Last year, Sweden's universities and colleges received SEK 5.5 billion for research by non-profit organizations, such as the Wallenberg Foundations, according to the University Chancellor's Office.
But now their source of money - the companies' share dividends due to the pandemic - is dwindling.
- We will probably distribute 2.5 billion this year.
Our assessment now is that we will probably need to reduce it by SEK 800 million.
That is, hand out 1.7 billion to the researchers next year, says Oscar Stege Unger, spokesman for the Wallenberg Foundations.
Dividends fall globally
The ban on share dividends will hit most research funders who own shares broadly.
More than half of the Swedish large companies are not expected to pay a share dividend this year, according to Infront.
Globally, it is about that a quarter of the dividends may disappear this year, reports Reuters.
This creates big money holes for the donors and thus Swedish research.
Decisive for Sweden
- It is a crucial time for Sweden as a nation of knowledge.
We must now make sure to build up preparedness for the next pandemic that we know will come, says Ole Petter Ottersen, rector of Karolinska Institutet, and he continues:
- It can only be done through basic research.
But the government does not make billions in research.
Matilda Ernkrans (S), who is Minister of Research, tells SVT that the government will return to it in the budget and when the research policy bill is presented this autumn.