Science at the global level: tenured professor Miķelis Grīviņš on his plans for the development of the research ecosystem at RSU

Three tenured professors or research professors have joined the academic staff of Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) since April.

"The academic tenure system, which is currently being introduced in Latvia and is already in place in other countries, provides for academic staff to ensure stable employment by being elected in the academic position, such as associate professor or professor, and achieving specific, defined goals. This system enables us to attract new colleagues into research. We have attracted outstanding scientists through an international competition who will conduct high-level research in each of the three areas of RSU's strategic specialisation – medicine and health sciences, social sciences and natural sciences," explains Liene Ņikitina-Zaķe, Director of RSU Research Department.

Miķelis Grīviņš (pictured) is one of the tenured professors at RSU. He is a sociologist and a consulting expert in Latvia and elsewhere in Europe on food initiatives, supply chains, wild products, agricultural finance and the specificities of food procurement practices in Eastern Europe. We invited him for an interview about his plans for the development of the RSU research ecosystem and the creation of a research working group.

What is the most important thing you would like to say about yourself?

I'm a sociologist to the bone and I've always loved science. I got my PhD in 2012 and immediately started working at the Baltic Studies Centre (BSC), a private non-profit research institute working mainly with the EU Horizon programme and, before that, with projects under the framework programmes.

My career is not typical in general. It is more like a researcher’s career in the humanities than in the social sciences – I have conducted studies in marketing, as well as in advertising.

I think it's been good for me because it has helped me to stay interested in how to make science more usable. Looking at my experience, I think that for researchers, experience gained outside science can be useful.

During my career, I have accumulated experience in science administration - for some time I was the President of the Latvian Association of Sociologists and the Head of the Association of Latvian Young Scientists. However, it is difficult to combine such activities with serious full-time research, and I am happy to have someone else do the administrative work. At the same time, although science administration is not my favourite occupation, I very much appreciate professionals who are involved in science administration. Especially when these professionals also have an in-depth knowledge of the respective field of science. You can feel it immediately if the people involved in the administrative matters of science understand science itself.

Similarly, science communication should be undertaken by highly educated professionals who are able to interpret and understand the limits of the conclusions that result from research, as well as are good at understanding the needs and interests of society.

I believe that we can improve the efficiency of science funding if these responsibilities are taken on by people who are engaged in science.

Why did you start working at RSU?

I saw RSU as an opportunity for long-term development and activities. The university offers a wonderful transformation of what I do, allowing me to develop.

I came here not only with a vision for my own individual development, but also for the overall development of science at RSU. I have been working at RSU for a short time and I have already noticed several things that I like here – the broadness of conversations, the activity and the enthusiasm of colleagues.

I wanted to work in a larger institution that has the scientific and administrative infrastructure. I wanted to have communication and scientific debates to be able to carry out larger projects. I want to help Riga and Latvia become a centre for academic debates. This goal is also easier to achieve with the support of a larger institution.

At BSC we worked on large projects, but in a small private institution we lacked the administrative capacity to manage such projects ourselves. RSU has that capacity. At the same time, the BSC has a huge amount of experience in attracting funding for large research projects. I hope that my coming to RSU will bring these two institutions closer together, allowing them to use each other's resources.

Networking is very important in science – creating new points of contact helps to solve things in a better and more efficient way in the long term. Similarly, if we want to make a difference in science, we need to connect with the wider science ecosystem.

The acceleration that is affecting the world is also affecting science. We have to discuss these changes, it makes us feel safer.

What plans do you have for the development of science at RSU?

There are four main points in my work plan. First, to develop high-quality research. My plan is to establish a research group at RSU in six years, which would be a dynamic interest group, consisting of doctoral students and researchers from different fields.

My aim is not to build a new institute, but to bring together competent researchers who understand each other and find ways to talk about the issue at a global level.

The research team's role would be to attract large-scale international projects and study the food issue from different angles, such as how diets and food habits change and affect people, and how food system disruptions affect what we eat. There is a demand for such research in the fields of health, agriculture, and economics. The direction of research can be different, one is top-down, where you are told from the top what to study. In practice, these studies are usually funded by the government or the EU. The other is bottom-up, where researchers choose a topic of interest to them and propose it to the institutions. I think it is important to look for opportunities in both directions so that our own accumulated experience and interests would be useful also in the usually much larger top-down studies.

Next, I would like to introduce us – a group of researchers – to other colleagues at RSU and tell about our plans. This means organising various activities that would allow interested researchers to find their way to us.

Third, I would like to communicate this information outside the university. Cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science and other institutions, conferences to present the team of researchers, to show that we are interesting and worth working with. There is also a kind of science lobby to persuade decision-makers to fund studies on a particular topic. Most people think that researchers are only engaged in research, but there has to be a balance between science and communication, as well as networking, finding new contacts and opportunities.

