Cutbacks in the universities health research will have major consequences for at least three areas of welfare. Instead, what we should be doing is increasing investment.

2020.09.23

By Lars Bo Nielsen, Dean of the Faculty of Health, Aarhus University

There are at least three good reasons to increase investment in health research:

1. Health research provides better health and reduces inequality.

The foundation of the Danish healthcare system is research-based knowledge about the treatments and services that work and thereby provide the most health for money. This is the knowledge that researchers at the universities create in laboratories, by experimental testing on cells, animals and humans, and by scrutinising data from our health registers.

Anyone of us can fall ill, but disease does not affect everyone equally. An individual's likelihood of getting through treatment for e.g. a lifestyle disease in a good way is closely linked to education and income – and an understanding of health. We lack knowledge and solutions to reduce social inequality in health. Research and new knowledge are essential preconditions for reducing the gap between the most and least privileged citizens in our society.

Health research and the treatment of those who are ill are closely connected, and this interaction is absolutely crucial if we are to offer forms of treatment and a world-class healthcare system for the money at our disposal – also in the future. Therefore, any cutbacks to the universities research will also be a saving on public health and the efforts being made to create equality in health.

2. Health research is pivotal to the success of the Danish life science industry in the world that awaits us on the other side of the corona crisis.

The life science industry is a growth driver with 83,000 jobs and annual exports totalling DKK 108 billion. The universities are currently strengthening this research and creating unique potential for more growth and even more new jobs in Denmark. Just as an example, the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University has created innovative and ground-breaking research results, which have in recent years attracted private investments of approx. DKK one billion for the founding of new companies.

These and other new companies are – in the same way as the established pharmaceutical industry – based on Denmark’s world-class health research. We must therefore safeguard the framework (read: money) for health research so that we can continue to create a basis for the development of new Danish medicinal products and ensure that they can also be sold in the rest of the world in the future. This is an opportunity we will lose if we do not continue to invest in the research being done at our universities.

3. Health research will put us in a better position when the next crisis hits.

It takes decades to build up research environments, but just a few months to shut them down. The research environments at Denmark’s universities have been built up over decades and are based on highly specialised knowledge and advanced (not to mention expensive) infrastructure in the form of laboratories and equipment.

The experts who make up the core of the environments have spent decades building their knowledge and international network. They cannot simply be replaced overnight if they are forced to shut everything down due to a lack of funding for the universities. We must always remember this when we find ourselves in a crisis and lack money. We need to safeguard our experts. Just think of the viral researchers who, until six months ago, led an anonymous life in the laboratories, but who are now pivotal for our ability to safely negotiate the corona epidemic and hopefully soon find a usable vaccine.

It is a flagrant mistake to reduce funding for health research in times of crisis. If we wish to learn from history, then we must look further into the future and increase funding. This is a crucial approach to making it through the crisis – and not only the present one – but also to prepare us for the next crises which we will inevitably meet in the decades to come.

When we invest in health research, we maintain a world-class healthcare system with the greatest possible equality, and we ensure that Denmark can also generate the money to maintain a safe and fair welfare state in the future.