As usual, the input from the different players involved reads much like a wish list, essentially requesting more funding. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, and the research bill is expected to include additional resources for the higher education sector. Otherwise, there’s very little point in writing a bill.

But the big question that no one is asking is how do you create a stable, transparent long-term higher education policy? Or put another way: what are the vital and most fundamental issues that need to be managed and resolved in order to create a successful, sustainable higher education sector that works long-term, and can meet society’s many needs for higher education and research?

Looking back, the major reform of 1977 for instance, when many new universities came into being, was preceded by a far-reaching inquiry that went on for many years and produced a variety of reports along the way. And even earlier than that, from the mid-1950s, a universities inquiry strove to produce “an all-round and unconditional assessment of the duties and needs of universities and colleges in modern society”. It is worth noting that the focus was both on what the higher education sector should do, and on what needs universities and colleges have.

The dynamics here mean that higher education is not only viewed as a provider of societal benefit, but also as a sector that needs to have certain conditions met to be able to operate – and these needs ought reasonably to be politically guaranteed.

Another question is whether the higher education sector is the kind of area that should have long-term political majorities in place for the fundamental issues, on which shorter-term research bills can draw. Other fields such as defence and energy are also areas that should require broader consensus, where politicians strive to tackle and resolve specific issues that extend beyond a parliamentary mandate period.

There are many issues of this kind that could be brought to the fore. One important question is how (political) control can be exercised in a system that simultaneously guarantees institutional autonomy for the universities. Another is how the wide variety of types of university and college today can be given space for their particular speciality, as well as the conditions they need to contribute to society in different ways. A third is how national missions can make an impression in the kind of diverse university landscape we have today, and how important national initiatives on, say, infrastructure, can be made possible.

There is also, and perhaps always, a need to express the freedom of education and research, and to problematise how freedom for the institutions, researchers/teachers and students can be combined with ambitions for societal relevance and labour market interests.

While every research bill does tend to include discussions of more fundamental issues, it has been some time since the state united to formulate both the duties and the needs of universities and colleges, in the way it did in 1955.

Or the people behind the mRNA technology that won the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine. Imagine making a discovery that changes the world. I wonder how it feels. And how much time, patience and rethinking is involved.

All research contributes to just that, not least that conducted at KTH in a number of different areas.

Not everyone gets a Nobel Prize – Hannes Alfvén at KTH received one in physics in 1970 – but everyone contributes to the development of knowledge and new results with the potential to meet and counter the complex societal challenges we face. Just as students, with their curiosity and questioning, drive new answers and solutions.

The situation in the world is not optimal at the moment, to use an understatement, but these revolutionary discoveries give me great hope for the future.

Also, no researcher works in an empty room, but is in a group, in collaborations, in networks and in contexts across disciplinary and subject boundaries – often even national boundaries.

At KTH we have a number of researchers who have been inspired by, maybe competed against or collaborated with Nobel Prize winners over the years. Here you can read some of their thoughts  about both the Nobel Prize in Physics and the development of the mRNA technology and the Nobel Prize in Medicine that laid the foundation for the vaccine developed to combat COVID-19.

Or the Nobel Prize in Chemistry  that went to those who developed quantum dots. These have changed and illuminated our everyday lives in many ways, for example in LED lighting and TV screens.

And bearing in mind the way universities are structured, it is among researchers and teachers that the most detailed knowledge of research and education content is to be found. It is difficult in any simple, obvious way to claim authority over the knowledge of the research group if you are not part of that group, or if you work in another subject field or somewhere else higher up the university hierarchy. Instead it is peers, colleagues in the same or adjacent disciplines, who are best placed to expound on the quality of the research or education in question.

Having a collegial structure in place that considers the needs, thoughts and opinions of those closest to the everyday reality at the university regarding research and education is important for other reasons too. Decentralised governance founded on scientific expertise and discussion stands on firmer ground, and this bolsters the universities’ autonomy and independence as regards political governance.

At the same time it can also, somewhat paradoxically, make a seat of learning more agile. It can increase flexibility related to research and the focus of education relative to the wider world, both nationally and internationally. This is because the people most familiar with the status of research in a particular field can best suggest changes.

