Right now, the Ministry of Education, under the leadership of Minister Matilda Ernkrans, is developing the new research bill. The bill, which will be presented next autumn, will guide the government's research policy for the next four years. Despite its framing name, the bill's proposal will have a major impact on students, doctoral students and on the overall development of higher education.
Last week, SFS attended a seminar arranged by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, where Minister Ernkrans said that 300 different actors have submitted requests for what the research bill should contain. Even though there are similarities between the recordings, the lyrics are long and contain many specific wishes. For the sake of clarity, we have chosen the three most important aspects according to SFS:
SFS wants the government to:
-
Proceed with the proposals in the Control and Resource Inquiry,
-
Improve doctoral students' working environment through better conditions and supervision,
-
Promote complete academic environments, increase basic funding.
The control and resource investigation, which was presented this spring, contained several proposals that we consider necessary. So far, several question marks remain - the research bill will show what the government wants to do to move forward with the proposals. STRUT proposes changes that would fundamentally change the university's governance, and SFS hopes that they include as many aspects as possible.
Through the dialogue-based governance that STRUT proposes, higher education institutions would, for example, need to take greater responsibility for the undersizing of postgraduate education. It is a problem that the number of doctoral students has steadily decreased in recent years, while the number of students at undergraduate and advanced level has steadily increased. It goes without saying that the academy's future supply of skills is threatened if there is a shortage of individuals who stay. It is already difficult to recruit PhD teachers in certain disciplines, and if the trend does not reverse, the problem will affect more fields. If the government has clear objectives and can follow them up in dialogue with higher education institutions, there is a chance that the trend may reverse.
Furthermore, the inquiry proposes to remove the system that allocates grants based on student performance (HPR). The system as it stands today gives higher education institutions incentives to lower the requirements for students because they need to approve a certain number of students in order to maximize the grants they are allocated. High quality teaching is one of SFS 'top priorities, which is why we hope the government removes HPR in the resource allocation.
For more information about STRUT, see sfs.se/strut.
Doctoral students' work environment is today characterized by uncertain conditions, high demands and destructive power structures. 9 percent of doctoral students are not employed, which should be addressed in the research bill. An unknown but significant proportion is what are called "shadow doctoral students", who begin their doctoral studies informally before they are admitted. In the middle ground between students and professionals, sometimes these doctoral students are completely without security systems such as insurance and fair conditions. SFS believes that the conditions for doctoral students are a priority area.
Furthermore, the government should give higher education institutions support in the work for a better working environment, and the situation of doctoral students should be especially highlighted so that they are not forgotten in the assignment. The inquiry into safer and more efficient studies proposed that the Swedish Work Environment Authority should support higher education institutions in its responsibility for student rehabilitation, we want their responsibility to be more comprehensive. The Swedish Work Environment Authority could oversee the entire chain, from preventive work to e.g. mental illness, to rehabilitation, so that nothing ends up between the chairs.
Furthermore, we want the bill to show how the work to counteract sexual harassment at our universities will continue. 19 percent of female doctoral students have been exposed in their workplace. In addition to allocating resources to gender equality work, we see an opportunity to give the Discrimination Ombudsman guidelines to prioritize higher education institutions in their supervisory work.
Complete academic environments where research and teaching are closely linked are crucial for a knowledge society in development. In line with that ambition, we support the proposal in STRUT that higher education institutions should be allocated a total grant for education and research. The reform would give education-heavy universities the opportunity to invest more in research, and research-heavy universities would be able to invest more in education.
Furthermore, a collective grant would make it easier to develop education together with research. For example, a smaller institution that receives resources allocated for an investment in a certain area would have the opportunity to make a parallel research investment in the same area. The idea that teachers should do research in the field they teach, and vice versa, is central.
In addition - and there is relatively much agreement on this - the share is needed base estimate to research increase. Basic grants mean grants that go directly to higher education institutions and are not tied to time-limited projects. This would increase the long-term and stability of research, as well as make it easier for higher education institutions to minimize temporary employment. An increase in the basic funding for research would also in all probability improve the quality of education, as research teachers are not as pressured to opt out of educational activities in order to retain their employment, as it often depends on the ability to attract external funding.
We know that some higher education institutions are concerned that this would mean that they would receive a smaller share of and thus have to close down parts of their current research activities. For this reason, we support STRUT's proposal that new or relocated basic resources be allocated in a way that means that the amount of research funding for each higher education institution does not change in the short term. Changing resource allocation systems is something that should take time to change long-term undesirable behaviors, and therefore STRUT's proposal should become a reality.
Some additional things we want are to improve protection against whistleblowers in case of cheating or misconduct in research, open up innovation-supporting activities for alumni and for the government to continue working on internationalization issues. Read the full recording here.