Tài liệu THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES IN REGIONAL INNOVATION SYSTEMS - A NORDIC PERSPECTIVE pdf

Regions with comprehensive technical universities 90 University, government and industry interaction 96 Regional impact of universities reconsidered 110... Regions with university colle

THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES

IN REGIONAL INNOVATION SYSTEMS

- A NORDIC PERSPECTIVE

Jan-Evert Nilsson (ed.)

To be published by CBS Press, Copenhagen

2004-10-01

Table of contents

The role of universities in regional innovation systems 19

2 Higher Education in the Nordic Countries 22

Finland – increased focus on fields with growth prospects 25

National strategies and political circumstances 41

3 Regions with an old large comprehensive university 43

4 Regions with small comprehensive universities 61

University, government and industry interactions 78

5 Regions with comprehensive technical universities 90

University, government and industry interaction 96

Regional impact of universities reconsidered 110

6 Regions with university college with technical education 112

University, government, and industry interaction 125

7 Region with comprehensive mini university 139

University, industry and government interaction 146

8 The role of university in regional innovation systems 150

Elements in the regional systems of innovation 160The universities’ role in the innovation system 162The importance of the university in systems of innovation 165

This report is the outcome of the collective effort of nine scholars, who havebeen engaged in a on the “The Role of University in Regional InnovationSystem” The project has been possible thanks to the financial support fromthe Nordic Industrial Fund – Centre for Innovation and Commercial Devel-opment The Nordic Industrial Fund has shown great interest in the projectand has made valuable comments We would like to thanks for the financialsupport enabling us to engage in this work

The ideas of this report have evolved through a number of project meetingsover a two-year period The project group has discussed the chapters of thereport in this process, and all co-authors have contributed to the entire report.There have been a division of labour within the group Thus, the first chapterwas written by Jan-Evert Nilsson, and Åke Uhlin, collaboration with PeterArbo, Heikki Eskelinen, Kent Nielsen and Jan-Evert Nilsson did the work onchapter 2 Kent Nielsen has written chapter 3 and Peter Arbo and Heikki Es-kelinen chapter 4, Morten S Dahl, Bent Dahlum and Håkan Ylinenpää chap-ter 5, Jan-Evert Nilsson and Åke Uhlin chapter 6, and Ingi Runar Edvardssonchapter 7 The final chapter was written by Jan-Evert Nilsson, who also hasdone the main editorial work and were responsible from co-ordinating theproject

Jan-Evert Nilsson

Peter ArboMorten S DahlBent DahlumIngi Runar EdvardssonHeikki EskelinenKent NielsenÅke UhlinHåkan YlinenpääKarlskrona, Tromsø, Aalborg, Akureyri, Joensuu, Aarhus, Luelå

October 2004

Det är en allmän uppfattning att det mogna industriländerna är på väg attomvandlas till kunskapsekonomier i vilka universitet och högskolor förutsättsspela en viktig roll för den ekonomiska tillväxten Universitet och högskolorses som en viktig resurs för att skapa ett konkurrenskraftigt näringsliv OECDhar länge förordat aktiva insatser för att skapa nationella innovationssystemsom ett viktigt element i innovationspolitiken Finland började tidigt med attutveckla en sådan jnnovationspolitik och Sverige följde efter i slutet av 1990-talet i samband med att Verket för innovationssystem etablerades

Teoribildningen om nationella innovationssystem utvecklades ursprungligen

av nationalekonomer för vilka nationen av tradition upplevs som den vanta geografiska enheten Studier av innovationssystem i olika länder anty-der att det finns fler än ett innovationssystem i ett land Det finns såväl funk-tionella innovationssystem, som i vissa fall överskrider nationsgränser, somregionala innovationssystem som är koncentrerade till en del av landet

rele-Syfte och metod

Syftet med denna studie är att studera vilken roll universitet och högskolorspelar i regionala innovationssystem Med innovationssystem menas det sys-tem av privata och offentliga aktörer som främjar utvecklingen av, utvecklaroch bidrar till spridningen av ny teknik och nya företag

Metoden som används är en praktikfallsmetod Nio universitetsregioner i defem nordiska länderna har valts ut I dessa görs en studie av på vilka sätt uni-versitetet/högskolan påverkar den ekonomiska utvecklingen i regionen I deflesta sker det genom att regionens utveckling sedan universitetet eller

högskolan grundades följs Vi har valt att studera andra eller tredje vågensuniversitet, dvs i huvudsak sådana som etablerats i samband med den storutbyggnaden av högre utbildning som skett under efterkrigstiden

Skälen för etableringen av de nya universiteten har varierat över tiden der1950- och1 1960-talet var etableringen en integrerad del av uppbyggnaden

Un-av den nordiska välfärdstaten Syftet var i första hand att säkra tillgången Un-avkvalificerad arbetskraft till den växande offentliga sektorn Under 1970- och1980-talen började universitet och högskolor i allt högre grad betraktas sommotorer i den industriella utvecklingen Argumentet att det nya universiteteteller högskolan skulle bidra till att stärka konkurrenskraften i regionens

näringsliv eller bidra till en modernisering av näringslivet blev allt viktigare.Synen på universitetens roll fick avgörande betydelse för utformningen av denya universiteten och högskolorna Vilken roll enskilda universitet och

högskolor spelat i det regionala innovationssystemet återspeglar i hög gradvilken typ av universitet som utvecklats i regionen

Universitetens regionala effekter

Etableringen av ett universitet har förhållandevis stora direkta lokala miska effekter, då utbildningen förutsätter att studenterna kommer till uni-versitetet Storleken på den direkta effekten varierar beroende på univer-sitetens storlek mellan 3000 anställda och 22 000 studenter och 130 anställdaoch 900 studenter Hur betydelsefull denna lokala effekt är bestäms i sin tur

ekono-av regionens storlek Medan regionen med det största universitetet har 645

000 invånare, har den med det minsta endast har 27 000 invånare Det störstaoch det minsta universitetet i undersökningen förefaller sålunda vara avsamma relativa betydelse.

Den andra slutsatsen som kan dras av undersökningen är att karaktären påden regionala effekten är beroende av typen av universitet som finns i re-gionen En avgörande skillnad är om universitetet har en teknisk fakultet ellerinte De universitet och högskolor som saknar teknisk fakultet påverkar denregionala utvecklingen i första hand genom att de bidrar till en generell

höjning av utbildningsnivån i regionen Huvuddelen av dem som utbildar sigvid dessa universitet har sin arbetsmarknad inom den offentliga sektorn Deregionala effekterna på den industriella utvecklingen av denna typ av univer-sitet är begränsad För universitet med en teknisk fakultet är situationen an-norlunda Rund flera av dessa universitet har det vuxit fram ny produktioninom dynamiska teknikområden, Under 1990-talet skedde tillväxten i förstahand inom IT-området

Det är universitetens utbildning inom teknikområdet snarare än forskningensom fungerar som drivkraft i den industriella omvandlingen Universitet ochhögskolor med en teknisk inriktning levererar unga, ambitiösa och kvalifi-cerade personer till företag som arbetar på expansiva marknader Nyckeln tillstora regionala effekter är sålunda att universitetet och högskolan erbjuderutbildningar inom teknikområden som kännetecknas av hög tillväxt och enstor långsiktig tillväxtpotential Utbildningar inom datavetenskap, elektronik,telekommunikationssystem, programvaruteknik etc är exempel på områdensom uppfyllde detta krav under 1990-talet På detta sätt avgör universitetetseller högskolans utbildningsportfölj hur stor regional tillväxtpotential som ettuniversitet kan erbjuda Ju fler utbildningsprogram inom teknikområden varsutveckling leder till en stark ökning i efterfrågan på arbetskraft desto bättreförutsättningar för stora regionala effekter Den långsiktiga utmaningen blirunder dessa omständigheter att få till stånd en fortgående förnyelse eller ut-vidgning av portföljen med utbildningsprogram Sker inte detta finns et enuppenbar risk andelen utbildningsprogram inom teknikområden med snabbtillväxt inte minskar över tiden

I diskussionen av universitetens effekter på den regionala industriella vecklingen läggs förhållandevis stor vikt avknoppningarna från universitetoch högskolor En föreställning är att forskningen vid universitetet eller

ut-högskolan skall generera resultat som kan ligga till grund för

företagse-tableringar Ofta relateras i detta sammanhang till erfarenheterna från SiliconValley, där studenter och forskare vid Stanforduniversitetet har etableratvälkända företag som Hewlett-Packard, Adobe, Silicon Graphics, Sun Micro-system och Cisco Avknoppningar från de studerade nordiska universiteten

är inte lika vanligt förekommande som i Silicon Valley Nästan inga av

avknoppningsföretagen har vuxit och utvecklats till stora globala företag Detförefaller som om den institutionella strukturen i de nordiska länderna däm-par omfattningen på den entreprenöriella aktiviteten och hämmar tillväxten i

de avknoppade företagen Detta bidrar till att reducera universitets ochhögskolors potential som en källa till nya företag

Viktigare än som källa till avknoppningar är universitetens och högskolornasbidrag till att öka attraktiviteten hos regionen som plats för lokaliseringar

Universitet och högskolor, särskilt de med teknisk fakultet, utgör en tion för expansiva företag som överväger ny- eller omlokaliseringar Alla destuderade nio universiteten har bidragit till att nya verksamheter lokaliseratstill regioner Vilka typer av verksamheter som attraheras av ett visst univer-sitet beror bland annat på universitetets egenskaper Styrkan i den attrak-tionskraft som ett universitet representerar bestäms också av hur många an-dra universitet med ett jämförbart utbildningsutbud som det finns Ju färresådana universitet som finns desto större dragningskraft utövar universitetet.Universitet som attraktionskraft innebär att universitetens lokalisering utövarett starkt inflytande över var expansiva verksamheter inom dynamiska tek-nikområden lokaliserar sin produktion Därför bestäms den regionala effektsom denna kraft ger upphov till i u stor utsträckning av förekomsten i landet

attrak-av sådana verksamheter I de studerade fallen illustreras detta attrak-av den storabetydelse Ericsson och NOKIA spelade för expansionen i ett antal univer-sitetsregioner i Sverige och Finland Ericssons och NOKIAs expansion ska-pade stora regionala effekter i ett antal regioner Samtidigt bidrog dessa uni-versitets och högskolors förmåga att förse företagen med kvalificerad arbetsk-raft till att en fortsatt expansion i företagen var möjlig I Danmark och Norgesom saknade stora globala telekomföretag var universitetens attraktionskraftsvagare

Policyrekommendationer

Analysen av universitets och högskolors roll i regionala innovationssystemvisar att de under vissa omständigheter kan spela en central roll i en regionsekonomiska omvandling Universitetens huvudsakliga roll är att förde expan-siva företag inom nya dynamiska teknikområden med kvalificerad arbetsk-raft Universiteten främjar på detta sätt framväxten av ett nytt näringsliv i re-gionen Ett universitet som kontinuerligt förmår utveckla utbildningsprograminom nya dynamiska teknikområden kan sålunda permanenta sin roll somförnyare av regionens näringsliv Den regionala effekten av et sådant univer-sitet bestäms emellertid också av hur väl företag i det egna landet förmår ut-nyttja den nya teknikens möjligheter Utan Ericsson och NOKIA skulle de re-gionala effekterna av Universitetet i Uleåborg och Blekinge Tekniska

