This week, Sweden’s government decided on a new board of directors for KTH. Johan Sterte, County Governor of Västmanland, is proposed as the new Chair. He has previously been president of Karlstad University, Luleå University of Technology and (what was then) Växjö University. So he is a person with long and impressive experience from the higher education sector, and I look forward to working with him.
The appointment is for the period from 1 May 2023 to 30 September 2024, i.e. 17 months rather than three years as previously. Reducing the mandate period is an unusual move, which the government claims to be making for reasons of security policy – something that prompts questions as well as concern.
Under Sweden’s Higher Education Ordinance and Government Agencies Ordinance, the university board has several important jobs to do. The board is responsible to the government, must make sure that operations are conducted efficiently and in accordance with prevailing laws, is responsible for the overall direction and organisation of the university, and responsible too for ensuring that internal governance and control are in place and functioning properly.
This is a broad definition of the board’s responsibilities, and it includes all central operational issues at the level and the degree of detail it is possible to deal with within the framework of its remit. The board also governs, of course, by maintaining dialogue with the university management in different ways, and by monitoring and checking – via internal audit and internal control systems – that the university is taking its responsibility and being managed in an appropriate manner, and obviously in accordance with rules and laws.
When the board is appointed, it is preceded by a nomination process whereby special nominators draw up a proposal. The proposal is intended to help ensure a diversely composed board of directors, with collective expertise that can live up to the task of a board. The nominators are also given a mandate, and they prepare a balanced proposal which could, for instance, be a balance between people with a management background, with knowledge of the government and national governance, with central competences in important areas of research and education for the university, and so on.
It is perhaps less well known that the board members each have direct or more operational responsibility for a specific or more delimited area of the operation. So it is the collective expertise that matters, and the value can be found in the board’s discussions based on different perspectives and jointly in the boardroom, rather than having the board or individual members micromanaging fine details of specific operational issues.
Occasionally, of course, the government wants to reach out to the university for one reason or another, on some kind of specific operational issue. This is normally done via the spending authorisation, either for an individual university or for the entire higher education sector, in special government missions, in the government agency dialogue and, more rarely, in direct dispatches with questions or orders in connection with some kind of urgent occurrence in society.
There are many ways to govern agencies under the government, and it is up to the government to do so in as wise a manner as possible. To now reduce the boards’ mandate period with reference to there being a lack of some defined specialist expertise is unlikely to go down in history as one of these wise ways of governing universities and other institutes of higher education. But the government, of course, is in charge, and it is for us to continue to work loyally under these new conditions. I do, however, look forward to building more trust between state and university in the future.
New statistics show that lifelong learning at KTH appears to be a success, attracting a lot of applicants for the autumn semester.
KTH now provides almost 200 courses offering the latest knowledge in particular areas. Students can apply for these courses to update their knowledge and keep up with the competition, or simply to learn more and be inspired as their curiosity guides them. There is quite a variation between the different courses, with some attracting far more applicants than there are places, and others vice versa. The most popular course is programming in Python, BB1000, with 931 applicants for 100 places.
The autumn figures also show, for example, that KTH’s MSc Engineering programmes remain the most sought-after, even though there are slightly fewer applicants than last year. There are 4,995 applicants to these programmes and architecture this year, compared to 5,105 last autumn.
The gender distribution among applicants remains much the same as before, with just over 30% being female first-choice applicants. Interest in studying computer science engineering and electrical engineering is lower among women, while the proportion of female first-choice applicants to biotechnology and chemical engineering is slightly higher.
Lifelong learning entails ongoing professional development throughout an active career, whether in the form of short courses or longer programmes. Students may wish to enhance their knowledge in their current work area, or even move partly or wholly into a new field, give their career a boost and make themselves more attractive on the job market. KTH will continuously develop a range of options specifically tailored to this target group, who wish to go into, or return to, higher studies as mature students.
Sweden’s new student finance scheme for transition and retraining has vastly improved opportunities to study later on in life. The scheme is oversubscribed but will gradually be expanded over the coming years in an effort to achieve a better balance. For KTH too, this means that our lifelong learning offering is likely to increase in importance moving forward. It will also be important to strike a balance between upskilling and reskilling in the courses and programmes we offer.
We need to ask ourselves whether we should primarily strive to help people with an existing engineering degree, for example, to develop in their career, or enable those without a technical degree to start studying at more of an entry level. There are of course many opportunities for KTH to be an important player in this discussion as things develop.
Up until our 200th anniversary in 2027, the Future of Education change programme will characterise all education at KTH. It is a package of reforms based on a number of principles for revitalising our education programmes, encompassing aspects such as students’ abilities, pedagogy and campus environments.
