Nordic Life Science 1
have handled the COVID-19 pandemic differently in
many aspects and learning from each other would hopefully benefit our preparedness for another pandemic, or even a new wave of this one. NordForsk, an organization under the Nordic Council of Ministers that facilitates and provides funding for Nordic cooperation on research and research infrastructure, has taken the initiative to organize joint Nordic research to study and compare how the crisis has been handled across the Nordics. “COVID-19 is probably the biggest crisis to affect our part of the world since World War Two. Severe measures affecting all sectors of society have been taken to prevent the spread of the virus in order to save lives and avoid collapse in the health care systems. The COVID-19 pandemic has, and will for a long time have, severe impact on our lives and societies,” says Arne Flåøyen, Director, NordForsk. “The early responses to COVID19 have shown that our societies were not well prepared although we have been warned about a pandemic for years. The five Nordic countries have chosen different strategies to handle the same crisis. There are however many similarities at the practical level. Nevertheless, the differences are big enough to make comparisons between countries and responses.” 26 NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG NordForsk operates by working closely with national funders of research in the Nordic region and organizing calls, receiving and evaluating proposals and funding research projects. The organization makes its priorities via what is known as the Open Invitation mechanism. “Via Open Invitation, research funding organizations can propose new Nordic research programs or extensions of existing programs administered by NordForsk. We have two sets of criteria that are used for selecting proposals for funding. The first is the scientific quality, which is the most important criterion. The second is the potential for creating Nordic added value by working together in the Nordics. In more recent calls we have also looked at the potential for innovation,” says Flåøyen. The main purpose of the new COVID-19 initiative is to fund free and independent research projects that hopefully will produce results that can help the Nordic nations to be better prepared for the next pandemic and enable the governments to take decisions based on facts and experience from COVID-19. “All Nordic countries have well-organized health care systems. However, infectious diseases have not had the highest priority in our countries for a long time,” says Flåøyen. “After the introduction of vaccines and antibiotics, we have somehow underestimated the role of infectious diseases as severe health threats. I believe the COVID-19 outbreak has shaken us well enough to think more about prevention of infectious diseases when planning and organizing hospitals, health care systems and institutions for elderly people.” “We are now focusing very much on the next pandemic. I believe however that the next international health crisis might be related to antimicrobial resistance and I