International doctoral students were seen as important to retain in Sweden just a few years ago. But politicians who said they protect researchers are silent today when the rules have changed radically, write Meryem Saadi and Katharina Keuenhof, members of the SFS Doctoral Committee.
"Sweden must become more attractive to global talent. Not least, foreign students and doctoral students are important, and new rules are needed to make it easier for them to stay.” This statement is unrelated to the new Aliens act that the Riksdag voted for in 2021. It stems from a debate article published in 2014 in SvD. The Moderate politicians Tobias Billström and Anna Kinberg Batra were the authors of the article. Billström, currently Minister of Foreign Affairs, was Minister of Migration in the Reinfeldt government, and Kinberg Batra was Chairman of the Finance Committee at the Riksdag. The ruling coalition at that time had advocated for a change in the legislation to make it easier for international doctoral students to stay in Sweden after their studies. With the support of the Green Party, their efforts succeeded when in June 2014, a new bill, allowing foreign doctoral students to get permanent residency upon completion of their studies, was voted into action. The change was a massive relief for PhD students from outside the EU, who, before this change, had to leave Sweden within 10 days of finishing their studies.
Reading articles today about the change of legislation in 2014 is a strange and frustrating exercise. At that moment, politicians from the government were actively advocating for the importance of international students staying in Sweden. Jan Björklund, former Minister for Education, declared to Dagens Industri that "the smartest researchers in the whole world come to Sweden every year. It is strange that they are sent home before they can start to work and make a contribution to Sweden's development". In the debate article from 2014, Billström and Kinberg Batra wrote that competitiveness in the global talent market is not just about attracting international students, PhD students and researchers to Sweden, "it is also about getting them to stay here after their studies". They were all of course right, and found a solution to the issue.
Since the change of the Aliens Act in 2021, it has been the PhD students themselves – through student unions, doctoral student organizations, associations and trade unions – who have been explaining over and over to politicians and the public opinion that they are "valuable" assets for Sweden. Ironically, they are using the same arguments used by the Swedish government seven years earlier. Sadly, all political parties (except the Liberals) who supported the bill in 2014 have totally ignored the current issue, seemingly suffering from political amnesia. Have international doctoral students with permanent residency since done something unfathomable in the last eight years that has suddenly made them "less valuable" to Swedish society? Of course not.
Since 2013, the proportion of foreign doctoral candidates remaining in Sweden after completion of their degree has steadily increased while employment rates remain high. This was one of the main findings of a report published by UKÄ last December. This development was undoubtedly related to the positive legislation change from 2014 regarding permanent residency for PhD students.
Unfortunately, the 2021 Aliens Act revoked these amendments and has since jeopardized early-career researchers' chances to stay in Sweden with a completed doctoral education. This group of the population, has no direct influence on the political system, yet is subjected to the tides of governing political parties even when they are contradicting their own policies, such as the 2020 Research bill.
In the current government's Tidö agreement, it is stated that "specific conditions for permanent residency of doctoral candidates and researchers should be analyzed and, if required, constitutionally regulated". In interviews with Sveriges Radio in December, both Mats Persson, Minister of education and research, and Maria Malmer Stenergard, Minister of migration, declared that the government is currently examining the issue. Persson confirmed that the current rules "are very problematic" and that a review and change of the rules should take place "as soon as possible", but without further details on the timeline.
A simple solution could be to reinstate the favorable changes made to the Aliens Act in 2014. This would quickly solve the problem by enabling researchers to stay in Sweden and the government to stick to its own policies.
Finally, for science and research to "remain independent of political control", as declared by the current government, residency requirements for researchers should not be reverted every few years. Maybe next time, instead of having to go back in time, we could try going forward.