Unpreparedness and risk in Big Science policy: Sweden and the European Spallation Source

The politics of European collaborative Big Science are inherently uncertain. The European Spallation Source (ESS) for materials science, planned to be built in Sweden with a collaborative European funding solution that was recently finalized is the most recent example. Sweden has so far invested around one billion SEK (&E110 million), taking a significant risk given these uncertainties and given Sweden’s complete lack of experience in hosting such big labs. Tracing the Swedish government’s investments in the ESS project, this article shows that so far, the Swedish ESS bid seems to be generally well funded, but that a long-term plan for the funding and a contingency plan for increased costs seem to be absent. This adds to the seeming unprepared- ness of Sweden and elevates the already quite high level of risk for Swedish science and science policy of investing in the ESS.