Newsletter April 02

These newsletters are edited and distributed at irregular intervals by Dag Lindgren. Email me if you want to be added or removed from the mailing list or your email-address changed.

An URL address to this Newsletter is
http://daglindgren.upsc.se/Newsletters/Newsletter02to03/Newsletter_April02.htm

I tried to “summarize” from the newsletters 98-99, thus cut away the parts which time has made irrelevant. But keep debate and information, which still is relevant. That can be of interest for you, who did not got this service earlier or for other reason want to look back.

http://daglindgren.upsc.se/Newsletters/Newsletter_98to99/Newsletter_Summary_98-99.htm

 

Clonal forestry – who are you kidding, information at:

www.forestry.gov.uk/nordicmeeting

 

"DYNAMICS AND CONSERVATION OF GENETIC DIVERSITY IN FOREST ECOSYSTEMS" at

http://www.pierroton.inra.fr/genetics/Dygen/

 

Sustainable Forestry, Wood products & Biotechnology

 will be held in Vitoria-Gasteiz (Northern Spain), November 12 to

15, 2002.

 

 

Gene Namkoong died Saturday 2nd of March 2002 from complications with his cancer and pneumonia.

Hilmar Holmen has died (he is retired professor from Umeå)

Peter Burrows has died on February 21 (I cited him sometimes)

 

Urban Eriksson ny VD på Svenska Skogsplantor AB

2002-03-12

Styrelsen har idag kommit överens med jägmästaren och skoglige doktorn Urban Eriksson om att bli ny verkställande direktör för Svenska Skogsplantor.

Urban kommer närmast från Sveaskog/AssiDomän där han varit chef för plantförvaltningen och därefter som affärsutvecklingschef på affärsenheten Forestry. Urban Eriksson är i övrigt ordförande i Föreningen Sveriges Skogsplantproducenter och ledamot i Föreningen Skogsträdsförädling.

Svenska Skogsplantor står inför ett förändringsarbete för att vända det ekonomiska resultatet och ytterligare marknadsorientera företaget och vi är speciellt glada för att få Urban i ledningen med hans gedigna kunskaper om branschen och erfarenheter från liknande förändringar. Urban tillträder sin befattning under våren 2002.

 

Sweden in Science statistics

I found an interesting document on

ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/rtd2002/docs/ind_kf2001.pdf

EU makes comparisons between different countries in different respects connecting to science. The comparisons comprise the EU countries, US and Japan.

 

Sweden tops for publications per inhabitant, roughly double as high as US or EU average. For frequency of the publications which are highly cited is Sweden at the EU average and second for number of highly cited paper per inhabitant, thus low quality is no explanation of the Swedish top rank for publications. Sweden tops the ranking for (Science and technical) PhD per 25-34 year old person and ranks second to growth of such PhDs.

 

Sweden ranks three in total number of researchers per employee. Sweden has a top rank in R&D intensity and industry financed R&D of industrial output. That is at least part of the explanation. But in the share of governmental budget allocated to R&D is Sweden far down on the list, less than 3 quarters of EU mean. Concerning change in R&D as a part of the governmental budget Sweden is the bottom of the list, it is the only country where considerable reductions have been made. 

The report asks:

“What are the reasons for, and what policies explain, the negative growth rates of the R&D budget in Sweden, which already has a relatively low share. Is this a real reduction or a switch to other types of instruments?…. Is this a result of declining defence expenditure?”

I would also be interested in the reply. The good scientific current records are of course the result of funding and other actions at least five years ago, is

 

US rank surprisingly low for some indicators. A possible reason for the comparative decline in US science output may be related to commercialisation. The number of patents is still overwhelmingly high in US indication that US researcher may be more likely to seek a patent than to publish the results

 

What do you think is behind the following link, from the name it ought to be very relevant? Why not try….

http://www.popgen.org

Our department and the department of physiological botany at Umeå University formed 1999 a joint umbrella organisation and the department was physically split in the autumn 2001 when the plant physiologists moved to Umeå University buildings to be together with plant physiologists from Umeå University. Work has been going on for several years with a web site for this joint organisation. There has been some hesitation to make the existing site public, but now I see references to it elsewhere and the website should not stay and collect dust forever, it is already severely outdated concerning genetics, so here it is:
 http://www.upsc.nu/

 

A website for the genomics (and gene patenting) close to our department is involved in can be found at

http://www.swetreegenomics.se/