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To become or not to become a foundation – that is the question

In the bill on research and innovation policy, which was presented just before Christmas, there is a statement that says: “In recent years there have been repeated discussions about the form of association of Swedish higher education institutions. The government therefore intends to commission a study to analyse the appropriateness of the current form of authority for state universities and university colleges. Two sentences that could lead to a minor revolution in the higher education sector, and that arouse curiosity about the exciting times ahead…

Employee funds  were used in the early 1990s when two higher education institutions, Jönköping University and Chalmers University of Technology, were transformed into foundations. The issue was then examined as part of the Alliance government’s reform agenda around 2010. After a largely negative consultation process, none of the proposals put forward at the time to create a special form of authority for higher education institutions were implemented. It was back again in the mid-2010s, but then the proposals for the transformation of foundations were not even put out to consultation, but were scrapped after an internal departmental review.

Here we are in 2025 and the government, this time with a liberal education minister, is again launching an inquiry into the governance of higher education institutions. It is not really clear what direction the government has in mind, nor is it clear whether there are any particular challenges or problems that the inquiry should focus on this time.

But the inquiry is important. We need to get out of the sometimes overly restrictive clothes we are wearing now. This can include regulations for government agencies that bind us in ways that are not appropriate, and difficulties in acting fully in academic collaborations, nationally and internationally. So I thought I would take the liberty of suggesting some possible directions for the forthcoming inquiry.

An important starting point might be that not all higher education institutions need to change in the same way at the same time. Let us say that the government takes this opportunity to clearly articulate the different roles and missions of different institutions in the higher education landscape, which may require different forms of association. The most important thing is not to automatically assume that ‘one size fits all’, but to seriously try to link the form of association to the role in the higher education landscape and for Sweden.

There should also be money involved. We are talking about much more than a few billion kronor, but from the government’s point of view it is not a cost but an investment in the foundation’s balance sheet, which the institution must manage while maintaining its purchasing power.

Inspiration may be found in Finland, where higher education institutions received so-called matching funds in their foundations: for every euro the university received in donations, the state added a few euros to the university’s endowment. A new form of authority could also be a way of dismantling our model for the provision of premises, for example by transferring the property portfolio to foundations or companies controlled by the university.

Finally, I hope that the inquiry will be conducted in interaction and perhaps cooperation with both higher education institutions and political representatives. If there are good ideas, it would be good if they were discussed widely and intensively along the way, rather than having a consultation round that effectively kills any ambitions for change, because we need change.

How to attract talents to Sweden in the global labour market?

How attractive is the Swedish labour market and its employers to those from other countries who have completed their doctoral studies in Sweden, and to those who have completed their doctorates in other countries and are looking around the world for possible career opportunities? How difficult is it for highly qualified people to establish themselves in the Swedish labour market compared to other countries? These are important questions to ask when discussing the so-called brain drain.

Before Christmas, the newspaper Dagens Industri started a series of articles on this topic. Under the headline “Researcher drain hits industry hard”, the article discusses the fact that many doctoral students at Swedish universities come from other countries and move abroad after graduation. This is known as the ‘brain drain’ and the consequence is that Swedish industry has less access to qualified, research-trained personnel.

 In 2023, there were 17,500 doctoral students in Sweden, 36 percent of whom will be from other countries, compared to 13 percent in 2000. In engineering, the figures are 54 and 18 percent respectively. The trend is clear. Doctoral education has become much more international in the 2000’s, as have other categories of performance and student groups. Since the total number of doctoral students is now about the same as it was 20 years ago, this means that the number of Swedish doctoral students has fallen by the same amount.

We also know that many foreign doctoral students leave Sweden after their studies. Among those who graduated in 2010, 38 percent remained in Sweden three years after graduation. Among those who graduated in 2015, the figure was 54 percent. The proportion staying has therefore increased. All figures are taken from UKÄ’s reports or statistical database.

It is easy to conclude that the supply of doctoral graduates in Sweden has decreased in line with increased internationalization. It is then natural to question internationalization as such, not least because doctoral education in Sweden is paid for by the taxpayer. Moreover, the times are such that internationalization can be seen as a problem for many different reasons.