Högskola blivit betydligt mindre

Ovanstående illustrerar storleken på de regionala effekterna av ett universiteteller högskola avgöras av en kombination av planerade insatser, kritiska bes-luta fattade utanför regionen och lyckliga omständigheter En framgångsrikpolitik bygger sålunda på att en rad olika beslutsfattare oberoende av varan-dra fattar de ”riktiga besluten” Komplexiteten i situationen gör att

möjligheterna att planmässigt bygga ett framgångsrikt regionalt tionssystem är begränsade Politiska insatser måste därför ges en mer generellinriktning Uppgiften blir att ge de institutioner om ingår i det regionala in-novationssystemet rimliga förutsättningar för sin verksamhet samt att skapaett system av incitament som belönar vissa typer av handlingar

innova-1 Regional Systems of Innovation

The 1970s marked the end of a long period of high economic growth Thegrowth rate was halved in the OECD countries and unemployment rised Ini-tially the reading of the history of the 1970s was that “…the most importantfeature was an unusual bunching of unfortunate disturbances unlikely to berepeated on the same scale, the impact of which was compounded by someavoidable errors in economic policy” (McCracken et al 1977;14) The conclu-sion was that the immediate causes of the new economic problems could beunderstood in terms of conventional economic analysis The expert groupcould “… see nothing on the supply side to prevent potential output in theOECD area from growing almost as fast in the next five to ten years as it did

in the 1960s… Whether it is achieved or not will depend heavily on our ity to obtain a desirable level and structure of final demand and the accompa-nying distribution of income without arousing disruptive conflicts, which ex-acerbate inflation (MacCracken et al 1977:16) The expert group expressed astrong belief of the strength in a well-balanced Keynesian economic policy.The authorities were expected “… to steer demand along the relatively nar-row path consistent with achieving a sustained recovery”(MacCracken et.Al.1977:19) The lower limit was set by the need for a rate of expansion suffi-cient to encourage a recovery in investment and the upper limit by the point

abil-at which a rapid increase in aggregabil-ate demand would re-ignite inflabil-ationaryexpectations According to established theory the great policy challenge was

to fine tune the economy so it could pass safely in the narrow strait betweeneconomic stagnation and high inflation

Dynamics of capitalist economies

Looking back we can see that the experts were wrong This unusual bunching

of disturbances was indeed the start of something new quite different fromthe fast stable growth of 1950s and 1970s The old theory was an inappropri-ate tool for understanding the new economic situation The growth rate in theOECD-countries was reduced from 5,6 per cent per year in the 1960s to 3,7 percent in the 1970s, while inflation rate increased from 3,7 per cent to 8,6 percent The OECD countries became trapped in a situation of stagflation, whichmade Keynesian economic policy look obsolete

Researcher started to look for alternative perspectives, both genuinely new asforgotten old ones One of the reinvented perspectives was the Kondratievcycles Based on historical data the Russian economist Nikolaj Kondratievclaimed the existence of long waves of an average of about 50 years in thecapitalistic economy(Nilsson 1987) The Kondratiev-perspective, which wasconsidered interesting and relevant in the 1930s, became reinvented in the1970s(Mandel 1972 and Shuman & Rosenau 1974) In the 1980s it becamepopular to interpret the economic stagnation as a down turn in he Kondratievcycle The OECD economies were in a situation similar to the one in the 1920sand 1930(Freeman 1984)

Christopher Freeman at Science Policy Research Unit at University (SPRU) ofSussex was one of the most active researchers applying a Kondratiev-

perspective He had noted that “… the upswing of the long waves involves a

simultaneous or near-simultaneous explosive burst of growth of one or eral major new industries and technologies”(Freeman et al 1982:80) The up-swing gets its power from some generic innovation, which can be used in alarge number of new products and processes The technology diffusion proc-ess includes a significant element of innovations Under certain circumstanceswill such a generic innovation initiate a cumulative growth process main-tained by the growth of new industries, which need further process innova-tions to make use of economy of scale when production volume expand Themultiplier effects of the innovation-based growth further strengthen the

sev-growth process

Freeman considered the beginning upswing made possible by changes in thetechnoeconomic paradigm, which included “… a combination of interrelatedproduct and process, technical, organisational an managerial innovations,embodying a quantum hump in potential productivity for all or most of theeconomy and opening up an unusually wide range of investment and profitopportunities Such a paradigm change implies a unique new combination ofdecisive technical and economic advantages (Freeman & Perez 1988:47-48).Freeman argued that each technoeconomic paradigm was based on a keyfactor and he saw microelectronics as the key factor in the coming fifth Kon-dratiev upswing The diffusion of new technologies of wide applicability iscapable of impairing a substantial upthrust to the growth of the economicsystem, creating many new opportunities for investment and employmentand generating widespread secondary demands for goods and services

The strength of the upswing depends on the growth potential of the newgrowth industries Over time, however, these new technological systemsmature and their investment and employment consequences end to change.The upswing continues until a disturbing lack of labour initiate a wage infla-tion spiral Fast increasing wages are met by increased prices and/or reducedreturn on investment Growing pessimism and reduced financial resourcesobstruct the innovation activities and reduced the diffusion of innovations.The long economic wave is reaching its peak, as was the situation in the 1970s

In this phase of the long wave Freeman considered the role of public policy ascrucial

The role of public policy

The researchers at SPRU combined a conviction about the existence of longwaves in the world economy with a strong belief in the prospect of nationalgovernments to manage economic development They considered public sup-port to enhance the growth of new technological systems and support to newtechnologies as important means to recreate a period of fast growth in matureindustrial countries They anchored their believe in earlier experiences of re-covery from depression as well as from more recent Japanese experience.They proposed three types of public initiatives Firstly, government shouldencourage corporations to develop and ake up radical innovations In certainphases of economic development such investments can play an decisive role.The downswing of a Kondratiev cycle represented a gestation period when apatient public policy of support, encouragement, experiment and adaptationwas considered to be extremely important(Freeman et al 1982:192) Publicsupport should primarily be allocated to explorative R&D, which can be un-

dertaken by groups of corporations because the direct commercial value ofthe findings normally is small.

Secondly, government should support the diffusion of radical innovations Inthe early stages of radical innovations do not have big economic effects Ini-tially the market for such innovations is small, which make these innovationsless interesting for corporations Only large-scale diffusion can have such ef-fects Public policies for developing new markets and stimulate the diffusion

of such innovations is a way to stimulate growth The researchers underlinedespecially the need for such measures in sheltered or highly concentratedsectors of the economy like public service production and national monopo-lies These sectors are not subject to international competition, which may beunwilling or unableto promote the adoption of readical new technologies.Thirdly, they identified a need for public support to stimulate import of for-eign technology in areas where radical innovations had been developed inother countries Japan’s import of new technology in microelectronics fromthe U.S and their use of it in consumer electronics is a standard case when itcome to the economic potential of an import strategy The relevance of such

an import strategy is inversly proportional to the size of the nation The

smaller the nation is, the bigger the chance that radical innovations are oped outside the nation

devel-What the SPRU-group achieved was to move focus from short-term demandoriented policies to long-term supply side policies aiming at structural

change Their policy proposals still focused on isolated measures and they didnot discuss the implementation ofn the policy The concept of national sys-tems of innovation has not yet been formulated It was was introduced byChristopher Freeman some years later, who became inspired of what he hadexperienced at tour to Japan

National systems of innovation

Christopher Freeman used the concept national systems of innovation for thefirst time in 1987 in his analysis of economic development in Japan since theSecond World War (Freeman 1987) In the term innovation system he in-cluded the network of institutions in the public and private sector whose in-teractions initiate, import, modify and diffuse new technologies By focusing

on the innovation system he moved the perspective from single entrepreneursand corporations to a network of institutions The innovation system was seen

as the breeding ground for innovations Freeman considered the design ofthe innovation system as the single most important policy issue Thus he nowmoved the attention from means to the creation of a system of institutions.Freeman was inspired by what he saw in Japan According to Freeman Japansnational system of innovation differed in certain aspects from other industrialcountries Freeman pointed at four important differences Firstly, Japan had

a Ministry of Industry and Trade (MITI) which played a more proactive rolethan corresponding ministries in other countries Secondly, the system in Ja-pan was characterized by a close cooperation between government and cor-porations Thirdly, the Japanese school system was characterized by the factthat a large share of the youth studies science and technology in upper secon-dary school Finally, Freeman pointed at a number of social conditions,

mostly related to the labour market, which made Japan open to technologicalchange.

Freeman considered the strong links between government and industry as animportant feature of the successful Japanese national system of innovation.The government made technological foresights to identify new technologieswith expected radical economic consequences Among the identified promis-ing technologies MITI selcted some, which were supported financially in dif-ferent forms to stimutate the use of foreign technology and the development

of new Japanese technical solutions In addition the government was sible for the access to relevant infrastructure, of which he educational systemwas considered to be of special significance

respon-In this description of the Japanese system of innovation Freeman applied acombination of organisation and innovation theory to highlight the interac-tions between the production system and the innovation process Based onthis perspective Freeman concluded that the Japanese national system of in-novation had some important competitive advantages Japan show the change

of techno-economic paradigm which was considered to be vital part of temporary structural changes in the world economy(Freeman 1988)

con-Freeman´s interest in industrial policy in Japan was typical for the 1970s and1980s At this time Japan was an outstanding exception in a world economy ofsluggish economic growth In the 1970s and 1980s the average annual eco-nomic growth in Japan exceeded the average of the OECD-countries by 35 percent and the EU-area by 45 per cent One popular explanation of the Japanesesuccess was the industrial policy and MITI’s strategic role(Johnson 1982) Ja-pan’s role as a model supported the idea, that national industrial policy could

be an efficient tool to stimulate growth The ppromotion of major new nological systems and of productivity growth based on technical change wasconsidered as an important means to help restore the economic health of themature industrialized countries

tech-The great fascinatrion with Japanese industrial policy largely disappeared inthe 1990s, when the economic growth rate declined and became lower than inthe OECD- and the EU-average The Japanese miracle was over for this time.Instead the country was used as a warning example Tnow it was focused onhow the lack of structural reforms may result in permanent recession (TheEconomist 2001) In the public debate attention was moved from innovationpolicy to the institutional structure of the country

