A spirit of openness and strong commitment defined the atmosphere when the Student Union Council — the highest decision-making body of the THS Student Union at KTH — gathered the other evening. Once again, I was reminded of the vital role that the THS Student Union plays in KTH’s success.

Studying at KTH is often demanding. Succeeding in your education requires prior knowledge and hard work. But alongside your studies, you also need an inclusive and stimulating learning environment. This means students should feel secure and find opportunities to grow by getting involved in the union, its chapters, and its associations. By organizing student influence and acting as an umbrella organization for the 22 chapters within the organisation THS creates significant value that benefits us all.

The physical environment is one part of this. KTH strives to provide optimal learning environments in the form of seminar rooms, lecture halls, and group rooms, as well as ensuring that study spaces are available. The campus was crowded last autumn, but as the number of students decreases and adjustments to the premises are made, the campus environment will improve.

The social environment is another important factor. Thanks to the fantastic reception that kicked off the fall semester, many students got involved in welcoming new students. It will soon be time again to plan the autumn reception, in which around a hundred students will spend two days learning about the organization, purpose, and implementation of the reception. Our newcomers should have a positive and welcoming first experience with the campus, KTH, and THS Student Union.

Our commitment to Dare to Care is also part of today’s study environment. Dare to Care aims to foster the readiness and ability to respond when someone is subjected to various forms of undesirable behavior, including harassment and sexual abuse.

Strong camaraderie among students is also important, of course. This means being willing and ready to help, mentor, build long-term relationships, and create security by getting to know and trust each other. I don’t think you can overestimate the importance of THS and its chapters in achieving this.

Sweden needs more engineers. KTH can educate them. Its STEM strategy states that the number of students studying science and technology should increase from 83,000 to 90,000 at the latest within ten years. Achieving this seems like simple maths, as the needs of the labour market, the government’s goals and KTH’s capacity are all pointing in the same direction. But it’s not that simple.

Each year, the government sets a ceiling amount for each educational institution. This is the maximum amount that the educational institution can receive as compensation for education provided during a given year, expressed in Swedish kronor. Each student represents a deduction from the ceiling amount according to a list of compensation amounts per student that the government decides on each year. A full-time engineering student who passes all their courses in one year gives the university an income of 120,000 SEK.

In other words, the ceiling amount reflects the scale of the educational mandate assigned to each higher education institution. Despite the clear correlation between the needs of the labour market, the government’s objectives and KTH’s capabilities, our ceiling amount has been reduced in recent years. This means that we are accepting fewer new students each year.

A few weeks ago, the President of Chalmers and I wrote an opinion piece about this in DN (in Swedish) h. This has also prompted comments in a number of different newspapers. Our message is being heard, and we look forward to continuing the dialogue with our client on these issues in order to improve the long-term supply of skills to meet the needs of industry and administration.

We are also developing our course range, refining and improving our teaching methods. Our agenda includes active measures to strengthen the quality of our educational environment and improve access to experimental environments for students. We are planning for the future, and as I mentioned, we are ready to welcome more students to KTH.

Of all first-choice applicants to engineering programmes in Sweden, 28.8 percent apply to KTH – an impressive market share.

But we are facing a challenge – the government’s decision to reduce the ceiling for many universities, including KTH, in the coming years will affect the opportunities for many students to start their academic journey.  At the same time, the Swedish labour market has a great need for engineers. In areas such as sustainability, digitalization, AI development and infrastructure, technical skills are important. It is therefore natural that KTH’s engineering programmes have a high number of applicants, as the education lays the foundation for future job opportunities.

However, we now have to decide how to distribute the reduced admission numbers among the different programmes. This will not only affect those currently hoping to study engineering, but may also have consequences for society as a whole. A smaller supply of trained engineers can obviously have a long-term impact on technology-intensive industries and their development.

Many argue that Sweden should invest more in engineering education, especially in areas where technological innovation is central. Instead of reducing education places, we should discuss how we can strengthen the supply of skills and support Swedish industry.

Regardless of future political decisions, interest in studying at KTH remains high, and we look forward to welcoming the new students in August.

The reception at KTH is probably one of the best in the country, I dare say, with around 1,500 students involved. The sections of the Student Union are the natural home for our students, and the sections are of course also central to the reception. The sections are a ‘home away from home’ during the study period. From the university side, we are both happy and proud of the great cooperation we have with the Students’ Union and the chapters. What you do is of great value to all students and to the attractiveness of our university and, in turn, to the success of our students.

This year we admitted nearly 4,500 new undergraduate students and nearly 3,000 into our various programmes. Both the total number of applicants and the total number of first choice applicants were at record levels this year. In fact, we have never had as many first-choice applicants for our civil engineering programmes as this year. KTH is also the university with the most applicants for engineering programmes in the country. More than 27 percent of all applicants to engineering programmes in Sweden apply to KTH!

International applications were also strong. We received more than 25,000 applications for our Master’s programmes, of which 13,000 chose KTH as their first choice and 10,000 of them were fee-paying students. These are also record numbers.

As I mentioned, there is something special about the start of the semester on campus, and I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all our students to campus, to thank all the students who made the welcome possible, and to wish you all the best in your further studies here at KTH.

But the issue that’s generally neglected is what this research should be, and how the quality of research improves when there is a close link between it, education and students. Is it equally obvious that research should be linked to education, as it is that education should be linked to research? It’s never a bad thing to have young, questioning people around, but how does this bolster research, and how can the interchange between education and research be developed in a way that teachers, researchers and students need each other?

These matters were subjects for debate at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences last week, in which I participated, based on a recent report (in Swedish only) presented by the Academy. The report looks at how education and research can be closely integrated in further education in Sweden today – or rather, how this is currently not happening.

One suggestion in the report is that greater efforts in research should also be accompanied by efforts to develop the education environment. This is an interesting and innovative proposal, which would mean that research efforts should also work in favour of education, for example by linking the development of master’s programmes to research funding.

For a research-intensive university like KTH, this would be a positive development. It would mean that we have greater scope to create complete academic environments, and could also better benefit from the advantages that arise from expanded, successful research environments. One pivotal argument in linking education to research funding is that it is through education that we can most quickly ensure that the latest and most advanced research has an impact.

I look forward to continuing this discussion in other forums, and to have further opportunities to emphasise the importance of keeping research and education closely linked. In that context, it would of course be important to once again raise the issue of collective funding for research and education (as is the practice in many other countries, not least in the Nordics) so that the connection between research and education is emphasised also in the governance system. This is, after all, what makes us a university.