A socially sustainable Nordic region

NordForsk’s new initiative will promote high-quality interdisciplinary research that combines and integrate skills from multiple disciplines. The first call for proposals under the Nordic Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research has a budget of NOK 120 million and the deadline for submissions is 13 November 2019.

The Nordic countries have cooperated closely on societal security for several decades. In recent years, this tradition has been supplemented by several political initiatives across national borders. In 2016, it was allocated funding to four projects under the Nordic Societal Security Initiative’s call for proposals on society, integrity and cyber-security. Recently, they met in The Hague to exchange experiences and lessons learned so far.

Major advancements in many fields now make it possible to personalise medical treatment. Still, there are too few products facilitating this in practice, particularly when it comes to treatment that patients themselves carry out at home. The Nordic POP project is looking to change this. “Our goal is to develop pharmaceutical products and technological solutions of the future, where personalised medical treatment is the common link,” says Professor Ingunn Tho of the Nordic POP project and the University of Oslo School of Pharmacy.

The Nordic Committee on Bioethics recently organised the conference Bioethics of clinical innovation and unproven methods in collaboration with Centre for Legal Studies in Welfare and Market at the University of Copenhagen. How are clinical innovations and unproven methods developed and introduced in western Nordic health-care systems? What is the legal and regulatory environment concerning unproven methods in medicine? What ethical principles should guide work on emerging treatments and experimentation in hospitals? These three questions were addressed in separate sessions in a day of fruitful discussions.

The number of cancer survivors among children and young people in the Nordic region has never been greater, but little is known about the challenges this patient group faces in the aftermath of cancer treatment. Survivors of childhood cancer may experience difficulty concentrating, fatigue or depression due to various late effects from the disease and the treatment, and also have an increased risk for a wide array of other diseases. More knowledge is needed about the impacts of childhood cancer on subsequent education, working life and family life. With the help of Nordic health registries, the NordForsk-funded SALiCCS project is taking steps to learn more.

NordForsk organised a scientific session, Nordic Registers and Biobanks: A Goldmine for Precision Medicine Research at this year’s AAAS meeting, which was held in Washington D.C. The session addressed how the Nordic registries are used in research, and shed light on how Nordic research councils and policymakers work together to promote cross-border cooperation. Speaking at the session were Camilla Stoltenberg, Director General of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Paul Franks of Lund University and NordForsk's Maria Nilsson.

For several centuries, the Nordic countries have collected information on each of their citizens. There are registries in the region dating to the 1700s, with information on birthplaces, marriages and deaths, among other particulars. Today there are even more registries and linking their data together can provide a detailed record of each individual’s journey through life. This treasure trove of information could be a unique source of insight for Nordic researchers. On 17 February, during the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting in Washington D.C, Dr. Maria Nilsson, talks about how NordForsk has invested heavily in efforts to promote Nordic research cooperation based on registry data.

NordForsk, the Norwegian Cancer Society and the Research Council of Norway have pooled their resources for an historic initiative on paediatric cancer research and will be allocating a total of NOK 30 million for three Nordic projects on personalised cancer treatment for children. With their focus on Nordic cooperation on clinical studies, these projects will help to give children diagnosed with cancer access to the very latest treatment methods. “I’m excited to follow the progress of these projects, ” says Bent Høie, Norwegian Minister of Health and Care Services, “not only because they are strong projects on their own but also because they can help expand Nordic cooperation on clinical research.”

The Nordic Committee on Bioethics and NordForsk is launching the fifth edition of Legislation on biotechnology in the Nordic countries. The report provides an up-to-date overview of legislation in a variety of areas, including assisted reproduction, human biobanks, cloning and embryo research.