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.