However, the preoccupation with national systems of innovation survived theJapanese miracle The theory was brought forward by a group of Danish re-searchers, who combined the idea of systems of innovation and interactivelearning (Lundvall 1992) Their point of departure was that innovation should

be regarded as a gradual and cumulative process and that interactive learningand collective entrepreneurship are fundamental to the process of innovation Interactive learning was something different from knowledge production atthe universities and private R&D laboratories The researcher acknowledgedthat scientific activities and technical change had been brought closer togetherand increasingly become interdependent (Lundvall 1992) The capability to

innovate cannot longer be assessed in isolation from efforts in science, search and development Neverthelsess, they emphasised that R&D activitieswere not the only innovation source Instead they underlined the role of rou-tine activities in production, distribution and consumption as input to theprocess of innovation The experiences of workers, production engineers andsales representatives formed the basis for corrections and improvements.Hence learning by doing, learningf by using, and learning by interaction feed-back into the process of innovation (Lundvall 1992) When bottleneck prob-lems are met and registered in production, or in the use of products, the

re-agendas of producers change, affecting the direction of their innovation forts

ef-From the central role given to routine activities in the learning processes lowed that innovation must be rooted in the prevailing economic structure.The Danish researchers concluded that the areas where technical advance takeplace, primarily are those where a firm, or a national economy, is engaged inroutine activities Thus, each national system of innovation is rooted in a na-tional system of production By underlining the importance of existing eco-nomic structure innovations was portrayed as a cumulative processes of mar-ginal changes The conditions for radical change and fast movement from onetrajectory to another were then left unexplained

fol-Based on this assumption about the sources of relevant knowledge, existingstructure of production and the institutional set-up exert a strong influence oninnovation processes in a country Institutions are built because they offerstability in a world characterised by innovative activities, where uncertainty is

an important aspect of economic life In this case institutions refer to routines,guiding everyday actions in production, distribution and consumption, anddifferent notions of change patterns, like paradigms and technological trajec-tories

Lundvall et al.notice the inherent conflict between the institutional structure

as a stabilizing factor and the need to adapt to new technologies A stabilizinginstitutional structure with its rigid habits and routines and rigid pattern ofinteraction inside and between organisations hurts the ability of an economy

to introduce and diffuse new technologies, What is needed in such cases is aflexible institutional system, which strengthen the technical learning ability ofthe economy in a period of radical technical change They concluded that thecapability of national economies to learn abou, adapt and change their instiu-tional frameworks is important for the development of their internationalcompetititveness Institutional learning became the key word for success(Johnson 1992)

The conclusion represent a big challenge because changing he institutionalsystem of a nation is neither an automatic nor a costless process Institutionalstructures are not formed by design Normally institutional change is incre-mental and slow reflecting the inertia of the many informal and culturallytransmitted elements in the institutional set-up (North 1990)

When institutions are seen as routines guiding everyday action, they becomemore lcultural variables than political ones They turn out to to the outcomes

of long and complex historical processes Looked upon in this way

tions are culturally determined Normally economists use the term tions for political determined conditions Property rights, laws and regula-tions and infrastructure like educational system are referred to as importantinstitutions influencing the economic development of a society(North 1990).Richard R Nelson’s studies of the US-system of innovation are an example ofsuch an approach Here it is focused on the combined public and privatecharacter of technology and the role of, respectively, private firms, universi-ties and government in the system of innovation (Nelson 1987; Nelson 1988).

institu-If institutions are assumed to be the product of a complex historical processthe opportunities fpr public policy-making become an open question The role

of politics may change over time and will differ between different countries

If, on the other hand, institutions are formed by political decisions, publicpolicies by definition have a central role in fostering economic development

It is obvious that system of innovation is a concept with different meaning fordifferent authors Some researchers define it in a narrow sense including onlyorganisations and institutions that influence the technological capabilities of anation The studies undertaken by Richard R Nelson in the 1980s are two ex-amples Others define the concept broader and include all parts and aspects ofthe economic structure and the institutional set-up affecting learning, search-ing and exploring Lundvall and his colleagues claim they represent this per-spective

One problem with broadening the definition of a system of innovation is thatthe problem of delimiting the system increases In Lundvall (1992) this prob-lem is addresses by saying that determining which institutions to include in

an analysis must be based on a historical investigtion as well as on theoreticalconsiderations They also conclude that in different historical periods differentparts of the economic system may play a more or less important role in theprocess of innovation One major weakness with such a broad definition isthat it may become somewhat artificial to try to describe and analyse a na-tion’s innovation system as something separable from its economic systemmore broadly defined

Regional system of innovation

The focus upon national systems in the research literature reflects the fact thatnational economies differ regarding institutions, the structure of the produc-tion system and the degree of cultural homogeneity of the nations For

economist the nation is by tradition the natural geographical unit because thepolicies and programmes of national government, the laws of a nation, andthe existence of a common language and shared cultural identity define aninside and outside that can broadly affect how technical advance proceed(Nelson 1993)

However, countries differ in the degree of cultural homogeneity In somecases the heterogeneity of countries make it unclear where to locate the bor-ders of national system of innovation “Multinational” countries like Belgium,Canada and Switzerland are examples of such heterogeneous countries, inwhich regions neither have a common language or share a cultural identity Insuch countries it might be more relevant to focus on regional systems of inno-vation

But how relevant is it to talk about regional systems of innovation in mogenous nations? Do regions represent distinct systems of innovation? Atone level of analysis regional systems of innovation have much in commonwith national system in terms of their mutual components and the nature ofinteractions between elements in the system Each region has a distinctivesystem when it comes to the institutional arrangements and economic struc-ture However, the differences between regions in a nation differ between dif-ferent types of states In a federal state like Canada the regional system ofinnovation in Ontario differ distinctly from the innovation system in Qubec(Wolf & Gertler 1998; Latouche 1998) In a unitary state like Finland it is moredifficult to identify distinctive regional features in the systems of innovation(Schienstock et al 1998) This raises one important question How big can theoverlap between the national and regional system of innovation be before theregional system of innovations lose its relevance?

ho-One answer to this question is that it is just academic Systems of innovationhave both a horizontal and vertical dimension Each geographic level has itsown system, but this system is also linked to other geographical levels Nor-mally, processes of innovations transcend administrative borders Technicalimpulses may come from abroad, the innovative ideamay be developed in anational institutional context, and the technical problems that obstruct therealisation of the idea may be solved locally In this way innovation systemsbecome systems with several geographical layers

Jeremy Howells argues that a regional analysis may add another layer in asystem perspective on innovation (Howells 1999) He identifies at least fouroverlaid innovation system – sub-regional, regional, national and interna-tional level At the lowest geographical level there are sub-regional innovationsystems Because geographical distance, accessibility, agglomeration and thepresence of externalities provide a strong influence on innovation, the sub-regional level is an important arena for innovations The regional level hasmuch in common with national system, but this level should not just be

viewed as one layer down from national systems Regional systems of vation are increasingly being framed within an international arena

inno-The links between sub-regional, regional, national and international systems

of innovations imply hat analyses should include actors and institutions at allfour levels The importance, though of different actors and institutions maychange over time and vary between regions

The new production of knowledge

The systems of innovation approach was developed by economist as a sponse to a new economic situation, in which slow economic growth in-

re-creased the attention paid to innovation Learning is one of the key concepts

in this approach Lundvall stresses the importance of experienced basedlearning focusing on he everyday experiences of workers, production engi-neers and sales representatives However, he acknowledges that scientific ac-tivities and technical change have become more closely linked (Lundvall1992)

Other researchers focus on the stronger interdependencies between edge production and innovations The role of science in the society has

knowl-changed Gibbons and his colleagues (1994) argue that science has becomecentral to the generation of wealth and wellbeing and can no longer be re-garded as an autonomous space clearly demarcated from other parts of soci-ety The growth of knowledge industries is one driving force in the erosion ofthe demarcation between science and society Novel knowledge institutionslike high tech companies, management consultancies and think tanks arechallenging universities and research institutes The new institutional ar-rangements of institutions of higher education have led to the adoption ofmore effective managerial models Contrary to the old universities, they have

no collegial government inhibiting strategic planning Tough choices are notstopped by the need to achieve consensus

According to Gibbons et al this is just the beginning of a radical change In thefuture most organisations have to become learning organisations, in order todevelop their human and intellectual capital This will make tkem increas-ingly dependent upon the knowledge system to operate efficiently The

emerging of a knowledge society also means, that an increasing number ofsocial and economic activities will include research components Organisa-tions will trade knowledge products, employ knowledge workers and becomelearning- and-searching organisations

The massification of higher education provides the base from which edge industries emerge For knowledge industries the knowledge itself is thecommodity traded The universities provide a continuous flow of trained per-sonnel for industry, raising the general level of familiarity with science andtechnology throughout society The numbers of sites, including research asprofessional activity, are increasing

knowl-Gibbons et Al (1994) assert that science has transformed from Mode-1 toMode-2 science, from an academic mode to a mode, where knowledge is gen-erated in the context of application Mode-2 science is characterized by trans-disciplinarity and wide social distribution The latter refers to the diffusionover a wide range of potential sites of knowledge production and differentcontexts of application or use Knowledge production becomes part of a largerprocess in which discover, application and use are closely integrated

Traditionally science has always spoken to society in the sense that it has vided a continuous flow of new ways of conceptualising the physical and so-cial world But now society speaks back to science New knowledge is pro-duced in more complex contexts of contemporary society This contextualiza-tion of science is reflected in shifts in the research agendas and how researchpriorities are set

pro-One manifestation of this transformation of the industrial society to a edge society is the new demands put on universities Universities are nowexpexted to contribute to the international competitiveness of nations, stimu-late wealth creation and support the growth of sustainable development In-novation is seen as the key factor to achieve all this An unrestrained belief ininnovation has grown up and successful innovation is currently assumed torequire knowledge and skills not only of the natural science but also the social

knowl-sciences and the humanities (Nowotny et al 2001) In this way knowledgeproduction transcends disciplinary boundaries Scientific fields are fused andthe traditional university structure of faculties and departments that has cre-ated and sustained these divisions become less relevant The changing land-scape is manifested in the making of economic development a core functio ofthe university in addition to teaching and research.

The new requirements reflect the growing of complexity of society It is creasingly difficult to distinguish between the domains of the state and themarket, between culture and mass media, between public and private arenas.Contemporary society is typically characterized by the blurring of categorieslike the state, market, science and culture The demarcation between publicand private spheres, with the state as the guardian of the former, has beeneroded Part of this erosion, such as the privatisation of traditional publicservices and utilities like health care, schools and post and telecommunica-tions was deliberate Other changes like the devolution of budget responsi-bilities to agencies and the creation of internal markets within the public sec-tor were less deliberate

in-The role of the university has changed in this process Universities have takenover more vocational forms of higher education and research, as a contrast toscience Wile science represents the disinterested search for new knowledge,the systematisation of knowledge and the teaching of it, research focuses onthe innovative potential of discovering the unknown and bringing it to reali-zation through a consciously designed and intentional process of innovation

In this process the distinction between research and teaching shows signs oferoding

Triple Helix

After the Second World War the linear model of innovation, presenting astepwise process rom basic research via applied research to product devel-opment and new production, becamethe frame of reference when looking atthe role of science in the innovation process The model, which was based onexperiences during the war, became a truism among physical scientists whoargued that major advances in technology were dependent upon basic re-search These assumptions were built into the science policy legislation inmany countries after 1945 (Layton 1977) The line of reasoning was that basicresearch leads to new knowledge, which creates the fund from which thepractical applications of knowledge are drawn New products and processesare founded on new principles and new conceptions, which in turn are devel-oped in basic science From the point of view of this perspective technologywas applied science

From this point of view technology is applied sciece However, when the ear model of science-technology relations has been applied to historic casesstudies it has often failed The invention of the transistor is a famous example.Unquestionable, the invention involved science in rather fundamental ways,but it cannot simply be explained as an application of proceeding advances inscience (Gibbons & Johnson 1970) The invention of the transistor was

lin-fpremised on basic research but also gave rise to a number of new scientificquestions The invention of the transistor indicated a spiral model of interac-

tion in both directions, with cooperative arrangements between universityand industry at various stages of research, development and innovation.

