Swedish Research News

May 10, 2004

Here's what I was up to over the weekend: Readying Swedish Research News, a new site that syndicates news about discoveries and innovations made by researchers at Swedish universities.

It's something of an experiment, and its continued existence will depend on whether it is useful to, and hence used by, a community of readers. The experiment involves trying to find better ways of collecting and then disseminating existing information, so that it has more impact.

Swedish universities tend to put news of their research successes on their own individual websites — always in Swedish, sometimes in English. Until recently, there was no central repository of Swedish research news in English, making it difficult for non-Swedish speakers to keep tabs on the fruits of Swedish research. A few months ago, with the help of the Swedish Research Council, Study in Sweden began carrying aggregated items on its site.

But the content management system behind Study in Sweden is not blog-savvy. And the news items do not get pride of place, as the site's focus lies elsewhere. What is lacking are the features that make such news accessible to readers: RSS and Atom newsfeeds, the ability to automatically ping other sites, categorization, and commentingCheck out how the Americans aggregate their research news. Research news in Swedish is available here, but it too lacks newsfeeds..

You can find all these features on Swedish Research News. Now, every time Study in Sweden receives a new item from the Swedish Research Council, it will be edited and posted to both sites. Basically, Swedish Research News is an attempt to bring the link-generosity at the heart of the blogging mindset into an institutional setting via a back-door. If it works, over time the site will become more official-lookingOne caveat: The news is often written by the researchers themselves, and hence is a bit press releasy, and usually has been translated from Swedish with varying degrees of success. Eventually, it is hoped more time will be spent polishing the prose..

So go and have a look at the site. Then, please provide feedback. In addition, consider forwarding news of this site to people who might enjoy reading it or be in a position to contribute to it. Currently, news is heavily tilted towards the sciences. Research news from humanities faculties is very welcome, however.

Ideally, one day, universities will submit their own stories directly to this site for vetting, editing and publication. But that will only happen if Swedish Research News turns out to be of use. Meanwhile, help get the word out.

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