As well as being pivotal to any scientific environment, collegiality is also a form for exerting influence, executing governance and taking responsibility. As a form for governance, scientific judgement can be used as a basis for more general quality appraisals in a broader subject group, for instance in decisions relating to quality-enhancement measures, education plans or qualification requirements in third-cycle education. In the same way, collegial governance could also include participation in general discussions about, say, operational plans, regardless of where the formal decisions are made.

The collegial approach also needs to co-exist alongside a more traditional line organisation, where managers have a clearly defined mandate and responsibility to work with all manner of issues related to staffing, resource allocation, monitoring and the work environment. In some cases, of course, it may not be immediately clear if a matter should be dealt with by the line organisation or be subject to peer consideration. While this may not always be possible to determine one way or the other, it is nevertheless vital that here, too, wisdom and good judgement from across the organisation are allowed to be factored in.

I hope, and indeed firmly believe, that it is possible to build an organisation with a strong faculty structure alongside a strong line organisation.This can only benefit both development and quality in a university.

Since the ‘price tag’ system was introduced 30 years ago, the NT funding per student in science and engineering programes has lagged behind. This was confirmed for engineering programmes, for instance, in a report by Engineers of Sweden, published this summer.
Needless to say, this stands in glaring contrast to the huge need on the global job market for, specifically, technical expertise and excellence.

According to the government’s proposal, the payment to universities with such students as these, including KTH, is to be raised by 1.6% per full-time student in 2024.

At this point it is hard to predict with any certainty exactly what the monetary amounts will be and what impact they will have. For exact figures, we will probably have to wait until the budget is presented in parliament on 20 September.

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Another pleasing piece of news is that KTH received the top score, five stars for its work on internationalization, for the seventh consecutive year. Using an internationalisation index The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education, STINT, has weighted the international engagement of 28 higher education institutions. Measured parameters include international joint publications, student mobility, international doctoral candidates, programmes taught in English, the international academic experience of faculties, and the international academic experience of management – all for the year 2021.

Although internationalization has become an increasing part of everyday life at KTH, and much of our research and education are fundamentally internationally oriented, it is important for KTH to seek out new collaborations with universities in different countries, focusing not only on Europe but also the US and Africa.

A higher education policy might, for instance, include position statements on the role of education in democratic development and the provision of skills for society, and the importance of research in improving competitiveness and societal progress. A higher education policy agenda could also include core values to protect, such as the institutional autonomy of universities and freedom for students, teachers and researchers to seek out knowledge. The higher education policy would be based on the individual institution’s development needs to enable it to contribute to overall developments in society in the best possible way.

The difference between what we have today and what the higher education sector needs to be, is therefore an expression of the reform that’s needed in the sector. Perhaps the funding system needs to be restructured, perhaps reforms are needed to bolster autonomy, or maybe changes are needed in the admissions procedure to bring higher education more in line with society’s need for skills and expertise. Depending on the ideology and goals, different reform catalogues could be formulated as a foundation for the hard work of drafting reports and bills. So essentially, the standard way of producing policy.

The concern for further education is that while it is the recipient of considerable state resources, it is not an important area in its own right. Higher education is needed to meet challenges in other areas: for example to help achieve the energy transition, provide skills for a changing labour market, or to help solve problems regarding equality in the school system. That’s all well and good.

But far more rarely does anyone ask the question: What do the institutions themselves need if they are to build a strong operation for the good of society? The important matter of the institutions’ own needs if they are to serve as a crucial force in all areas of society, long-term, has been completely absent from any negotiating table during recent governments’ terms of office.

Having said that, maybe it doesn’t matter that much. The higher education sector is robust! There is economic scope and there are great cohorts of staff doing an excellent job, even though higher education policy itself is being ignored. Ground-breaking research is still being done, and universities and other higher education institutions are continuously developing and updating their programmes to meet the needs of students and the labour market.

Even so, something feels off. The risk of not having a higher education policy is that institutions become easy prey when other issues come to the fore. If for example a security-policy issue should arise, the temptation may be to take swift, ineffective action to the detriment of the higher education sector. Or if, say, 180 million kronor is needed somewhere in the political sphere – surely this can be taken from the apparently so well-funded higher education sector, as it doesn’t have a particularly robust reform agenda in any case, and it’s an area of low political interest.

This is what could happen if, like Alice in Wonderland, you don’t know – and don’t much care – where you’re going. But it is certainly an interpretation that is a bit exaggerated.