Can Nordic Companies Profit from the Higgs Search?

by Hans Mühlen 4 Jul 2013 Science and Society
Published in the "Nordic News" section of Nordita News issue 2, 2013

It is of course heartworming to know that the CERN membership fee of EUR 13 million that Norway pays each year supports important basic research in physics, but are there also other more immediate benefits to be gained from this investment? Norwegian online science journal forskning.no in a recent article (English translation) notes that unless passive Norwegian companies get their act together, they will miss the opportunities of securing contracts and exchanging knowledge that can come out of tighter collaborations with CERN.

The Swedish experience of science-business cooperation is the subject of the doctoral thesis of Susanne Åberg at Uppsala University. From her inteviews with 15 Swedish companies that have collaborated with CERN a clear picture emerges: the real benefits, often quite unexpected ones, come from establishing long-term relationships.

And, as always, nothing happens if you just sit around and wait.