In 2019, a government inquiry was appointed to review innovation support within higher education. The inquiry's final report was published in September 2020. SFS believes that the aspect of innovation support that most affects students concerns the innovation offices.
SFS believes that innovation offices can increase the usefulness of many education programs. Different education programs have different prerequisites. Some education programs respond to well-known needs in the labor market to a greater extent. Others instead create the conditions for creating new jobs. In order for students to have the best possible opportunities to put their knowledge into practice outside of academia, innovation offices can play an important role, but there is reason to develop the innovation offices' mission.
The collaboration between innovation offices and education programs should increase. Today, students are often forced to turn to innovation offices themselves to take advantage of the innovation offices' services, often alongside full-time studies. In many cases, the knowledge of innovation offices could be better utilized if it were integrated more into education programs. This could, for example, involve offering lectures or shorter courses within the framework of other education programs. It could also involve providing support to teachers so that they themselves can increase the promotion of innovation in education programs or to help, for example, companies enter education programs in a constructive way.
The innovation offices can become more regional. Innovation offices are currently located at 13 universities. In Gothenburg, Stockholm and the Öresund region, there is more than one innovation office per region. At the same time, there are universities in these regions that do not have innovation offices. There are advantages to instead giving the innovation offices a clearer mandate to be available to all universities in the region. Not least, more students and researchers would have access to them. The exact distribution of innovation offices between universities is not an issue that concerns SFS, but it is obvious that universities can benefit from each other to a greater extent than today and this is clearly visible in innovation activities. Innovation often arises when several different scientific areas and educational backgrounds meet and this can be facilitated to a greater extent than today.
The innovation offices should also address alumni. At present, the innovation offices are primarily available to active students and researchers. At the same time, we know that most innovation occurs after graduation, when students have the opportunity to test their academic knowledge in new situations in working life and the rest of society. As it stands today, however, alumni do not have access to the support of the innovation offices. SFS believes that the innovation offices should target alumni to a much greater extent than today, but that the support available to active students must not be completely removed.
Opening up innovation offices can be beneficial as part of a more general development regarding the view of alumni. The image that a student is fully educated the moment they graduate is not entirely accurate. In order to promote lifelong learning and collaboration between academia and the surrounding society, higher education institutions can work more actively to ensure that students see the relationship with the institution and academia as something ongoing and not as something that ends when they graduate.
Regarding the holding companies and their organization, SFS believes that those higher education institutions that are interested should be able to provide holding companies. However, the same principle does not apply to the innovation offices, where SFS believes that all students in the country who request it should have access to at least one innovation office.
Finally, SFS believes that innovation offices should collaborate more with each other across the country. At present, it is difficult for students from different parts of the country to meet and find each other to spur innovation. This increases differences between city and country and loses the creative potential that exists when students from different areas meet. If innovation offices are also to be further integrated into education, there is great potential for collaboration regarding how this is best done.