Fourth, and this could be my main task,

we need to create new knowledge and competencies. This means growing and developing ourselves and helping others to do the same. At the same time, it means conducting high-quality research that helps us better understand and interact with complex social processes, so that they can be better managed.

If we cannot create such knowledge, then other activities may not make sense.

I think it is wrong that Eastern Europe is presented as less valuable in the field of science. I see that I am surrounded by wonderful and competent researchers, and instead of doing their job, they are forced to make excuses, while their Western colleagues can waste no time. One of my aims, therefore, is to bring foreign colleagues and show what we are doing. In my experience over the last 10-15 years, colleagues from Western and Southern Europe often have no idea about our research and we are just seen as a former Soviet country. Even though 30 years have passed and our young researchers have no memory or experience of the Soviet era. In many areas, we are equal to or even superior to our foreign colleagues and can bring a new perspective to academic debates.

To be on an equal footing with our Western counterparts, we need to organise big events here, and we need capacity for that. I hope to be able to bring a couple of big congresses in my field to Riga. I think we need to start with ambitious plans – if we start small, we'll stay there.

I can say that the beginning of my work at RSU was very intense. I faced many organisational challenges to create the conditions for the establishment of a research team. For example, I would like to organise a series of seminars bringing together local and international experts to discuss the latest research in the food sector. For this to happen, there must also be an interested audience. I think that doctoral students are a good audience here because they have more time.

I am also thinking of organising a seminar on preparing project applications. The competition for ideas in science is huge, therefore, researchers usually do not share their ideas. Even if researchers have a clear vision, they may lack the practical experience to put it all together.

In terms of research infrastructure, I have to give RSU my absolute compliments. I was fascinated by the fact that I only had to write one email to have all the organisational problems solved – finding a venue and inviting participants.

I understand that everyone here is interested in speeding up processes, but often even people who are interested quickly forget to do something if it is not their main duty. My belief is that people want to do more and better, and it is just a matter of finding the right way to do it.

Which colleagues are you looking forward to meeting in your working group?

The field they represent is not the most important thing. What matters the most is what they want to do, what their way of thinking is, because points of contact can be found everywhere. Of course, there are some areas that are more interesting to me, such as sustainability, food, rural development, diets. Researchers in Latvia often cover a wide range of topics, and here we can discuss where innovations in science come from – at the core of a certain topic or at the intersection of different fields. On the one hand, it is valuable to go deep into one topic, but on the other hand, if you cover many issues, you can see a completely different perspective.

Nutrition specialists, political scientists, entrepreneurs, communication specialists, lawyers – researchers in these fields would have a wide field of work in my working group.

If we are going to address food sustainability, policy makers are very important. Communication is also important – it can direct people's attention in the right direction. I think that in the long term, the research direction could also focus on health issues.

Please tell us about your research topic.

I focus on food – I am among the most visible researchers in Europe in this field. The food industry is now facing various challenges, the most important being the issue of sustainability in its social, economic and environmental dimensions. The relationship between rural and urban areas is dramatic and new challenges are emerging in food production. To address them successfully, the consumer needs to be more involved in the equation. The question of whether healthy food is available in sufficient quantities is coming into focus. The war in Ukraine has also had an impact on this area, raising the question of safe and affordable food. The RSU offers a health dimension to this issue, which I hope to develop, for example how to combine sustainability with health.

Do you focus your research in an interdisciplinary direction?

Food research worldwide is mostly related to economics and agricultural economics, but in practice it is very interdisciplinary. Although I said that I am a sociologist through and through, I have come quite far from traditional sociology in my research on this topic. I am now quite familiar with and knowledgeable about various economic theories, agricultural production principles, food and health aspects, but I am not an expert in these matters.

I think that all issues today are becoming systemic and you have to look at the problem in context. The systemic approach is the dimension in which science has to develop.

This means taking into account all stakeholders, perspectives and opinions, and understanding how one action affects the next. There are several players in every process, each with their own perspective, opinion, influence and interaction.

If we want to solve something, we need to take into account the needs of these different agents. Often, understanding the system allows us to understand why things work or don't work - not only in science, but also in everyday life. In practice, it is often the case that the more complex the system, the easier it is to break it down. It is important to understand what is the weak point in the system that, if hit, causes the system to break down. This is a very interesting topic, and I will conduct lectures for doctoral students on it.

It means that research won't be your only job at RSU – you will also teach doctoral students.

Yes, I will give lectures to doctoral students. The advantage of being a tenured professor is that I can devote most of my time to science, but I am really looking forward to working with doctoral students. They have a great potential for change, they know why they have come here and they are ready to work with passion.