From 2006 to 2021, the Nordic Institute for Studies of Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU) was responsible for the surveys. From 2022, the project was transferred to Statistics Norway.
In principle, the survey covers all resources applied for research, independent of source of funds, i.e. both basically funded research performed by hospital staff in connection with the treatment of patients and research funded through external application processes.
The 2021 survey was sent to 48 health trusts, of which 44 reported having performed research activity in 2021. Some main results are the following:
In total, the 44 health institutions reported current costs for research of NOK 4.7 billion in 2021. This includes all resource use for research recorded in the health trusts, i.e. salaries, pensions, employer's contribution, costs of goods, other direct and indirect operating costs, depreciation, etc.
Altogether, the 44 health trusts reported having carried out 3,350 research man-years in 2021. The figure includes man-years carried out by senior doctors, doctors and psychologists in clinical positions, researchers, postdoctoral fellows, research fellows and other hospital staff.
A research year's work thus cost an average of NOK 1.4 million in 2021.
Measured in current costs, the specialist health care services used 2.8 per cent of its total resources for all statutory tasks in 2021 for research. This is a decrease since the previous survey which applied to the year 2019, when the ratio was 2.9 per cent.
The six university hospitals accounted for approximately four fifths of the research effort in the specialist health care services in Norway in 2021.
South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority (Helse Sør-Øst) is by far the largest health region in the research area, with around 70 per cent of the resources. The second largest is the western region (Helse Vest) with just under a fifth, while the northern (Helse Nord) and middle (Helse Midt-Norge) regions each accounted for around 5-6 per cent.
28 of the 44 health trusts reported that they had carried out research in the focus area of mental healthcare in 2021. Total current costs here were NOK 562 million distributed over 410 man-years, which accounted for approximately 12 per cent of total research effort in 2021.
12 of the 44 health trusts reported that they had carried out research within the focus area of interdisciplinary, specialized treatment of substance abusers in 2021. Here, the effort was measured at NOK 108 million and 78 man-years.
The transfer of data collection from NIFU to Statistics Norway and the pandemic situation admittedly made the survey somewhat more difficult to carry out than in previous years. Only about half of the health trusts responded within the deadline. The preliminary report to the Ministry of Health and Care and the regional health organizations was thus somewhat delayed. In general, however, we consider the resource measurement for 2021 to be satisfactory.