A combination of Mode-2 perspective, where knowledge production scends organisational boundaries, and the spiral model of interaction can beseen as the foundation for the Triple Helix model (Leydesdorff & Etzkowitz1998) As university becomes more dependent upon industry and govern-ment, so have the latter become more dependent upon university The TripleHelix model implies that the paradigm of research in innovation studies hasincorporated a network mode Innovation is seen as the result of a local inter-action between university, industry and government Triple Helix refers tothe movement toward a new global model for the management of knowledgeand technology Henry Etzkowitz identifies four stages in the rise of triplehelix dynamics (Etzkowitz 2002)

tran-1 Internal transformation in each of the helices Universities play a newrole in society They are not only training students and conducting re-search, but are also making efforts to put knowledge to use The newuniversity elides the traditional boundaries between academia and in-dustry Strategic R&D alliances among companies and governmentstaking the role of venture capitalists are parallel developments

2 Influence of one helix upon another Secure rules of the game for thedisposition of intellectual property encourage the spread of technology

3 Creation of a new overlay of trilateral networks and organizationsfrom the interaction among the three helices One important task forsuch groups is to fill gaps in an innovation system by “brainstorming”new ideas

4 A recursive effect of these triple helix network, both on the spirals fromwhich they emerged and the larger society The capitalization of

knowledge transforms both the way that academic scientist view theresults of their research and the role of the university in relation to in-dustry and government The knowledge base and its role in innovationare explained in terms of changing relationships between university,industry and government

The interplay between the three spheres can be seen in different ways versity, industry and government can be interpreted as three separate institu-tions The institutionally defined Triple Helix is premised upon separate aca-demic, industrial and governmental spheres and the knowledge flow amongthem In this cases interaction take the form of contacts over defined organ-isational boundaries and is mediated by organisations such as industrial liai-son, technology transfer, contract offices and office of external relations An-other perspective is to include the fact that the three institutions in addition toperforming their traditional functions, each assumed the role of the others,with universities creating research parks or performing the role as a local in-novation organizer

Uni-The Triple Helix-models are conceptual models, which are used for analysingthe interaction between university, industry and government The models areopen and give no guidance on how to establish a successful interaction be-tween the three spheres It just tells us that all the three elements in the model– university, industry and government –have to b involved in the interaction

The models raises the question of how general solutions may be in practice.Probably, there are several types of links between the three spheres, whichmay constitute a successful interaction The interaction may be determined bythe context The characteristics of a successful Triple Helix in one region will

be of little relevance in another region The Triple Helix-models are primarily

a heuristic approach to be used in the study of historical cases

The regional impact of universities

Triple Helix addresses the question of which factors determine the regionalimpact of a university Different researchers focus on different factors whenthe try to answer this question

Some researchers focus attention to the regional context and refer to the size

of the region or the regional economic structure The hypothesis is, that largeregions with existing high-tech industries offer better conditions for substan-tial regional impact An American statistical study show a positive correlationbetween change in the resource flow to a university and the size of the high-tech sector in regions with more than one million inhabitants (Varga 1988).One possible conclusion from this analysis is that public investment in uni-versities in metropolitan regions with more than one million inhabitants andwith a large high-tech sector will have a larger regional payoff than invest-ments in universities in other regions However, it is an open question if theidentified correlation also reflects a causal relation If the relation is a causalone a second question deserves attention

Are the results from a statistical analysis of US regions relevant also relevantfor other countries? If that is the case there are only three regions in the Nor-dic countries – the Stockholm region, the Copenhagen/Malmö region and theHelsingfors region, which fulfil the conditions i e having a population largerthan one million people and a large high-tech sector The conclusion based onthe U.S study would be that the governments in Denmark, Finland and Swe-den concentrate public resources to university to these three regions ForNorway and Island the message is that the lack of large metropolitan regionsmake it impossible to take advantage of the full growth potential of a univer-sity

Another hypothesis is that the size of the regional impact of a university marily reflects the characteristics of the university Researchers who formu-late this hypothesis usually refer to the impact of universities like MIT andStandford These two universities are wellknown for their close cooperationwith industry and for a large number of spin-offs (Dorfman 1982) A compari-son of the regional impact of the two neighbouring universities MIT and Har-vard strengthen the impression that factors internal to the universities domatter So one hypothesis could be that the interaction between university,industry and government is strongly influenced by internal characteristics ofthe university

pri-A third alternative is that the impact of a university reflects how the profile ofthe university corresponds with the profile of the economic structure of theregion The hypothesis is that such a correspondence open up for transfer ofknowledge from the university to the industry The similarities in competenceand experiences make an interactive learning possible Vargas’ results stress-

ing the correlation between regional impact and the size of the high-tech dustrial sector support such a perspective From this point of view a univer-sity primarily has an impact on the region’s existing companies.

in-However, the argument can alos be turned the other way, claiming that versities primarily contribute to economic development in areas which are notyet exploited by industry Universities are producing new knowledge

That can be used both in established production and in the creation of newproduction The economic potential of new knowledge might be biggest in thelatter case The growth of the minicomputer industry in the Boston region inthe 1960s and the internet industry in Silicon Valley in the19990s are two rele-vant examples From this point of view the lack of correspondence betweenthe profile of the university and the industrial structure of the region becomeimportant The knowledge profile of the university should be directed to-wards knowledge areas where knowledge advancements can lay the founda-tion for new production and future growth

The role of universities in regional innovation systems

I this book we will analyse the role of universities in regional innovation tems We do so by studying nine Nordic regions with a university We havechosen regions outside the largest metropolitan areas in each of the five Nor-dic countries By that choice we announce that we do not focus on the impor-tance of the region’s size as an aspect of the regional impact of universities.Our focus is on the role played by the universities in different regional inno-vation systems and the impact of the universities on regional development.The seletion of regions has been guided by the ambition of studying regionswith universities of different age and structure In the sample there is oneuniversity founden in the 1920s, one in he 1950s, one in the 1960s, three in the1970s, two in the 1980s and one in the 1990s The age of a university may berelevant for three reasons Firstly, the circumstances under which the univer-sity was founded and the role it was extpected to play in the region may dif-fer In many years a univesity was primarily considered to be an educationalinstitution producering qualified labour to the public sector The view that theuniversity may represent a potential engine of regional growth was not actu-alized until the end of the 1960s Secondly, the time when a university isfounded may also exert influence of its structure and specialization Thirdly,you may assume that the age of a university has an influence on the regionalimpact Older universities tend be larger and large and old universities can beexpected to show greater regional impact than young and small universities

sys-We do not define the system of innovation a priori Our point of departure isthe universities in the selected regions The issue is to explore the role of theuniversities in the economic transformation of the regions and in their re-gional systems of innovation By taking the universities as our point of de-parture, this defines the relevance of different institutions What you see de-pends on where you stand Thus the delimitation of the system is given byour issue, which means that in different regions different institutions mayplay various roles

Based on existing knowledge of the cases we knew already from the ning that there were differences in the roles played by the universities In fact,

begin-the cases have been chosen in order to reflect this variation Before presentingthe cases a short description of the policy-context of the Nordic countries isgivend In chapter 2 we outline the higher educational policy and researchpolicy in the different countries.

The main part of the book (chapters 3 to 7) consists of the case studies of thenine Nordic regions, where our aim is to understand the role the universitieshave played in economic development and to identify explanatory factors.The regions have universities of different age, size and profile The Aarhusregion in Danmark has a large comprehensive university founded in the 1920s(chapter 3) The university is the second oldest multi-faculty university andthe second largest located in the second largest city in Denmark

The regions of Tromsø in Norway and Joensuu in Finland have rather smallcomprehensive universities founded in the 1960s (chapter 4) The two univer-sities were founded as part of a welfare state project with a strong commit-ment to provide qualified labour to a growing public sector in regions with adeclining population

The regions of Oulu in Finland, Luleå in Sweden and Aalborg in Denmark arereasonable large comprehensive universities with technical faculty foundedbetween 1958 and 1974 (chapter 5) All three regions were similar in size andstructure with a dominating manufacturing industry at the time when theuniversities were founded The main reason for founding these local univer-sities was to improve the competitiveness and growth of the existing industry.Starting from about the same position the three universities and regions hasevolved to be different in their profile

Karlskrona/Ronneby in Sweden and Vestfold in Norway got their universitycolleges in the late 1980s and the early 1990s (chapter 6) While the universitycollege in Karlskrona/Ronneby was completely new the one in Vestfold was

an amalgamation and upgrading of two training colleges with their root in the

The case-chapters are followed by a comparative analysis of the regions ing up in policy implications (chapter 8) Two general conclusions are drawnfrom the cases First, established universities always oppose each plan tofound new universities Their standard argument is that the lack of experi-enced academic staff will make it difficult to fill the academic positions in thenew university with qualified teachers and researcher Secondly, new univer-

end-sities have a strong tendency to develop into a traditional multi-faculty search based university A university that initially was organised in a newway normally ends up as traditional university There is a strong thrift to-wards the classical university model.

re-The comparison between the cases shows that universities may exert strongimpact on regional development, but the impact is rather local than regional.The size and character of the impact varies between universities and regions.While liberal arts universities mainly have impact on the public sector exertuniversities with a technical faculty strong influence on industrial develop-ment

2 Higher Education in the Nordic Countries

The end of 1950s represents the beginning of thorough transformation of thesystems of higher education in all the Nordic countries A growing number ofpeople applying for higher education forced an expansion of the system Thisgrowth reflected the fact that the share of young people searching higher edu-cation increased as well as the large number of “baby-boomers” who

streamed in to the universities This picture was identical in all the Nordiccountries As a response to the increased pressure on the system of highereducation existing universities grew and new ones were founded Again, thiswas the general pattern in all the countries However, the speed of the trans-formation of the system and the way it was done differed between the coun-tries

Today the system of higher education in the Nordic countries consist of 31multi faculty universities, 9 technical universities, 9 business schools, 14 artsacademies and 15 specialized university institutions To this list can be added

39 university colleges and 30 polytechnics In total, these institutions haveabout one million students

Denmark - a controlled expansion

The Danish university system consists of a total of 12 universities, varyinggreatly in terms of size, subject areas and history All Danish universities arefinanced by the state, and, except for The Technical University of Denmarkand the Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences, are state-owned insti-tutions

Denmark’s first university was founded in Copenhagen in 1479, while the twomost recent additions were founded in 2001 and 2003 The universities of Co-penhagen and Aarhus are the oldest and largest, and in 2001 had a combinedtotal of over 44,000 students and 4300 teaching and research staff, comprising40% of all students and researchers This marked concentration of universityplaces within Denmark is reinforced by the fact that Copenhagen and Aarhusare simultaneously home to the two largest business schools, so that thesefour institutions alone account for more than 60% of the country’s studentsand research and teaching staff

The University of Copenhagen remained alone until the 19th century, whenthree specialist universities were founded, also in the Danish capital, namelythe Technical University of Denmark (1829), the Royal Veterinary and Agri-cultural University (1856) and the Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sci-ences (1892) These were in the early 20th century followed by the Copenha-gen Business School (1917)

