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This article investigates how professional development courses for university teachers are viewed by different stakeholders, specifically students, university teachers, central university management, and the government. The particular focus of the investigation is on the relationship of theory and practice, disciplinary content, and forms of pedagogical knowledge. The results, based on interviews and documents, show that university teachers tend to ask for more practical, hands-on knowledge, whereas the government focuses on the theoretical content of pedagogical courses. Stakeholders were vague in their views about the content of pedagogical courses, indicating that professional development fails to be regarded as a strategic matter.

The Swedish system of research funding has undergone major changes, while competitive funding schemes gradually have gained popularity, at the expense of institutional block grants. In recent years, there has been a strong drive to improve research performance in universities as a result of governmental desires, resulting in performance-based research funding systems (PRFS) being introduced to distribute block grants. The study on which this article reports sought to understand the development of increased government intent to steer resources for research, by investigating the behaviour of universities and university colleges in Sweden in terms of internal organisation and distribution of funding. The article investigates the structure of and motives for applying PRFS at seven new universities and university colleges through a document and interview study. We identified three categories of higher education institutions: the excellence seekers, the pragmatists and the sceptics. Universities rhetorically ignal compliance with governmental propositions to distribute funding according to performance measures, but their actions are limited. Thus, national incentives, models and measures influence decisions at lower institutional levels in a rather modest way. ; Special Issue: Expansion and retrenchment of internationalisation in higher education: Theories, methods and data

What are the motives for offering or engaging in higher education teacher training courses? This question is of interest for educational developers, teachers, university managers, and policy makers in order to design courses and to meet stakeholders' expectations. Previous research has mainly focused on the impact of higher education development courses on teacher practice and student learning. Few studies have investigated the motives behind these courses. In this paper, the motives are investigated among students, teachers, university management, and the government. The study is based on national and local documents on educational development and on interviews with representatives from four Swedish universities. The results show that all stakeholder groups are in favour of compulsory courses but the motives differ. Students, management, and government embrace an institutional perspective on educational development, in line with a social efficiency perspective on the purposes of higher education emphasising usefulness, function, and the production of skills. University teachers, on the other hand, have a more individual-oriented view

In many countries, current research policy is dominated by managerialism and excellence, manifesting the aim of making universities into national strategic assets in the globally competitive knowledge economy. This article discusses these policy trends and their mirror in recent developments in public funding for academic research, with special attention to Sweden. A review of the language in three con- secutive Swedish governmental research bills from the past 10 years shows a clear policy shift towards the promotion of excellence and stra- tegic priority on the level of higher education institutions. Reforms to the funding system, especially the launch of speci␣c strategic excellence funding programmes, are introduced to put the policy in practice. While the policy shift itself might be discursive, the changes to the funding system clearly show a determination on behalf of the Swedish govern- ment to increase strategic pro␣ling and the pursuit of excellence in research on behalf of universities.

The economic crisis has had severe and negative impacts on the EU over the last decade. This book focuses on a neglected dimension by examining European political entrepreneurship in times of economic crisis with particular emphasis on EU member-states, institutions and policies. The main focus is on the role that the political entrepreneur can play in promoting entrepreneurship and growth. It is argued that the political entrepreneur and political entrepreneurship can positively influence the conditions for entrepreneurial activity and business

The purpose of the chapter is to compare the governmental steering of research in Finlandand Sweden. In both countries, policies emphasise the relevance and excellence of academicresearch. Examples include Finland's establishment of SHOKs and Swedish initiative of havingstrategic research areas. However, the countries differ in their use of centralised and decentralisedpolicy instruments. The Finnish authorities have been more active in profiling the researchof individual universities.

In this article, we investigate how the globalized academic labor market has changed the composition of teaching and research staff at Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish universities. We use national statistical data on the gender and country‐origin of universities' teaching and research staff between 2012 and 2018 to study how the globalized academic labor market has influenced the proportion of women across career stages, with a special focus on STEM fields. We pay special attention to how gender and country‐origin are interrelated in universities' academic career hierarchies. The findings show that the proportion of foreign‐born teaching and research staff rose substantially at the lower career level (grade C positions) in the 2010s. The increase was more modest among the most prestigious grade A positions, such as professorships. The findings show significant national differences in how gender and country‐origin of staff intersect in Nordic universities. The study contributes to research on the gendered patterns of global academic labor markets and social stratification in Nordic universities

South Africa's democracy faces increasing challenges from within, whether from protest, bad governance or general public dissatisfaction. South Africa´s Democracy at the Crossroadsexplores the question; what are the challenges to future democratization in South Africa?.

The Nordic countries are regarded as frontrunners in promoting equality, yet women's experiences on the ground are in many ways at odds with this rhetoric. Putting the spotlight on the lived experiences of women working in tech-driven research and innovation areas in the Nordic countries, this volume explores why, despite numerous programmes, women continue to constitute a minority in these sectors. Contributors flesh out the differences and similarities across different Nordic countries and explore how the shifts in labour market conditions have impacted on women in research and innovation. This is an invaluable contribution to global debates around the mechanisms that maintain gendered structures in research and innovation, from academia to biotechnology and IT. ePDF and ePUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.