Author
One of the biggest challenges for universities in Sweden is the high level of external funding. Today, just over 60 per cent of research funding is won in a competitive bidding process.
Our staff work hard to apply for money, follow up and report on grants to a variety of funders with different requirements for follow-up, different rules for how the money can be used, different rules for covering overheads and requirements for co-financing. We are good at this!
However, a challenging consequence of the funding system is that it is difficult for universities to be really good employers. Although we know with a fair degree of certainty that funding will come to the university through external funders, it is difficult to know in advance exactly what we will be funded for and on what terms.
At the same time, there is a strong expectation that universities will provide secure conditions and predictable career paths for our academic staff. In other words, the combination of a lot of sometimes short-term external funding and the need for long-term favourable conditions for our academic staff is not the easiest to solve.
During the year, KTH has investigated how we should structure our career system and also how different categories of academic employment outside the career system should be described.
The aim is to be able to offer clear conditions for all our academic positions and to take long-term financial responsibility for the positions we offer. Not everyone can have everything, but everyone can know what applies to the category to which they belong.
Universities also offer a large number of fixed-term positions in the form of PhD studentships, post-docs and assistant professorships. It is generally accepted that academic careers are built on such positions, which eventually lead to tenure. However, even with fixed-term contracts, it is important that the terms and conditions are clear.
Universities have a great deal of freedom in shaping the career system, although there are some legal and regulatory constraints. This freedom also brings with it a great deal of responsibility and, as I said, the somewhat challenging question of how to combine a high proportion of external funding with secure and predictable employment conditions. One of KTH’s goals is to create an attractive, inclusive and equal working environment. The career system is an important part of achieving this.
Author
There have been a number of high-profile reports recently showing that Europe is lagging behind both the United States and Asian countries – perhaps especially China – in terms of competitiveness. This is also reflected in the development of research, where investment in research is particularly strong in China.
But at the same time, there are both possible and necessary actions to reverse the trend, where investment in research, innovation and new technologies can form the basis for a future leading position for Europe.
According to the Draghi report published in September, Europe’s competitiveness situation is precarious.
Increasing the pace of innovation, lowering energy prices and reducing dependency in an unstable environment are key elements of the analysis. It calls for strong investment in innovation and new technologies, as well as a reform of the EU’s Horizon Europe research programme, which runs until 2027.
Among other things, it is proposed that the research programme should focus on fewer areas and prioritise them, better coordinate research and development investments through a common Research and Innovation Union, and improve funding and facilitate start-ups and scale-ups in the European market.
Another proposal mentioned in a report on the EU’s market published this spring is for a fifth freedom, i.e. in addition to the free movement of goods, services, capital and people, the freedom to conduct research, knowledge, innovation and education across borders.
This is also highlighted as an important way to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness in the report of the European Commission’s Expert Group for the Evaluation of EU Research Programme. Sykvia Schwaag Serger, Professor and CEO of IVA, is the lead author.
The report proposes a number of measures, including doubling the budget for future EU research programmes to €220 billion over seven years.
The report’s authors also call for a “coherent chain” that supports research and innovation results at every stage, from early research to market introduction, so that good ideas can be brought to market more quickly. In an opinion piece, they write: “Strengthening the EU Framework Programme is, in our view, the best investment we can make in the future of our continent, for competitiveness, for security and for sustainability”.
At the European level, KTH is part of the CESAER network, which focused on these issues at its recent meeting in Glasgow. The network brings together some 50 technical universities from 26 countries to discuss how our part of society can best contribute. It was clear from these discussions that the picture painted by Draghi and others is shared by many countries and universities. It is crucial that European programmes are based on this kind of analysis and are able to prioritise research and innovation.
But how can KTH contribute specifically and how can Sweden’s space and contribution to a strong Europe be formulated?
First and foremost, some muscle is needed at the national level to be able to coordinate coordinated investments in cutting-edge research and innovation in selected critical technology areas. Hopefully, future legislation and government initiatives will learn from the many recent policy reports.
Larger, coherent and long-term initiatives would be preferable to many small and scattered ones. A concerted use of different instruments is needed, from graduate schools and research infrastructure to venture capital and scale-up opportunities for new technologies.
As one of Europe’s leading higher education institutions, we are not only important for Sweden and Europe to make a change, we are also a necessary part of the conversation about how best to do it.
Author
I have previously written about the unreasonable model we currently have for the provision of our premises, and the fact that grant funds are returned to the state budget via surplus profits and yield requirements at Akademiska Hus.
The immediate and obvious measure would be either to introduce a cost-based rental model and exempt Akademiska Hus from yield requirements, or to return the distributed funds to the higher education sector. However, other measures are also conceivable. When the model was introduced 30 years ago, it was one of many reforms carried out over a few years in the early 1990s with the aim of increasing market governance, commercialisation of public services and deregulation. It was done in a number of areas.
For higher education institutions, we got a strictly market-based model for the provision of premises. This means that commercial property companies own the premises, which are then leased to universities. The market is good, but one concern is that it is only the market at one end of our profit and loss account.
Every business in the city – ICA, Vattenfall, the dry cleaner on the corner, Ericsson, for example – that lives under commercial conditions has to constantly balance its costs and income. If costs spiral out of control, for example due to a sharp increase in premises costs, management must assess whether this can be passed on to customers in the form of higher prices or, alternatively, whether it can be managed to some extent through lower profits or increased internal efficiency.
