice than we imagine, but the impact is not direct,” says Markku Sotarauta, Professor of Regional Studies

Sotarauta wants to keep this clear: researchers are knowledge producers, politicians produce political will.

“It is not my job to make value judgments or to take responsibility for decisions that are made in the future decades. We can produce research-based information, but we do not transform it into actions,” Sotarauta says.

Professor Risto Kunelius, Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, agrees.

“A lot of such reporting and research work is done in universities that gives a knowledge basis to decision making. So I do not think that universities have forgotten decision making. But it is not the job of research to serve decision making by producing readymade political choices and blessing them with scientific prestige,” Kunelius says.

Politicians do not read research reports

Leading politicians do not read scientific reports and they ignore research results if the results do not serve their political purposes.

Timo Turja, who is the leading information expert at the Library of the Parliament, wrote in the journal of the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies that it is hard to make use of the current Finnish scientific work in political decision making. Turja does not think it is the politicians’ fault.

According to Turja, researchers are unable to understand politics and parliamentary decision making. In his opinion, trust in research has diminished in the past few decades.

Turja found only one example in the minutes of the Parliament of how an MP changed his opinion in the plenary after he heard new scientific evidence from a researcher.

A survey by Henrik Jussila showed that the MPs would like to have research-based information but they do not have the time to get to know it themselves. According to the survey, research information does not really have an effect on decision making.

According to Jussila there is a gulf between decision makers and researchers. The problems have either to do with the preparatory work or the interface between research and politics.

A proper interface is needed between politics and research

Jussila’s conclusions concur with the researchers’ ideas that a new kind of interface is needed between politics and research.

According to the researchers, the university produces lots of research that could serve politics. Risto Kunelius says that researchers are increasingly channelling their research in directions that serve the needs of the decision makers. One should still stop to think about the dialogue and dissemination of scientific knowledge.

Professor Pekka Rissanen, the Dean of the School of Health Sciences at the University of Tampere, would like to have knowledge brokers - transmitters or refiners of scientific knowledge - who would be able to follow up on research results from the point of view of political needs. According to Rissanen this should be done in the Ministries.

Are politicians unable to read research results?

”Not all of them are able to read them and we will probably never have a situation that we would only elect the meritocracy to political positions. We have to start with the fact that the citizens elect the decision makers.”

There are different ways to hone scientific knowledge to serve the politicians. At some point there were plans to do just this in Finland too, at least at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. Now is the time to reassess this issue as the central administrative structures are being reconsidered.

”The civil servants at the Ministry who have Master’s and PhD degrees have got a scientific education, but their time is spent on other tasks, not on the follow-up on research results.”

Sotarauta agrees with Rissanen. Apart from the Ministries, municipalities have the same problem.

The Nokia Corporation has employees with PhD degrees who are able to translate research results into Nokia language, but there are no such people in the civil service.

“Researchers do not have partners in a dialogue. Such people exist only in the large companies in Finland. Small and medium-sized firms do not have them and neither are there any in the civil service. There is a chasm between research and decision making. We researchers cannot do their job for them,” Sotarauta says.

Masters and doctors who graduate from the university often find jobs in public administration but they cannot always help. Sotarauta says that he has seen several times how active and innovative people have come to work in a municipality only to be crushed by the bureaucracy in a couple of years.

A researcher does not write consultation documents

Rissanen emphasises that the researchers’ task is not to write research results in the consultation document format. He saw problems when he was involved in calculating the allocation of state subsidies to municipalities in social and health care.

”The research results used formulae, such as the logarithm formula which you can understand only if you understand mathematics. The civil servants said that they could not write such formulae in the legislative text. Well, there is a law on progressive taxation too. Some person who is drafting these texts should understand what they mean and how you can write them down in the law,” Rissanen says.

Sotarauta has cooperated with the bigger cities quite often. He says that he has frequently been in a situation where the research results have first been praised, but then he has been asked for a plan for what the city is supposed to do in the following year and how much money should be reserved for the purpose. His response to these requests has been an emphatic no.

“My starting point is that we do not do someone else’s job. I have met a lot of people from Ministries and municipalities in my work who expect us to do their jobs for them.”

The decision maker can choose the less viable option

Rissanen has examples of how municipalities can choose the economically less viable options if they in so doing can shift the financial responsibility to Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland. A municipal decision maker does not choose the most economic option in cases where it costs more to the municipality, even if it would save money for Kela.

”The most economical option may not be adopted if the decision maker is the municipality and not Kela – or vice versa. Maybe the research information causes the decision makers anxiety if it is known that the decision is not the best when all things are considered but it is undertaken regardless. Therefore there should be just one purse in the public sector, not two.”

Rissanen recommends to decision makers a publication issued by the School of Health Sciences on the last days of old age which crystallises the question of elderly care and the costs of specialised medical care. If the long-term care of the elderly is well organised, the costs of specialised medical care will also be smaller. Municipalities are now thinking of the costs of specialist medical care as an isolated issue.

Independent choices guided by the machinery

Research results trickle into decision making through the interface mechanisms and public debate even if the politicians do not read the research reports.

According to Sotarauta, the views of the Danish professor Bengt-Åke Lundvall can be seen directly in the model of Finnish innovation policy. This is a case where the decision makers are aware of the person behind the idea and they openly quote him. There are also other kinds of examples.

”One city mayor exclaimed that researchers are no good. I asked him how come they still applied a strategic planning method that came straight out of the University of Minnesota,” Sotarauta says.

The politicians do not see the original source which gets lost on the way from the researchers or consultants to the decision makers’ desks.

“MPs, the preparatory organs and the public debate swallow them. Then they imagine that they are making independent choices.

You have the target on your back in the challenger role

The study on what is stopping the regeneration of municipalities by Markku Sotarauta, Toni Saarivirta and Jari Kolehmainen shows that the municipalities are reluctant to change and that they do not seek to use or apply new information that would support development. The researchers expected to get more visibility than they actually did with their research.

”Research has an effect when it complies with the dominant political thinking. If it does not, it is forgotten and silenced. This research obviously hit a spot that was too sore.”

Sotarauta says that such a challenger role suits him well. It is a fun role where it does not even matter if you end up being the butt of the joke.

“Our themes have the drawback that you are easily labelled political. It has been claimed that I am a social democrat or a member of the Centre or the Coalition party. However, nobody has yet called me a True Finn.

Text Heikki Laurinolli
Photograph Teemu Launis
Translation Laura Tohka

This story was originally published in Finnish in Aikalainen 1/2013