One important lesson we learned during the pandemic is that we must build more flexible, student-centric lifelong learning, and lay an even better foundation for KTH to keep up with the competition. Higher education institutions took on the role of safety barrier to some extent during the pandemic, and overnight universities and colleges were forced to make changes to secure students’ education, partly using digital teaching and examination solutions. The key now is not to let things return to their original form but, through the Future of Education programme, to set our sights firmly forwards so that we can be open to a greater diversity of learning and education.
The new conditions for lifelong learning comprise another area that will place new demands on the education we offer in the years to come. We have to find new ways ahead both for pedagogy and for our range of courses and programmes, so that we can better reach the student groups who have already embarked on their careers.
The internationalization of our programmes also continues. We are already highly internationalized, accepting many students from other countries. It is important for the future evolution of our education that we apply the lessons we have learnt in this area.
Educational development, new forms for examination and new technology all bring fresh opportunities as well as new challenges moving forward. There is already a greater breadth of pedagogic models and forms for continuous learning in our programmes today, and it is important that we continue to make positive progress.
The Future of Education programme will include a number of change-oriented projects and will also be reviewed annually. Initiatives being launched in the near future include various kinds of development of our laboratory environments, forms for examination, our range of lifelong learning, extended recruitment, and development of our masters-level programmes, to name but a few.
To bring about change and solve actual problems in the world today, education and innovation need to come together. The way to achieve this is through challenge-driven education, an approach whereby courses and programmes are shaped around genuine societal challenges. The education is often project-led, and can relate to anything from urban planning to clean water and ergonomics.
This challenge-based approach is the main focus of the Global Development Hub, GDH, which began in 2017 in association with four African universities: University of Rwanda, University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Strathmore University (Kenya) and Botho University (Botswana). Together, we have run several courses, held student exchanges and also teacher training. This also makes the GDH a focal point for our presence on the African continent.
Signing a MOU between between KTH and University of Rwanda, Rwanda Polytecnic, Rwanda Development board and National Council for Science and Technology.
In addition, last week we were able to extend our collaboration with the University of Rwanda by signing a Memorandum of Understanding, or MoU. The MoU also includes other parties in Rwanda and a broader portfolio of activities than before, including participation in research and innovation.
Rwanda is a small country in East Africa that has developed rapidly over the past 20 years, and is in different ways a fulcrum for innovation activities, enterprise and societal development in its region. The university has also received ever-better resources for its activities in recent decades, so extending our partnership with it is the right move strategically.
The challenge-driven education model is, as mentioned, pivotal to work within the GDH, but it can of course also be used for activities on campus in Stockholm.
The basic idea is the same: to find potential solutions to societal challenges by combining the challenge in education with innovative solutions. One example is OpenLab, which is run by KTH alongside several higher education institutions in the region, the City of Stockholm and Region Stockholm. It presents an opportunity for our partners to place their concrete challenges in the course and project environment provided by OpenLab.
In the past few weeks, I have had the privilege to meet the newly elected Student Council of the KTH Student Union (THS). The Student Council is elected by the chapters and constitutes the very backbone of the democratic order on which THS is based.
Student involvement in the Student Union, chapters and associations is important to KTH. Not only is it the primary driver for student influence, it is also an important factor in creating a shared study and work environment for the students, one that’s both inclusive and enriching.
For more than ten years now, membership of a student union has been optional at state-run universities, having been mandatory for a long time. This means that student unions now have to actively recruit their members, and doing this obviously depends on having a well-run operation.
THS managed well in the transition to optional membership and today has a far-reaching field of operations beyond active student influence. This includes important reception activities, careers support, and a wide range of social and academic activities for students. It is good to know that THS is there as a close collaboration partner to KTH.
I have mixed emotions when I think back to student council meetings at my own alma mater, further north in Sweden, where our discussions were dominated by political debate and argument well into the small hours. At the time student union politics was strictly party political, and the council’s work was governed accordingly. Discussing matters that were relevant to university studies was far more uncommon.
Student Union Council work at KTH today seems to be quite different, with a clear focus on promoting academic success and developing KTH’s and the Union’s operations.
Positive collaboration is a guarantee of quality development in KTH’s operations in general, and education in particular. Like all other universities, KTH supports its Student Union with more than we receive in state grants. That is problematic.
A student union should be independent of the university in which it operates. A well-intentioned proposal is therefore being submitted to the government: why not double national funding for student influence from SEK 55 million to SEK 110 million? Government funding for student influence must increase to levels equivalent to before mandatory student union membership was abolished.
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