Nor until 1928 was Copenhagen’s total dominance of university educationbroken, when the Danish provinces welcomed their first university in Den-mark’s second city of Aarhus For many years Aarhus University was the onlyuniversity outside the metropolitan area It was conceived as a multi-facultyuniversity, with the individual faculties being gradually built up over the pe-riod 1928-1954 And just as Copenhagen had its own Business School, so Aar-hus also acquired a local Business School in 1939 Another 26 years elapsed

before Denmark’s third city of Odense was endowed with a university in

1965 This expansion relates to a rapid rise in the number of students, as fromthe late 50’s to the late 60’s annual university intakes almost quadrupled, from

1443 students in 1956/7 to 5348 in 1966/67

The swelling ranks of students can be seen as a result of the large cohorts ofyoung people born in the post-war years gradually reaching university ageand of the extension of the Danish welfare model, creating a stronger demandfor university places and simultaneously building on a political desire forequal education opportunities for all

Up to the period of the first Universities Governance Act of 1970, the sation and function of the universities was based on traditional subject spe-cialisation within faculties The universities had two functions, research andresearch-based teaching within the subject disciplines In terms of leadership,the university professors had almost absolute control within the sharply dif-ferentiated subject disciplines – a kind of professorial “Divine Right”

organi-The main function of the multi-faculty universities in the 60’s apart from search was the provision of a pool of employees for Denmark’s rapidly ex-panding public sector, especially civil servants, local and county governmentofficers, doctors for the health service and teachers for the rapidly growingupper secondary school sector – only a few of the classic university courses,such as law, were directed towards employment in the private sector

re-A comprehensive reform of the universities’ governance structure was firstembarked on after the international student demonstrations of 1968 This wasthe time of the Danish Universities Act of 1970, which resulted in the creation

of collegiate bodies and staff and student representation Rectors, Deans andHeads of Institutes were now elected by university employees and students

In parallel with this development, new trails were being blazed in individualparts of the Danish university world in respect of research and teaching Theclassic university subject specialisation was challenged by cross-

discipliniarity, which on the teaching side entailed the replacement of vidual courses based on lectures by project-oriented group work Prime mov-ers in these experiments were the new university centres of Roskilde (1972)and Ålborg (1974), which to a large extent had been established as part of therevolt against traditional university methods (see e.g Siggaard Jensen 2002).The establishment of the new university at Odense and of Ålborg UniversityCentre can also be seen as a consequence of a new socio-economic recognitionthat apart from knowledge creation, the universities had also a valuable con-tribution to bring to regional economic development In other words, the aimwas to ensure the development of the regions outside Copenhagen and Aar-hus Expansion of the university sector in terms of new universities and de-partments has since the 70’s mainly taken place outside the two major cities.However, the expansion of the university institutions in the late 60’s and early70’s was far from able to cope with the high demand for university places In

indi-1960, 4% of each yearly cohort went to university while in 1970 the figure was10% This significant rise in student intakes led to total numbers of studentsreaching the maximum of existing capacity The lack of both universities and

of academic staff hence led to a flattening of the growth rate in the period1970-80, and in 1977 a quota system for applications was introduced Thesequotas meant that, by the end of the 80’s, only 8% of each annual cohort wasbeing accepted at one or other of the universities In the first years the quotasapplied only to the most popular subjects, but due to capacity problems and afeared lack of employment opportunities for the many new graduates, duringthe 80’s the entrance quotas were extended to practically all university

courses

The quota systems, overwhelmingly dependent on grade averages achieved

in the upper secondary matriculation examination, meant that for the mostpopular courses, such as medicine, psychology, political science and law, themajority of those who had passed the matriculation examination were in real-ity prevented from reading their preferred subject University courses weretypically set at five years for a straightforward “Kandidat” (Masters level)degree, but this guideline was regularly exceeded and the “eternal student”was not an unknown phenomenon or problem

During this period the democratic governance system remained largely tered until the coming into force of the new Universities Act of 1992, and in-deed in part until the passing of the Universities Act of 2003 However, itcame to be recognised that the often slow and decentralised (democratic) de-cision-making process could be a problem, especially in terms of adapting tochanges in the outside world The universities could pursue their independ-ent and insulated life, but adaptation to the rest of society – both regionallyand globally – was becoming more necessary as the service and knowledge-based society developed, and as understandings of the universities’ role as amore active and visible player in both production and dissemination of

unal-knowledge gradually changed character during the 80’s

A central element and subject of debate in connection with the UniversitiesAct of 1992 was hence the need to strengthen university management, withthe introduction of greater individual responsibility for financial management

at all levels of the university structure – Rector, Dean, Head of Institute Theuniversities needed greater financial leeway and freedom to allocate state-provided funds in response to independently selected priority areas Theoverall political aim was thus to secure greater efficiency in the universitiessector As a result of the Universities Act of 1992 a number of instrumentswere taken up in the late 90’s to give the universities a stronger managementcapability These included development contracts, entered into with the Min-istry, laying down targets for ensuring renewal within research and teaching,quality assurance of both research and research-based teaching and a higherdegree of self-governance To give an example of the enhanced freedom andeconomic self-determination, in 2001 the Technical University of Denmarkwas given the status of a self-governing institution, with a Board predomi-nantly consisting of external members and a Rector employed by the Board

To highlight the universities’ new position and changed role in the Danishknowledge system, the final aspect of the universities’ overall activities – theteaching – was in 2001 transferred from the Ministry of Education to thenewly created Ministry for Science, Technology and Innovation This measurecan be seen as the final stage of a process inaugurated in 1993, whereby first

research councils and then all research activities (1998) were gathered under asingle ministerial purview.

Meanwhile on the teaching side the university reforms involved an tion to the British-American system, with the introduction of a new Bachelor-Master-PhD graduation route (3 + 2 + 3) The overriding motive for the

adapta-teaching reform was the creation of a more flexible adapta-teaching system with tions both for withdrawal after completion of the Bachelor degree and for apossible subsequent change of direction An additional benefit was the option

op-to include the growing international student exchange activity, hitherop-to peded by incompatibility of education systems, in the system Despite theseobvious advantages the change met with fierce opposition at most universi-ties, and in 2003 it is still doubtful whether the withdrawal option and change

im-of direction is a real possibility in most university courses At the same time,the reforms dictated the introduction of a so-called “taximeter” system,

whereby the financing of individual universities and faculties was made pendent on how many students were fed through the system Funds followthe student and universities’ finances have thus become dependent on howmany Bachelors, Masters and PhD’s are produced

de-This change, combined with the higher subsidies in 1994-98 and the generaleconomic upturn, with good job opportunities for graduates in the burgeon-ing knowledge services sector, led to a marked rise in student intakes and acontinuous growth in numbers of students and thus the production of Mas-ters graduates throughout the 90’s Hence the number of university studentsrose by 20% from 1991 to 2001 This also means that around 17% of each an-nual cohort of young people currently goes to university – a significant in-crease over the 8% who did so in the late 80’s, see above

In 2003 Denmark passed a new Universities Act This legislation is a tinuation of the basic principles of 1992, and can be interpreted as the finalreaction to the democratic decision-making processes of the 1970 UniversitiesGovernance Act The main aim of the new Universities Act is to preserve theuniversities’ central place in the global knowledge society The measures em-ployed are clearly represented as a further strengthening of university man-agement, with the election of a regular university board and employment ofRectors, Deans and Heads of Institutes at all universities

con-The main change compared to 1992 is that the universities will henceforthtake a far more active role in the knowledge dissemination process, which inpractice means closer cooperation with other institutions and enterprises inthe public and private sectors This is stated explicitly in the Ministry of Sci-ence Working Paper, which emphasises that

“The most essential change introduced by the new Universities Bill is that theBill extends and details the universities’ obligation to disseminate informa-tion; this is known as the third pillar” (Ministry of Science, Technology andInnovation, 2003)

Finland – increased focus on fields with growth prospects

Finland’s first university was founded in Turku in 1640 At the beginning ofthe 19th century, it was moved to Helsinki, and it remained Finland’s only

institution of higher education until 1908, when the present Helsinki sity of Technology was founded Åbo got a new university with three facul-ties in 1920.

Univer-In the 1960s and 1970s, the pressure to expand educational opportunities wasfuelled by rapid economic growth, an increase in the number of people withgeneral upper secondary education, high demand for academically educatedlabour especially in the public sector as well as demand for educational

equality At that time, the university network also expanded to Eastern andNorthern Finland: the university of Oulu was founded in 1958 followed bythree more universities (Joensuu, Lappeenranta and Kuopio) about one dec-ade later

In the early 1990s, a non-university sector of higher education was introducedinto the Finnish education system In 1992, the first temporary polytechnics(institution of vocational higher education) were established by combiningeducational institutions, which had previously provided vocational post-secondary education, and by up-grading their education to meet the stan-dards of higher education In 1995, the system was made permanent In 2001,there were 29 polytechnics with 118 000 students in Finland

In 2003, there are 20 universities in Finland: ten multi-faculty universities,three universities of technology, three schools of economics and business ad-ministration, and four art academies with a total number of students of about

170 000 Geographically, the network covers the whole country All Finnishuniversities are state-run In 1999, approximately 24 per cent of the studentsstudied at the University of Helsinki, and 44 per cent at the five next largestuniversities (Turku, Tampere, Helsinki University of Technology, Oulu andJyväskylä)

The number of university students grew by 20-30 000 in each decade between

1960 and 1990 While the number of students increased by 134 per cent in the60s, the growth in the 80s was reduced to 34 per cent In the 1990s, the respec-tive amount was about 45 000, which corresponded to 40 per cent The largestfields of study are technology (20,8 % in 1999), the humanities (16,9 %) andthe natural sciences (14,4 %) Also the number of students participating incontinuing education or open university instruction grew rapidly in the 1990s,from about 101 000 to 212 000 annually

Parallel to the expansion of the educational capacity of the university systemFinland has experienced an significant growth in resources allocated to R&D.The share of R&D of the GDP has grown from 0,90 per cent in 1971 to 3,37 percent in 2000 This growth has been relatively stable, about one percentage unitper decade As a result of the long-term growth, the share of R&D funding ofthe GDP in Finland is currently one of the highest in the world However itshould be remembered that this growth does not just reflects the increasedR&D-activity at the universities In fact growth in R&D in industry has beenfaster reflecting Nokia’s success in mobile telephony

As a consequence the share of the higher education sector of the total R&Ddecreased from 22,1 per cent in 1991 to 17,8 per cent in 2000 (Since then, it hasslightly increased; the figure for 2002 is 18,6 per cent.) In monetary terms, it

has grown from 378 million euro in 1991 to 905 million in 2002 In his survey

of these developments, Husso (2001,33) concludes that “(T)he described

trends lead to the conclusion that although total R&D funding overall showedhealthy development in Finland in the 1990s, the trend for university and sci-entific research was less encouraging.”

