Hans Adolfsson: Strengthening education and research together

It is well known that the university has three main duties. The first two are conducting research and development work and providing courses and study programmes based on scholarship or artistic practice and on proven experience. The third main duty is expressed as follows in the Higher Education Act: “The mandate of higher education institutions shall include collaboration for mutual exchanges with the surrounding community, as well as ensuring that the knowledge and expertise found at the higher education institution bring benefit to society.” Collaboration was previously referred to as universities’ “third stream activities”.

However, the various education and research activities we conduct are not limited to the “surrounding community”. We often work with other higher education institutions, both at an individual level, with teachers or researchers, for example, jointly developing courses or conduct research projects, and at an overarching level, where institutions have established various forms of cooperation agreements. One example of the latter is the Stockholm Trio, where we at Stockholm University cooperate with our sister universities, Karolinska Institutet and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Within the Stockholm Trio, we also cooperate internationally through strategic partnerships with the University of Tokyo in Japan and University College London in the UK. On the international stage, Stockholm University is also a member of the European alliance CIVIS, in which eleven European higher education institutions from just as many countries cooperate on educational initiatives.

I have deliberately distinguished between the terms “cooperation” and “collaboration” when describing the university’s involvement with other actors. It can be confusing to distinguish between the terms, but “cooperation” refers to education or research-related work carried out jointly with other higher education institutions or researchers/teachers affiliated with other academic institutions, while “collaboration” concerns parties outside academia, i.e. the “surrounding community”.

We often use both cooperation and collaboration for purposes such as improving the quality of our core duties – education and research – or to gain access to expertise or infrastructure that we do not possess ourselves.

The importance of cooperation within academia is something that has come into increasingly sharp focus recently. The work carried out over the winter and spring to establish new strategic research areas led to extensive discussions among researchers at Sweden’s higher education institutions, aimed at establishing cooperation and creating the strongest possible research environments. As Deputy Vice President Martin Jacobsson previously wrote under the heading “Words from the Senior Management Team”, we fared very well in that round of applications. Similarly, networks of both cooperation and collaboration with academic and non-academic partners have been established in the applications that will soon be submitted under the call for proposals for Cluster of Excellence for Groundbreaking Technology.

In the field of education, there is also a flurry of activity aimed at strengthening existing and establishing new cooperation ventures across institutional boundaries. At this spring’s joint dialogue with the authorities, where the Ministry of Education and Research brings together the country’s universities and colleges, the need for increased cooperation between institutions was a topic of discussion. Demographic trends and changes to admission rules, with more stringent admission requirements for teacher training programmes, are expected to result in significantly fewer students entering university and college programmes. To maintain high quality in programmes with fewer students, cooperation across institutional boundaries may be a viable solution. The Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF) has already conducted a number of reviews of the potential for increased cooperation, particularly within professional programmes leading to teaching qualifications and within healthcare, and a report is due shortly that highlights the general obstacles currently preventing higher education institutions from cooperating fully in the field of education.

Cooperation is also important within the university itself. We have several good examples of this, and a fine testament to internal cooperation is the Government’s recently announced initiative for an EU Master’s programme, in which Stockholm University is one of three higher education institutions in the country to receive special funding to offer the programme. The new programme is a cooperation between the Department of Political Science, the Department of Economics and the Department of Law.

However, summer is now truly approaching, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all staff members for your valuable contributions, which have led to yet another successful academic year for Stockholm University. I hope you get to enjoy a relaxing break this summer and that, when we meet again in the autumn, you will be ready to tackle new challenges in both cooperation and collaboration.

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.