In the model under which universities operate, costs are spiralling and we are forced to reduce our costs and increase efficiency.
However, we have no influence on the details of the prices we charge our customers. The state, which receives the surplus profits from Akademiska Hus, has full control over the prices we can charge our customers in the form of the per-student price list decided in the budget bill, and these prices do not increase at all in line with costs.
If it is to be a free market, it is conceivable that educational institutions would be given the right to raise prices to compensate for increased costs: it would simply be more expensive for the buyer, in this case the state, to buy education from universities if costs rise sharply.
This is not an unreasonable model if you want a market model for what we do.
The problem now is that there is a market at the end where the costs increase, but government planning at the end where the revenue is generated. And even though it’s the government at both ends, there doesn’t seem to be an understanding that one hand is creating unreasonable consequences that the other hand is not compensating for.
Of course, we would have to maintain the requirements for constant efficiency improvements, but it’s not possible to conjure up the consequences of a nearly 20 percent increase in the cost of premises in two years through efficiency improvements.We just have to raise prices too!
Author
The government presents a research and innovation bill once every government term, and for the current term it will be presented in December 2024. But the ministers responsible have already announced that there will be a total investment of SEK 6.5 billion in annual increases.
That’s a lot of money – in fact, it’s one of the largest investments in recent decades. In 2023, direct government funding will amount to SEK 22.8 billion and total external research funding (government, private, national and international) will amount to SEK 29.3 billion.
Given that research policy did not seem to be a priority in the Tidö cooperation and that there are so many areas that need investment, it is very positive news that so much money is being invested in Swedish research. The government has also shown when and how it intends to distribute the investments. The new funds will be added in stages, with SEK 1.5 billion in 2025 and, as I said, SEK 6.5 billion in 2028.
Of the SEK 6.5 billion, just under SEK 4.9 billion will go to the research councils (VR, Formas, Forte) as well as Vinnova, Rise and the Swedish National Space Board. Just over SEK 1.6 billion will be distributed as increased basic grants to universities and colleges. VR alone will receive a larger increase (just over SEK 2.5 billion) than the higher education sector as a whole. One assumption is that this includes specific funding for large national research infrastructures.
This means that overall external funding for universities will increase. We currently have 62 per cent external funding, and with reasonable success in relation to the additional funding, this percentage will increase in the future.
A high proportion of external funding means a lot of quality-assured allocations, but also considerable transaction costs. There are many judgments to be made and, as always, the question is where the optimal balance lies: When does quality assured funding at project level cost more than the quality gain that this model of funding provides? I think we passed that point a long time ago.
Now that the government has decided to further increase external funding at the expense of basic funding, I would still like to see some innovations in the way research funding organisations work.
Large and long-term funding packages, perhaps focused on broader themes defined by researchers, preferably in collaboration between different higher education institutions; or
strong research career grants that give the most successful researchers more time to freely build successful research environments; or
investment in specific technology areas for the long-term development of innovation capacity, research and scale-up. The key words are long term, long term and long term!
Author
Sweden is a small, internationally oriented country with an open economy and a lively exchange with the outside world. An important part of this is that there are reasonable conditions for people to move across borders. This applies to opportunities for foreign students to study in Sweden and for universities, companies and public authorities to recruit internationally.
At the same time, given the current geopolitical situation, there is a need for effective border control and rules that prevent permits to study or work in Sweden from being misused for criminal purposes and for illegal immigration into the country and Europe.
Over time, various regulations have been tightened to curb abuse, not least with regard to the rules for study permits. At times, there has been considerable frustration at universities about long processing times, and students have sometimes been unable to obtain residence permits in time for the start of the semester, despite having been admitted.
It is important to ensure that the right students, who have what is known as an intention to study, are properly admitted and can also go through the process of obtaining a residence permit. In recent years, the universities, through the SUHF, and the Swedish Migration Agency have worked intensively to jointly define problems and shortcomings and to address some obvious weaknesses in the system.
Recently, the universities and the Migration Agency have reached an agreement whereby the educational centres undertake to report interruptions in studies to the Migration Agency in a systematic and quality-assured manner. On this basis, the Migration Agency can now issue two-year residence permits to students instead of the previous one-year permits.This will reduce the number of cases and processing times, while giving students greater security during their studies.
This is very positive. At the same time, a number of other measures are being considered to improve opportunities for foreign students and workers. These include measures relating to the higher education sector and more general investigations into the immigration of skilled workers.
Another important area for foreign students is to have a reasonable chance of establishing themselves in the Swedish labour market after their studies. This requires both that companies and organisations recruit talent from this group of graduates and that regulations do not force graduates to leave too quickly.
If Sweden is to manage the supply of skills in the long term, we must be able to attract foreign students and employees to Sweden and not lose talent abroad. This is what internationalisation is all about!This is very positive. At the same time, investigations are under way into several other measures to improve opportunities for foreign students and employees. These include measures affecting the university sector and more generally oriented investigations into skilled labour immigration.
Another important area for foreign students is to have a reasonable opportunity to establish themselves in the Swedish labour market after their studies. This requires both that companies and organisations recruit talent from this group of graduates and that the regulations do not force graduates to leave too quickly.
If Sweden is to manage the supply of skills in the long term, we must be able to attract foreign students and employees to Sweden and not lose talent abroad. This is internationalisation for real!
