Sweden is one of the countries in the world investing the most resources, measured as percentage of GDP, on research and higher education. It is important that this system is properly managed, organized and funded to ensure a high quality and good utilization of resources.
How are universities and colleges to respond to the labor market’s growing demand for increasingly advanced skills in the future? What is the role of higher education when it comes to organizing lifelong learning? What should the interplay between research and higher education look like? And how to create good conditions for research and utilizing research results that contribute to the development of society? These are some of the issues highlighted by SNS in the project “Higher education and research.” The project timeframe is 2022–2024.
Research director: Jonas Klarin, jonas.klarin@sns.se, 0722-51 57 98
Project manager: Susanna Allstrin, susanna.allstrin@sns.se, 0790-98 13 33
Mikael Witterblad, head of the research program, mikael.witterblad@sns.se
In recent decades, the higher education sector has rapidly expanded to meet the increased demands of the labor market voiced in previous periods but also due to a political ambition to enable everyone to engage in higher education. Today, nearly 400,000 people attend a university or college each year.
Increased international competition and rapid technological developments result in the labor market gradually increasing its skill requirements. The number of highly qualified jobs continues to grow, whereas simpler jobs are being automated to a great extent. Large groups of individuals already working are also expected to return to higher education several times during their professional life.
At the same time, digitalization creates new opportunities for increasing the level of flexibility and distance learning in future course offerings.
Higher education and research serve as vessels for communication. The universities train researchers who, in turn, teach students about new discoveries in their respective fields of research. The quality of the research thus affects the quality of teaching, which, in turn, affects the skills and expertise of future researchers.
A well-designed research infrastructure is a key factor for carrying out high-quality research. The current research infrastructure landscape is complex and includes a multitude of actors. Investments in infrastructure require long planning horizons, collaborations between HEIs and industry actors as well as political consensus regarding research policy.
A major change in Swedish research policy over the last few decades is moving toward more resources being transferred to the state-run research councils. They offer research funding in a competitive process to researchers working at state-run HEIs, companies and private research institutes, mainly in accordance with the subject areas decided by the government and parliament.
Since the end of the 1990s, universities are legally obligated to seek to interact with society at large in order to make their research beneficial. One way of making research beneficial is that it leads to innovations being created in society.
Upcoming seminars
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The Scope of Higher Education – Who Decides? 2023.09.19
OECD on Sweden’s Research Landscape 2023.03.24
Returns to higher education after adult secondary education 2022.11.17
How Does Online Education Affect the Well-Being and Grades of Students? 2022.10.06
Administration in higher education 2022.08.29
How should Sweden secure the supply of Ph.D. educated? 2022.05.02
The role of higher education in lifelong learning 2022.03.25
Start from scratch!? Towards a higher education policy for our era 2023.10.27
The Scope of Higher Education – Who Decides? 2023.09.19
Competition and Control in Government Research Funding 2023.06.13
SNS Research Brief 91. Returns to higher education after adult secondary education 2022.11.17
SNS Research Brief 89. How Does Online Education Affect the Well-Being and Grades of Students 2022.10.06
SNS Research Brief 87. Administration in higher education 2022.09.06
Twelve new university colleges were established in Sweden in 1977. A stated aim of the reform was to broaden recruitment to higher education. The reform was controversial since it according to critics combined geographic decentralization with political central planning.
No systematic evaluation of the reform has been done. Partly because the outcomes only can be evaluated after sufficiently long time has passed, and partly because different actors had different purposes with the reform. Our research project aims to contribute to the understanding of both short- and long-term effects of the reform.
Authors: Thomas Åstebro, professor of entrepreneurship at HEC Paris and IFN, Andreas Bergh, associate professor of economics at Lund University and IFN, Joacim Tåg, professor of economics at Hanken in Helsinki and IFN, and Henrik Hällerfors, doctoral student in economics at Uppsala University.
To be published: spring 2024
The proportion of women in the academy is rising at a slow pace, especially in the highest positions, in spite of girls and women, on average, performing better in primary, secondary and higher education, measured in grades. This report examines the impact of raising a family with regard to individual academic careers. More specifically, we will study how the first child in particular affects the production of science and how having children has an impact on women and men deciding to abandon their academic career.
Author: Olof Ejermo, professor of economic history at Lund University
To be published: fall 2024.
Universities and university colleges have a statutory mission to engage in collaboration with society at large. The purpose of our study is to map what legal issues are typically monitored by higher educational institutions in discussions on potential collaborations concerning externally employed doctoral students. The report will also analyze under what circumstances such uncertainties on legal issues may impede or hinder collaboration. The study will lastly include a comparison of practices developed by higher educational institutions, as well as a legal analysis of the exposure to sanctions or the like that underlie the different practices.
Authors: Magnus Strand, associate professor of European Law and lecturer in Commercial Law at Uppsala University, Linda Wedlin, professor of Business Studies at Uppsala University, and Thomas Schön, professor of Artificial Intelligence at Uppsala University.
To be published: fall 2024.
More reports are published on an ongoing basis.
AstraZeneca, Chalmers University of Technology, Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, Ericsson, Formas, Forte, Knowledge Foundation, Lund University, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Saab AB, Stockholm University, Swedish Association of Graduate Engineers, Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, Swedish Confederation of Professional Associations, Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees, Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, Swedish Higher Education Authority, Swedish National Union of Students, Swedish Research Council, TRR, Vinnova, Volvo Cars.