The main aim of the Finnish science policy in its teething stages in 1980s was

to increase R&D activity in those fields where its level was seen inadequate.Yet no systematic policy evaluation practices were created Since the early1990s, Finland has been one of the model pupils in implementing the concept

of national innovation system, which the OECD, among others, has promoted.The most important institution setting the guidelines for national science pol-icy and its relation to technology policy is the Science and Technology PolicyCouncil, which is chaired by the Prime Minister (see, e.g., Review 2000) Itsrecommendations have centred on creating a knowledge-based society

The Academy of Finland allocates most of the funds at its disposal on a petitive basis through universities Its focus is clearly on basic research TheNational Technology Agency (Tekes) finances and activates R&D projects car-ried out by business enterprises, research institutes and universities It hasgrown into a most important instrument in the national technology policy

com-From the point of view of the university system, an important change hasbeen the trend towards result-oriented management strategies It was initi-ated in 1986, and more recently, the allocation criteria for performance-basedfunds have been broadened to include excellence in research At the sametime, the proportion of budgetary core funding to total R&D expenditures inuniversities has declined, and universities have tried to compensate this byapplying for funding from external sources such as Tekes In general, this is

an indication of how the funding system has become more competitive As aresult, also the sectoral structure of funding has changed according to the pri-orities set for the national innovation system (Husso 2001)

During the regional expansion of the university system, the aim regardingeducation was to provide a university education to about one-fifth of thepopulation Currently, this target share has been raised to about two-thirds ofthe population; including those who receive their degree from the polytech-nics

In recent years, the structure of educational output has changed towards thefields that are assumed to have growth prospects This has emphasised therole of engineering subjects, especially information technology

As mentioned above, the Finnish science and research policy system has beenreoriented and streamlined during the last ten years or so In this context,there has been a definite attempt to connect the universities more tightly inthe national innovation system Not surprisingly, this has been raised debate

at the universities on whether external influences are threatening basic search Yet due to the general expansion in funding, the bulk of the academiccommunity seems to accept the official policy

re-Regarding other tasks than education and research the Finnish Higher cation Evaluation Council states in its Action Plan for 2000-2003: "Higher edu-cation institutions are not only expected to react to changes and demands intheir operational environment, but also positively influence future social de-velopments The information society requires us to translate research and de-velopment projects into business activities In addition, institutions of highereducation are regarded as accelerators of regional development; in fact, insome parts of Europe and Finland, higher education is seen as the only vehi-cle for regional development.” (p 5)

Edu-Although the link between university and its environment has been sised in Finland since at least from the days of the decentralisation policies ofthe 1960s, the mechanisms are seen quite differently now The welfare stateargument played a central role in the past; currently the focus is on initiatingand supporting industrial growth

empha-Iceland – one dominant university

The foundation of the University of Iceland in 1911 marks the beginning ofthe modern Icelandic system of higher education This first national univer-sity was established by merging three professional schools founded duringthe 19th

century: a school of theology, a school of medicine and a law school,with a Faculty of Arts included as well Before 1911 Icelandic students hadmainly travelled to Denmark for higher education

The University of Iceland has grown rapidly The original faculties have panded and new ones have been added to extend the number of facultiesfrom four to nine (those are the Faculties of respectively Theology, Law,Medicine, Arts, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, Economics and BusinessAdministration, Engineering, and Dentistry) (Edvardsson and Gunnarsson2000) The first comprehensive legislation for the higher education system as awhole in Iceland was passed by the Parliament "Althingi" as late as 1997 Still,each higher education institution is directly responsible to the Minister of

ex-Education, Research and Culture and operates in accordance with separate

legislation passed by "Althingi" for each institution which defines the mainrole of the institution in education and research, its responsibilities towardshigher authorities, its internal organisation and administrative structure (Ed-vardsson and Gunnarsson 2000)

During the first decades of university education in Iceland, it was modelled

on the University of Copenhagen Since around 1960, however, the Britishand the American models have increasingly influenced the structure of terti-ary education Thus, the higher education system in Iceland is structured onthree main levels First is the level of non-university education that is mainlyprovided within small vocationally oriented colleges, but universities mayalso offer short courses of study that lead to a non-university diploma Edu-cation that leads to a first university degree is at the second level and takesplace mainly within universities or university colleges A first university de-gree is of two types, a bachelor's degree and a candidate's degree Graduateeducation is at the third level This is solely provided within universities oruniversity colleges and leads to a second university degree (below the doc-toral level) or a doctorate

In recent decades there has been growing pressure from various sectors of landic society to upgrade post-secondary institutions and diversify the cur-rent system of higher education to meet the demand for more education and

Ice-to accommodate an ever-increasing number of students Today the highereducation system in Iceland consists of one conventional university, the Uni-versity of Iceland, and seven more specialised ones: the University of Aku-reyri, founded in 1987, the University College of Education founded as a uni-versity in 1971 (but with its roots in the School of Education founded in 1908),the Reykjavik University founded in 1998, the Technical University of Icelandfounded in 2002 (but with its roots in Icelandic College of Engineering andTechnology founded in 1964) The Bifröst Business School is a private schooland university education began there in 1988 The Hvanneyri AgriculturalUniversity was founded in 1999 on the roots of Hvanneyri Agricultural

School starting in 1889 Finally there is the Icelandic Academia of the Arts.University education is mainly on offer in the capital of Iceland where theUniversity of Iceland occupies a dominating position with 7,254 students inthe autumn of 2001, out of a total of 12,071 university students for the country

as a whole Almost 90 per cent of the students study at the six universities inReykjavik, 7 per cent at the University of Akureyri in North-East Iceland and

3 per cent at Bifröst Business School and the Agricultural University in Iceland

West-These figures indicate that the mainstream of tertiary education flows throughthe capital There are a few specialised paths of higher education in the dis-trict of Borgarfjördur and in Akureyri, but in other parts of Iceland, universityeducation is not on offer

In 1999/2000 11% of all pupils and students enrolled in tertiary education inIceland, compared to 15% of the average in 30 European countries The num-ber of students has tripled in the last 25 years in Iceland That is similar to thedevelopment in Greece, Spain, Ireland, and Finland (Europenan Commission,2003) The greatest increase in student numbers is among women

Distance education has been on offer from most higher educational tions in Iceland since 1997 The courses are designed to enable people to pur-sue their studies independent of residence, work or family situation In mostcases the distance learning available is based on new information technology,that is email communication, teleconferencing and home pages on the Inter-net In 2001, 10% of all students at tertiary level were distance learning

institu-Most of the higher educational programs offered in Iceland are at the graduate level Recently, the University of Iceland and the University of Edu-cation have offered a master and doctoral degree in different fields A newlegislation that was passed in parliament in 1998 permits higher educationalinstitutions to offer master and doctoral education

under-The higher educational institutions in Iceland receive most of its fundingthrough the State Budget In the autumn of 1999 the Minister of Educationand research and the rector of the University of Iceland signed an agreement

on resource allegation system for undergraduate education The new system

is based on objectives and results That is, the university receives lump sum in

direct relation to number of students and number of credits for each course.This system will probable serve as a model for other universities and colleges

in Iceland, although it does not very well suit the needs of the smaller tions

institu-Education in Iceland is free of charge; i.e no tuition fees are levied on the dents Every individual with a higher school exam (A levels) is entitled to ap-ply for admission to higher education in Iceland Most fields of study areopen to unlimited number of students, but there are numerous entrance re-straints in some fields, primarily in the health sector, such as dentistry, medi-cine, nursing and physiotherapy

stu-A fundamental principle in higher education is that all students who needhelp to finance their studies should receive assistance from the central gov-ernment for this purpose This aid takes the form of student's loans To re-ceive such assistance, a student must fulfil certain requirements For example,the loans may be reduced if the student’s own income or his spouse's becomestoo substantial In general a person may receive study assistance for a maxi-mum of five years at the undergraduate level and totally ten years at the post-graduate level To continue receiving study assistance, a person must showacceptable scholastic achievement (The Icelandic Student Loan Board 2000).Study assistance consists of repayable loan, which is inflation-indexed Thestudent loan amounts IKR 62.300 a month for individual and 25% is paid ad-ditionally for every child if the student is married and 45% for each child ifthe student is a single mother or father Repayment of the study loan beginsnot less than two years after the final receipt of study assistance Instalmentsare income related, the rule being repayment at a rate of 4,75 per cent of an-nual income The rate of interest is 1 per cent Interest payments are not tax-deductible Student loans are written off at death (The Icelandic Student LoanBoard 2000)

Norway – three waves of reforms

Norway got its first university in 1811 while the country was still in unionwith Denmark For more than one hundred years the University of Oslo wasthe only Norwegian university The second university was established in Ber-gen in 1946, and in 1968 two more universities were established in Trondheimand Tromsø The new University of Trondheim was based on the College ofArts and Science (1922) In 1996 it merged with the Norwegian Institute ofTechnology (1910) to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology(NTNU) Today the country has four universities, six university colleges (spe-cialised university institutions)1, 26 state colleges and two national institutes

of the arts In addition there are a number of private higher education tions with recognised study programmes Like in most other countries, highereducation has seen a tremendous growth since the 1960s Higher educationhas changed from an elite education to a mass education, and is now gradu-ally becoming a universal education

1 Norwegian College of Agriculture/Agricultural University of Norway (1897, Ås), Norwegian School

of Veterinary Science (1935, Oslo), Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (1936, Bergen), Norwegian School of Sport Sciences (1968, Oslo), Oslo School of Architecture (1969, Oslo), and Norwegian State Academy of Music (1973, Oslo).

According to Burton Clark (1983), the university systems develop their acteristics in a field of three opposing forces: the state, the academic oligarchyand the market The triangular forces will mix and give each national systemits peculiar shape and content In Norway, the universities have been closelylinked to the state and the needs formulated by government All institutions

char-of higher education have generally been funded by the state; they have gottheir tasks, permanent posts, rights and duties defined by the state; and mostuniversity graduates have ended up as civil servants There has also been afairly high consensus on education policy Hence, the history of higher edu-cation in Norway is strongly intertwined with the development and democ-ratisation of the state and with the ideologies that have dominated civil serv-ice and public discourse (Bleiklie et al 2000)

After the Second World War, equal right to education became a central cal goal The State Education Loan Fund was set up in 1948 to give all youngpeople an opportunity to obtain education irrespective of social background,gender or residence Although higher education offered by the Norwegianstate is tuition free, university education has traditionally been the privilege

politi-of a small elite During its first hundred years politi-of existence, the University politi-ofOslo graduated less than 13 000 people, of which 60 per cent had studied the-ology, law or medicine The number of applicants to higher education slightlyincreased during the first half of the 20th

century, but in the mid-1950s thenumber of students was still at a pre-war level The shift came in the late1950s The stream of young people into the higher education system was thecombined effect of improved and extended basic education, larger cohorts ofyouth and a higher social valuation of education The following table showsthe increase in the number of students in Norway (autumn semester eachyear)

The total number of students has increased from less than 6 000 in 1955 tomore than 200 000 today Now there are more than 32 000 graduates fromNorwegian universities and colleges each year The universities have experi-enced two periods of rapid growth: from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, andfrom 1989 to 1994 In the first period the total number of students increased by

240 per cent, while the increase in the second period was 87 per cent Themost salient feature is the large increase in college students outside the uni-versities The number of college students has increased from 26 000 in 1975 to

117 000 in 2001, which represents almost 60 per cent of the toal number ofstudents Private colleges have about 25 000 students, but higher education inNorway is mainly offered at state institutions

