The world around us is becoming increasingly turbulent and unpredictable. What is happening in the United States, China and other parts of the world today often differs from what was predicted a few years ago. This complicates matters and makes the world more challenging to navigate, also for universities. Therefore, stable and predictable international university collaborations are particularly important for us right now.

The Nordic community closest to KTH is Nordic 5 Tech, N5T, an alliance comprising KTH and Chalmers in Sweden, NTNU in Norway, DTU in Denmark, and Aalto in Finland. Our countries and university systems are similar. In many ways, we have long had close ties with our Nordic partner universities. This applies to exchanges in research and education, as well as a number of joint programmes.

Within Europe, the European Universities Initiative is one of the European Commission’s flagship projects in our field. Together with eight other universities, KTH is part of the University Network for Innovation, Technology and Engineering – Unite!. This collaboration recognises the need for better, long-term European integration in higher education and research. It also responds to the more general need to strengthen Europe at a time when other parts of the world are advancing in terms of knowledge development and competitiveness.

N5T and Unite! are visible to staff and students in slightly different ways. These can take the form of student or researcher exchanges, seed funding, collaboration on doctoral programmes, or joint courses and programmes. Through close collaboration, we also develop a shared culture and align our policies. The best way to break down barriers is for people to socialise, and we are doing this more and more within the various alliances!

International collaborations in research and education, and exchanging knowledge across national and disciplinary boundaries, are not only incredibly stimulating and exciting – they are necessary.

Even so, it is important not to be naive in the face of tyrannical rule by authoritarian regimes, or to close our eyes to the geopolitical tensions that exist around the world. Knowledge and research can end up in the wrong hands or be used for unintended purposes, such as military purposes. The remedy for this is knowledge of the country or region in question, careful control of any risks, and good judgement to facilitate analysis and consideration of different international collaborations.

It is not an easy balance to achieve, and as a university, it is important that we have the aspects of what we call responsible internationalisation in mind on every level within the organisation.

Should we have a collaboration or exchange with the country or regime in question? Sometimes it is reasonable to stop a collaboration, but openness could also strengthen democracy in the long run in countries where it is otherwise hard to come by. Or at any rate provide inroads for democracy on an individual level – where we have a lot to learn from each other, with our different points of reference or even our disparate world views. And it is important here to distinguish between nation and individual. If a researcher comes here to study, we cannot put the blame on them for the regime they grew up in. So responsible internationalization is also about supporting researchers in countries where it is hard to practise free and independent research and education.

Ultimately though, it is important that KTH nurtures and protects all its students, researchers and staff, whatever their nationality or background.