Hans Adolfsson: Strengthening academic freedom must be a priority

A warm welcome back to a new academic year.

Summer is now behind us. I hope you have been able to fill it with both much-needed rest and relaxation as well as a variety of stimulating activities – maybe even some that you can’t normally find the time for during the academic year. I myself spent my time off enjoying a variety of places around Sweden, and took a holiday trip to Iceland – a very fascinating country that offers unbeatable nature experiences.

The autumn semester is about to begin, which can be clearly seen in the hustle and bustle on the university campus as it fills with life and activity once again. Another clear indicator is the President’s calendar filling up with many meetings, with both internal and external parties. Some of the meetings that I really look forward to are the department visits that I and the university’s newly appointed Vice President, Jane Reichel, will be starting this autumn. First on the list are visits to the departments of the Faulty of Social Sciences.

The semester is about to begin, but a lot has already happened. As you may have already noted, the university – in partnership with the University of Gothenburg – has been tasked by the Government to assist the Swedish Council for Higher Education (UHR) in developing a citizenship test. The introduction of citizenship tests is part of the so-called Tidö Agreement, i.e. it is a result of a political agreement. For our part, this involves the university designing tests in Swedish, and the whole project must be completed by mid-August next year.

When we were informed that this task would be assigned to the university, we made it clear to the Government that this type of activity cannot be classified as part of the university’s core mission, education, research or collaboration as defined in the Higher Education Act, and that the task should therefore not be assigned to the university. We also stressed that such a decision represents a clear departure from established practice in Sweden and internationally, which safeguards an arm’s length relationship between the State and higher education institutions when it comes to the implementation of assignments linked to political agreements. In the long run, such decisions may lead to the university being used as a political tool, which could undermine both academic independence and trust in the knowledge that is imparted and developed. The Government nonetheless chose to proceed and give us the assignment on the grounds that Stockholm University is a public authority under the Government and that we already design various types of tests, such as the national tests in Swedish for immigrants and the so-called Tisus tests.

Why did we protest against this assignment when we have the expertise to develop quality-assured tests? The major difference between the tests we currently design and a citizenship test is that both the national tests and the Tisus test enable students to qualify for admission to university programmes. A citizenship test, by contrast, has no bearing on the university’s activities. We admit students who have the right qualifications for our programmes and courses, regardless of their nationality.

The Government is unlikely to back down from its decision to give us this assignment, but at the same time it acknowledges that the public authority form may not be the best organisational form for universities and colleges. We must therefore hope that the announced inquiry into the organisational form of higher education institutions will actually get underway in the autumn, and that we as a university will be spared this form of direct political control in the future. Strengthening academic freedom and institutional autonomy must be a priority. It is worth continuing to fight for.

This text is written by President Hans Adolfsson. It appears in the section “Words from the Management”, in which members of the university’s management team take turns to write about topical issues. The section appears in News for staff which is distributed to the entirety of the University staff.