There have been three waves of reform in Norwegian higher education ing the last fifty years The first one is associated with the Ottosen Committee,which submitted its five reports from 1965 to 1969 The 1960s was a decade ofcomprehensive reforms at all levels of education The statutory right to nineyears of schooling was introduced, and the foundation was laid for the re-placement of the old grammar schools and vocational schools by a new uppersecondary education The Ottosen Committee aimed at the integration of allpost-secondary education into one higher education system, with easy transi-tion between levels and courses The Committee emphasised that the educa-tion system had to be adaptive to student demand and the needs of the labour

dur-market This implied a great expansion and decentralisation of higher tion It was also recommended that the government should take a strongersteering with the internal affairs of the institutions The Committee envisaged

educa-a bineduca-ary system, where the treduca-aditioneduca-al universities should be supplementedwith new schools for shorter and more vocationally oriented education

The proposals of the Ottosen Committee met strong resistance from the versity students and teachers, who criticised the utilitarian approach of theCommittee In effect, little was done with the university system Except fromthe establishment of new universities in Trondheim and Tromsø, the effortswere mainly concentrated on the creation of a new system of regional colleges(‘distriktshøgskoler’) The first college was set up already in 1969, only oneyear after the original proposal, and the number soon increased In 1976 theregional colleges were renamed from ‘distriktshøgskoler’ to ‘regionale

uni-høgskoler’ This was accompanied by an upgrading of schools which ously had been classified as secondary schools Gradually teachers’ colleges,colleges of engineering, colleges of health education and social work, etc., be-came regional colleges and part of the tertiary educational system The newcollege system marked a substantial geographic spread in higher education inNorway The strong focus on regional distribution and on securing access tohigher education was that student demand came to be the decisive criterionfor determining the overall size of the system

previ-The second set of reforms is associated with the Hernes Commission, whichsubmitted its report in 1988 (NOU 1988: 28) By this time Norway had gotabout 100 regional colleges The Hernes Commission marked a new ambitiousattempt to integrate all higher education into one co-ordinated and flexiblesystem The main emphasis was put on strengthening research and high-quality education The Commission proposed a standardisation and stream-lining of teaching programmes, a large increase in doctoral programmes, amerger of regional colleges, and a common occupational structure for bothuniversities and colleges A key element was the idea of a Network Norway,which meant that all institutions of higher education should be part of a uni-fied system based on specialisation and division of labour To foster academicexcellence and a more rational exploitation of resources, selected institutionsand departments were given so-called nod functions for targeted areas of re-search and education The Commission also put strong emphasis on interna-tionalisation of higher education

While there previously had been separate laws for the various institutions,both universities and university colleges became due to the same act in 1990

In 1995 the state colleges were also included in the new Universities and leges Act, which prescribed a common organisational and administrativestructure for all institutions By the college reform of 1994, the regional col-leges were reorganised and merged into 26 larger state colleges, comprisingall higher education in the region Consequently, the distinction between uni-versities and colleges became more and more blurred Instead of the binarysystem which the Ottosen Committee had advocated, a growing number ofthe colleges aspired to become “real universities” and widened there courseportfolios with both lower and higher degree courses interchangeable withthose offered by the universities

Col-The 1990s also saw a string of reforms at lower levels of education In 1994,Reform 94 was implemented in upper secondary education Everyone be-tween the age of 16 to 19 were given the statutory right to a three or four yearupper secondary education leading either to qualification for tertiary educa-tion or vocational skills Three years later compulsory schooling was extended

to 10 years Both reforms included a major review of the content of education.Another important reform was the Competence Reform (NOU 1997: 25), di-rected at continuing education and training for adults To enhance lifelonglearning, an agreement was settled with the social partners, a system fordocumentation of non-formal learning was set up, and new schemes wereintroduced to facilitate the entrance to education and to give adults the right

to study leave During the 1990s, more students applied for longer and moreacademic education A growing number went directly from graduation todoctoral education There also was an upswing in recurrent education andlifelong learning

The third set of reforms in higher education was initiated by the Mjös mission, which submitted its report in 2000 (NOU 2000: 14) The Commissionadvocated a greater autonomy for the higher education institutions The uni-versities and colleges should have the freedom to establish new study pro-grammes on their own, without prior consent from the Ministry of Education,Research and Church Affairs Another central proposal was a new degreesystem with standard bachelor and master degrees (normally 3+2 years) Newprinciples of learning and evaluation were also introduced The aim was tomove from teaching to student centred learning; from rigorous output control

Com-to formative evaluation of students This should be accompanied by a newsystems of marks built on the European Credit Transfer System and the es-tablishment of binding study contracts between the students and their hostinstitutions According to the Commission, the governing body of the institu-tions should be appointed by the ministry and have a majority of externalrepresentatives

Moreover, it launched a new tripartite financial model comprising basic

funding, a piece rate payment for education of candidates, and a strategic andresult-based budget appropriation for research The opportunity was openedfor colleges to become universities, provided they fulfil some requirementsregarding staff qualifications and doctoral degree education Another pro-posal was the establishment of a national agency in charge of evaluation andaccreditation of study programmes and higher education institutions Themain elements of the Mjøs report are now under implementation

A common denominator of all the major reforms in higher education since the1960s, has been the attempts to improve efficiency and ensure a rational use ofpublic resources faced with the huge expansion and rising costs of the system.However, they have reflected different perspectives on the social contribution

of higher education The understanding of why and how universities andcolleges are valuable to society has shifted During the 1960s, equal right toeducation and a just regional distribution of resources and educational op-portunities were major issues Education was mainly regarded as a welfarebenefit

In the 1980s, education and research came to be seen as vital resources in theinternational economic competition The emphasis was put on knowledge as aproduction factor This was paralleled by the belief in an ongoing transition to

a post-industrial service and information society Regional policy tions lost their weight The last decade has seen an introduction of a morebusiness-oriented approach to the organisation and management of highereducation institutions Management by objectives (MBO) and operationalplanning were imposed as new elements in 1990, and in the following yearsNew Public Management-inspired measures have been introduced Decen-tralisation of authority and decision-making power to the operative unitswithin the system of higher education has been coupled with increasing for-malisation, standardisation and capacity to produce statistics on all aspects ofhigher education and research Greater transparency and evaluation, result-based funding, and stronger competition between the institutions are ex-pected to enhance the efficient production of candidates and research of aninternationally accepted quality This corresponds to the pivotal role attrib-uted to education and research in the global marketplace

considera-Today there are 23 500 staff at public Norwegian universities and colleges Onaverage the academic staff makes up about half of total staff Funding of terti-ary education from the Ministry of Education and Research amounted to 16billion NOK in 2002 External financing varies, but for the universities it gen-erally represents between 17 and 20 per cent of their running costs The Nor-wegian Research Council, the EU, and various state departements are themain sources Norway has a relatively large proportion of students in foreigneducational institutions In 2001 nearly 15 000 Norwegian students studiedabroad, which is approximately 7 per cent of all students On the other hand,the proportion of foreign students in Norway is low About 5 per cent of totalstudents have foreign citizenship

The growth of tertiary education has changed the composition of the labourforce While in 1970 7 per cent of the population in age group 25-64 years hadhigher education, in 2000 the proportion was 29 per cent More than 40 percent of a year’s cohort now takes higher education One of the most salientfeatures is the strong increase in the percentage of females taking higher edu-cation Today women make up about 60 per cent of all students at Norwegianuniversities and colleges For several years applicants aged 24 years or belowhave been fairly stable at 70 per cent, but an increasing share of the applicantsare older than 35 years, reflecting the expansion of further and distance edu-cation

Despite all the declared goals of equal right to education, there still are majordifferences in the recruitment to the various academic and vocational educa-tions Gender and place of residence mean less, but social background stillmeans a lot More than half of the students at the universities and universitycolleges have parents who themselves are holding a higher education certifi-cate The state colleges have a broader recruitment base However, of a

population of 4.5 million, more than 900,000 are currently undergoing tion at primary, secondary or tertiary level In addition, approximately 1 mil-lion persons participate regularly in adult education courses (Ministry ofEducation, Research and Church Affairs 2001)

educa-Sweden – crisis generated growth

University of Uppsala, founded in 1477, was the first Swedish university Itwas followed by University of Lund, which was founded as en importantelement in the successful strategy used by the Swedish king to integrate theconquered Danish areas in Sweden After that the university system was onthe whole unchanged in 200 years, In the 19th century the two universities be-came institutions for acclimatization of civil servants The universities wereplaces for education of a national elite, who was able to pay regard to thehistorical role of the nation The two universities were transformed to ideo-logical acclimatization centres for a corps of civil servants From this point ofview the idea to found new universities represented a threat, because an ex-pansion of the system should reduce the exclusivity of the national elite Theambitions were instead to control that the number of persons with an aca-demic education did not exceed the number of civil servants positions

Therefore, the expansion of the system initially took the form of the building

of new types of scholls like polytechnic schools and professional schools.Royal Institute of Technology, Karolinska Medical Institute, Institute of For-est, Institute of Dentistry andInstitutes of Agriculture was established in the

19th century The founding of professional schools was a response to the

changing needs of the emerging industrial society

The two old conservative universities were still against the idea of foundingnew universities and government did not take any initiative in such direction.Instead, private and local actors took initiatives The new universities of

Stockholm and Göteborg were founded by private initiatives In some respectthese two universities represented something new

The university system that grew up in the second half of 19th century becamemore or less unchanged until after the Second World War The number ofstudents increased but not dramtically In 1950 the number of students atSwedish universities was about 25 000 The Swedish system of higher educa-tion has changed dramatically in the second half of last century The year 2000the number of full-time students was more than ten times as high as 1950.About 40 per cent of the students study social science, about 25 per cent sci-ence, 20 per cent humanities and 15 per cent technology The growth of thenumber of students is concentrated to two periods of time

The first period was the second half of the 1960s, when the number of sons, partly due to demographic factors, who started a university educationincreased fast To meet the growing number of students, a system that auto-matically provided the faculties of humanities, social sciences and natural sci-ences with resources according to the number of students was introduced in

per-1964 At the same time positions only for teaching where introduced Thus, adivision between undergraduate education and research was created At theend of the sixties positions as lecturer which did not require doctoral degreeswere introduced which further widened the gap between undergraduate edu-cation and research

Between 1965 and 1970 the number of students increased by 72 per cent, agrowth rate of almost 12 per cent per year The baby-boomers of the 1940sreached the university age At that time most of the study programmes at the

university were open to all qualified persons Many Swedish universities come crammed with new students The Swedish government reacted uponthis uncontrolled expansion and started reforming the system of higher edu-cation A decision was taken by the Parliament to introduce a number of fixedstudy courses One purpose was to control the expansion in order to makesure that the supply of persons with a university degree was matched by acorresponding demand He decision was heavily criticized by the studentsand triggered the Swedish part of the famous student revoltin the sixties.Later on government allowed exceptions from the fixed combinations of sub-ject courses However, the government kept the control over the total number

be-of students enrolled

A process of structural changes was initiatd in the 1960s A fifth universityhad been discussed since the end of 1940s The beginning of the 1950s sawincreasing pressure on the government to promote the location of institutesfor higher education in the northern parts o Sweden In 1951 the governmentdecided to establish a large government-supported library in Umeå Someyears later an odontological clinic, offereing basic dental training, was set upand in 1954 an institute of medicine was established, both of them in Umeå.When other institutes of social sciences and humanities, came into being inthe early 1960s there was no dispute where they were to be located Uneå wasconsidered to be the natural choice The location of these institutes followed acertain pattern In the choice between townsa of comparable size and facilitiesthe institutions were placed as far north as possible This line of thought wasnever explicitly stated by the government, which presented each decision as aunique phenomenon (Carlbom 1970) In 1963 it was time to found a university

in Umeå The strategy chosen by the government! made it possible to avoidthe political struggle which otherwise would have been imminent,