So let me take the opposite view. Internationalization is essential if we want to maintain research of the highest quality, and it is only natural that graduates from Swedish universities seek careers both in Sweden and abroad. It becomes a problem when graduates in other countries do not see Sweden as a possible country for further careers. If Sweden only ‘exports’ skills to other countries, but is not able to ‘import’ graduates from other countries, internationalization will be one-sided and problematic for the Swedish supply of skills.

I have not seen any figures that shed light on the situation on the labour market in general, but I would like to rephrase the basic question: It is not just a question of how many people graduate from Swedish universities and then choose to stay and work in Sweden, but also how many people with doctorates work in the Swedish labour market, how this number has developed over time, how many people who come have Swedish or foreign doctorates, and how this corresponds to the needs of the labour market.

Questions about the attractiveness of the Swedish labour market and how easy or difficult it is to establish oneself in the Swedish labour market are therefore questions that should be included if the discussion about the ‘brain drain’ is to be used as a basis for change and measures.Such measures should therefore be aimed at strengthening the attractiveness of the Swedish labour market, regardless of where the doctoral degree was obtained.

This includes a basic understanding that the solution to the problems of supplying doctoral graduates is not less internationalization, but a better ability to attract talent in an international or global competition.

Good initiatives in the research bill – but more freedom on the wish list

The government has recently presented the Research and Innovation Bill for the current parliamentary term. It bears the promising title ‘Research and Innovation for the Future, Curiosity and Benefit’.

The bill means that a total of SEK 6.5 billion will be allocated to Swedish research when the initiatives are fully implemented in 2028. These are significant resources. Several important initiatives will go to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), infrastructure and research excellence. Life sciences, quantum, AI, space, batteries, cyber security and research infrastructure are some of the areas that will receive specific funding. In addition, several frontier technologies will receive funding opportunities.

It is good to see such a significant increase in funding at a time when many other policy areas are in need of increased funding. If you like, you can read the bill as part of Sweden’s response to an increasingly complicated world situation and growing tensions between Europe and the other major continents competing for global influence. Free basic research and success in translating research into application are also important instruments for freedom, democracy and independence!

Of course, there is always a Christmas wish list, and I thought I would share my higher education policy wish list with you this year.

In one package, I hope to see stronger core funding for university research and, in the longer term, greater control over resources so that we can take clearer responsibility for long-term and strategic funding of research.
This has not been fully included in the bill, although there is a significant increase in funding, albeit via external research funding bodies. KTH has traditionally been successful in this competition, and we are driven by excellence, so I am sure that the outcome will be positive for us in the long term, which is a good thing.

But the Research Bill shows that even the increase in basic funding is controlled to an extent that we are not used to, and it has to be said that this makes it more difficult for us to take responsibility and create long-term stable conditions for the most excellent research. So it’s a bit worrying that the proportion of external funding is increasing, and that the proportion that goes directly to universities is largely externally directed, so while it’s great to see large increases in funding for the sector, we’re concerned about the increased governance.

An alternative and freer way of running universities would fit well into another package. And just such an inquiry is announced in the Bill. The government writes that it will set up an inquiry to analyse the appropriateness of the form of authority we currently have for state universities. This is a good thing.

The third package I would like to see is a completely new model for the provision of premises to universities, which would free us from the stranglehold of the current model with Akademiska Hus.
If this was not in the package, there could have been a special compensation to offset the rising costs of premises in recent years. None of this is in the bill, so it is not so good.

Another thing on the wish list is more attention to the need for coordinated investment in research and innovation to create a broader strategic research and innovation agenda for Sweden. This is included in various parts of the bill, including under the heading of clusters of excellence for high technology, which is a good thing.

Efforts to increase the attractiveness and mobility of university activities are also on the wish list. A small package of this kind has also been included, with studies on migration law and proposals for changes to facilitate international recruitment. That’s good!

All in all, there were many gifts that went our way, even if some were missing. In any case, it’s now time to take a break and celebrate the holidays.

