There has been a shift of resources from education to research. We are putting forward three proposals for the 2024 research bill, to strengthen education.
The proposals are:
- The policy should introduce a 2 percent target for government spending on research and higher education as a share of GDP. In other words, an overall spending target that aims to strengthen Sweden as a nation of knowledge. The goal is set high, but not unattainable. That's just 0,3 percentage points higher than spending in 2012.
- New funds should primarily be directed towards education at basic level and advanced level so that they can grow to catch up with research. None of the business branches should take over, but today significantly more resources go to research and politics needs to address that.
- The distortions in research funding need to be straightened out. The government should reduce the large number of research funders and transfer some of the money directly to the universities. The reform should be combined with clearer demands on the higher education institutions to build up their research programs and hire more doctoral students with the help of the new resources.