Central authorities were in the beginning of the 1960s well aware thtat thenumber og people, who would apply for university education would in-crease At this time the entry to the university was in principle open to all,which have graduated fron high school A commission was set up to dealwith the problem The commission delivered three alternative solutions be-fore they settled for one This one suggested the separation of research andadvanced education on one hand, from undergraduate university education

on the other The former was to be concentrated to existing universities, andthe latter decentralized to five new university colleges in Linköping, Örebro,Karlstad, Växjö and Sundsvall, each to be associated with a parent university.The government followed in principle the comminsion’s suggestion and fournew university colleges was founded in 1965 The final decision about thefifth, the university college in Sundsvall linked to the new university in Umeå,was postponed

The old universities’ hostility against new professional schools was able weaker and the government founded one institute of technology, six newinstitutes of education and a number of schools of social studies In the 1970smost of these new institutes were integrated in existing universities or becameparts of new university colleges

consider-The boom in the 1960s was followed by a long period of moderate and slowgrowth In the 1970s the population at the universities increased by 28 per

cent, a figure which was reduced to 4 per cent in the 1980s In reality the ference between the two decades is smaller than the figures indicate Most ofthe growth in the 1970 was caused by the fact that a number of post-

dif-secondary educations received the status of university education In a reform

in 1977 all post-secondary education financed by the state was brought gether as one system called “högskolan” A common fairly detailed system ofrules was introduced for all the universities and the new university colleges,the latter without research and doctoral programmes The same institutionalstructure and rules on the composition of the internal decision bodies wereimposed on all institutions in the system

to-In order to provide society with specialized qualified labour, undergraduateeducation was oriented towards specific professions Therefore, the main part

of undergraduate education was organised in fixed general study

pro-grammes, the design and main contents of which were decided by syllabusesfrom the national Swedish Board of Universities and Colleges (UHÄ) Thelocation of the general study programmes and the admission capacity of each

of these were decided by the Government and Parliament on the basis of terial from UHÄ Also, most of the rest of undergraduate education was or-ganised in fixed study programmes, decided on by six regional boards Thislimited the free choice of the individual students more than the former fixedcombinations had done

ma-From 1979 a “numerous clauses” was introduced, open admission to courses

in humanities, social sciences and natural sciences were thus now replaced bystate decisions on admission capacities The decisions were based on the pro-posal from the central agency UHÄ, which in turn based its recommendations

on prognosis on the need of academics in different part of the countries and invarious professions The system of higher education became strictly plannedand the government was in charge of the system A weak demand for laboureducated at the universities and bleak prognosis resulted in an almost con-stant number of places at the universities

Apart from the transfer of the short engineering programmes from secondaryschool to higher education no real expansion of undergraduate educationtook place during the seventies and eighties Four new university collegeswere established ( in Halmstad and Skövde 1983, in Karlskrona/Ronneby

1988 and in Trollhättan/Uddevalla in 1990) At the end of the eighties highereducation was also started on the island of Gotland, which developed into anew university college in the nineties

The fact that the total number of students had not changed since the sixtiesstarted to cause concern By order of Government UHÄ published a report in

1989 in which was demonstrated that Sweden risked a shortage of severalgroups of academics if an expansion of undergraduate education was not ini-tiated The government rejected the proposal, but a growing turbulence on theforeign exchange market signalled the beginning of a sever depression

The second period of boom in the university system was initiated by this pression in the Swedish economy in 1991-1993 In this period GDP declined

de-by 5 per cent and unemployment increased from 2,7 to 12,8 per cent For icy-makers in Sweden this was a situation unthinkable just a few years before,

pol-when they were convinced of that the famous Swedish model made Sweden acountry of permanent stable growth and full employment Now the labourmarket policy, which was formed in a situation with excess demand for la-bour, became overloaded The public expenses for labour market policy

measures increased without control, but the results of the measures weremeagre The fact that young people was over-represented among the unem-ployed made the expansion of the system of higher education look like an at-tractive solution In the short term young people could move from unem-ployment to university studies As students they would get education, whichlater on strengthen their position on the labour market, and hopefully the la-bour market situation would be better when they graduated

The major argument for expanding the system of higher education was thelack of an efficient labour market policy From the point of view of educa-tional policy the priorities were different The two major parties in the parlia-ment and the minister of education and science declared that care for qualitywas the primal priority and this objective gave strong restrictions for growth.The minister of labour looked at the issue from another point of view He con-sidered a further growth in higher education as an excellent tool in labourmarket policy

In the years 1990-1999 the number of students increased by 65 per cent, whichmeans a growth rate of 6 per cent per year The state’s control of the allocation

of study places gave it power to decide ho much each institution was allowed

to grow The allocation made by the government resulted in a radical change

in the structure of the system of higher education However, pressed by a rious labour market situation, the government did choose not to discuss alter-native strategies for reforming the system The new pattern grew out of alarge number of small decisions formed in a political muddling-through proc-ess inside the government, in which the government tended to consider re-gional policy argument as stronger than research policy argument Little at-tention was paid to the long-term impact of the decisions

se-In the nineties the legal framework from the seventies was replaced by a newcharacterized by considerably fewer rules Instead of detailed decisions on thestudy programmes of each institution, the Government began to establishlong-term goals and short-term objectives for higher education and research.The decisions on the dimension and the orientation of undergraduate educa-tion, the establishing of professional chairs, and the appointment of profes-sors, which were previously taken by the government, were left to each insti-tution to make within resources given As a consequence the resources are nolonger allocated according to considerations made about the need in the vari-ous educational sectors or within the different faculties, but rather according

to considerations regarding the capacity of each institution to make good use

of resources Instead of allocating resources on the basis of the admission pacities in undergraduate education, resources are now based on the resultsachieved

ca-In this way the Swedish educational system became deregulated The plannedsystem was replaced by a more differentiated market, where state institutions,foundation institutions and private institutions were to compete for studentsand for resources for research

The Swedish system of higher education has undergone radical changes sincethe boom in the 1960s In 1960 about 10 per cent of each age group went touniversity studies The system at that time consisted of four traditional uni-versities with 5-9 faculties, one agricultural university, two technical univer-sities, two independent business schools and one medical university In addi-tion there was a number of post-secondary schools for different types of vo-cational education.

The most important structural change in the 1970s was the establishment of anumber of new university colleges The background was that many post-secondary educations were upgraded to university educations These schoolswere in most cases located outside existing university towns Therefore theupgrading resulted in the creation of a number of university colleges withoutpermanent research resources

In 1990, when growth took off again, the system of higher education differed

in one important aspect from the situation in 1960 Now there were 15 versity colleges in addition to 6 traditional universities and one more techni-cal university The government gave high priority to the growth of the uni-versity colleges The number of students at these increased from 29 000 in

uni-1988 to 94 000, a number that include the students at the three university leges which were assigned universities 1999 The number of students at thesex old universities was at the same time 116 000

col-The fact that the government gave the three oldest university colleges – stad, Växjö and Örebro – university status changed the balance between thetwo groups in favour of universities The university colleges’ share of the stu-dent population decreased from 37 to 28 per cent, while the share of the uni-versities increased from 45 to 54 per cent However, the three new universitiesstill looks more like university colleges than like genuine universities To-gether the three new universities have 16 per cent of the number of students

Karl-at the universities, but only 2 per cent of the Ph D-students Their share of thenumber of graduated teachers was 8 per cent, but they have only 4 per cent ofthe professors

Sweden has about 50 institutions offering academic education, but the dents and the R&D-resources are concentrated to the large multi-faculty uni-versities and a few specialised universities About 70 per cent of the studentsattend the 10 multi-faculty universities and the 7 specialized universities,while 30 per cent attend the 14 university colleges and 19 other academic in-stitutions 90 per cent of the graduated teachers and 95 per cent of professorsare at the first mentioned schools

stu-The 17 universities receive almost 80 per cent of the total research funds 96per cent of the research money from the government and 99 per cent of

money from the research councils are allocated to these institutions

(Högskoleverket 1999) The university colleges have to go for other sourcesfor research resources However, the government has increased the flow ofmoney for research at the university colleges in the 1990s based on the argu-ment that research is necessary in order to guarantee a qualified education on

a scientific ground In the first half of the 1990s the large budget deficit was a

strong financial restriction for increasing the public resources to higher cation.

edu-In spite of the budget restrictions the liberal-conservative government’s sition against the system of employees funds created a unique opportunitiy toincrease the research funds The parliament decided to dissolve these fundsand use most of the money for research The resources were allocated in threenew foundations One, the Strategic foundation was responsible for financingbasic research primarily in natural sciences and medicine The aim of the sec-ond, the KK-foundation, was to finance applied research and demonstrationsprojects The mission of third, Mistra, was to finance environmental research,which should lead to new products or in other ways stimulate economicgrowth Primarily the KK-foundation became of great importance for some ofthe university colleges The foundation financed in a limited time the building

oppo-of new research groups in defined research areas In the 1990s much attentionwas focused on different aspect of information technology

The new universities and university colleges established in the 1960s wereprimarily motivated by the need to increase the capacity of the system and toget better access to higher education in certain regions Four of the five

schools were founded to fulfil the traditional role of Swedish universities, livering qualified labour to the public sector The fifth – University of

de-Linköping – started as an institute of technology At this time little attentionwas paid to the university as an engine of industrial development

This aspect did not became relevant until in the 1980s, when the first Swedishscience park was founded adjacent to University of Lund in 1983 Other uni-versities soon followed At the end of 1990s there are 19 science parks con-nected to universities, with more than 500 firms and about 11 000 employed(Ny Teknik 1998) Gradually policy-makers started to look upon universities

as an engine of regional development The transformation of the industrialsociety to a knowledge society was indicating that scientific knowledge wouldbecome the most important production factor High-tech companies were ex-pected to locate close to the university in order to get access to ongoing re-search The Research Triangle Park in North Carolina was used in the debate

as an good illustration of such a development (Link 1995)

Many policy-makers expected that researchers at the universities would off firms in order to commercialise their research results The spin offs fromthe University of Cambridge and Massachusetts Institute of Technology be-came important role models (Segal Quince Wicksteed 1995, Rosegrant &Lampe 1992) In 1977 the government formulated for the first time the thirdtask in a decree Initially the third task, which was added to the two tradi-tional tasks (education and research), was expressed as an obligation for theuniversity to inform about their research The task was reformulated andmade more distinct in 1997 Now the university was expected to contribute toregional development Young universities and university colleges seem tohave made more serious efforts to fulfil the third task than older universities(Sörlin & Törnqvist 2000)