So I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

AI – a responsibility and an opportunity for everyone

There is a lot of talk about AI these days. Since the introduction of easily accessible tools that use AI language models, interest has grown significantly. However, the technology to mimic some form of human intelligence is not new.

This year’s Physics Prize was shared between John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for discoveries further back in time that had a major impact on the development of AI, paving the way for the AI that is now increasingly fundamental to scientific work and everyday life.

The AI Commission has also recently presented its roadmap for Sweden, outlining the risks, needs and opportunities it sees for our country. Sweden has the prerequisites, but is at risk of falling behind, and therefore needs to invest heavily in AI in order to secure our position and also to be able to contribute to the long-term development of AI.

At KTH, we have solid experience and a lot of relevant research in this field. Hundreds of researchers are also using AI every day in areas such as energy, transport, health and social planning. AI will affect and change all research and education in a profound way.

To name just a few of the many examples of exciting research with AI at KTH, there are examples such as detecting early signs of infection in babies before it breaks out. Another example is applications in neuroscience and how to track how immune cells in our brains change their shape and respond to environmental signals, even before neurological symptoms appear, such as in Parkinson’s disease.

Efforts must also be made to manage the risks associated with AI. These include the risk of data moving unchecked in global networks in ways we do not want, for example in geopolitical terms. There is also the risk of AI ‘taking over’, a risk that Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton has articulated by saying ‘we have no idea whether we can stay in control’.

However, the solution is not to try to stop development; what is needed is free and independent research that addresses the major issues raised by AI in a responsible and ethically sustainable way. There are, of course, issues of pure technological development, but also issues that have more to do with the use and consequences of AI. As AI in one way or another characterizes science in general and is no longer a separate subject, this is a responsibility that rests on the shoulders of many researchers and a great responsibility for us as a university community.

Layered governance makes things unnecessarily complicated

In government, there is often a well-intentioned desire to do the right thing. It is taxpayers’ money that is being handled, and it is important to be constantly vigilant about how it is spent. This requires transparency and control of activities to ensure that high ambitions for quality, resource efficiency, effectiveness and legal certainty are put into practice. But can it be too much of good things?

From time to time, attention is also drawn to the effectiveness of supervisory and control systems. The question is whether the resources spent on control are commensurate with what is achieved in terms of improved quality or resource efficiency.

In addition to the activities to be carried out within each authority, the state also wants to achieve general objectives related to things like environmental sustainability, gender equality, permanent archive management, zero tolerance of victimisation or discrimination, GDPR, security protection, etc. These are all legitimate objectives and, for one reason or another, necessary values to uphold.

In recent years, the consequences of this layered governance have been problematized, including in reports by the SUHF. In addition, the relevant minister has expressed ambitions to reduce bureaucratic micromanagement, and the Swedish Agency for Public Management has consequently been tasked with examining the consequences for higher education institutions in particular.

In addition to the control, oversight or audit mechanisms that result from the above, each authority, including universities, needs to ensure that the organisation makes decisions in the right way, deals with different issues in a legally sound way, or ensures that different requirements are dealt with in accordance with the applicable regulations. This gives rise to policies, procedures and other governing documents that either refine externally imposed requirements or add new locally defined requirements.

The SUHF report published earlier this year by Ahlbäck Öberg and Boberg states on the last page that “…university managers should take greater responsibility for pointing out the excessive demands that the current state control entails, and that they should also ensure that their own university is not overburdened with administrative tasks that crowd out core activities.

In other words, it is high time to do two things.

First, the overburdening of universities in the form of burdens, controls and requirements of all kinds needs to be recognised (and reduced). When all is said and done, the result is not a more efficient operation with higher quality, but a heavier bureaucracy that risks reducing the amount of resources that actually go to core activities. This is wrong!

Second, the universities themselves need to look at how governance is organised.

What needs to be governed should be governed in a sensible way. Where things need to be done equally, they should be done equally. But there are also times when the level of detail in governance is too high, and the arrangements that are decided locally become overly complicated and resource-intensive, and tend to contribute to more bureaucracy rather than more quality in the organisation. This is also wrong!

Removing a rule, reducing the level of detail or cutting back on reporting also means that there is confidence that the organization is doing the right thing.