The Swedish construction sector is said to be highly traditional with a slow pace of development, e.g., in terms of adapting new technologies. However, current developments related mainly to digitalization, but also sustainability and entrepreneurship, are forcing this sector to change from almost static to highly dynamic. This paper presents results from an interview study performed with eight industry experts from various property management and/or construction companies in Sweden, all in different ways connected to research at KTH Live-In Lab. The interviews were performed to discuss and identify what engineering skills are required to operate and manage the smart and sustainable buildings of the future. The results indicate that changes in the three areas of digitalization, sustainability and entrepreneurship have different characteristics. The interviewees describe rapid changes in these areas, changes that have an unknown end goal. What is asked for in the construction industry seems unreachable. The construction sector cannot fully harvest the benefits of ongoing technological development, and academia is, in the short term, unable to help. Hence, dedicated actors solve the competence need outside traditional university educational programs.

Interaction with the surrounding society and external stakeholders is an important component when developing and managing high quality and relevant education programs. This paper presents some of the outcomes of the project MERUT which was carried out during 2018 - 2020 with support from the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova. The key outcome is a toolbox offering a structured way to describe and handle methods and tools for stakeholder interaction. The methods of interaction are organized in three categories, denoted A, B, and C, where category A includes methods for external stakeholders to influence the management and development of the education program. Category B consists of means for external stakeholders to have an active role in course modules, and category C contains methods and tools to evaluate the quality and relevance of the education from, for example, alumni or employer perspective. Examples from the different categories are presented, including the CDIO Syllabus Survey, alumni surveys, and reflection documents.

This article provides an external stakeholder perspective on the influence of higher education in Sweden, exploring their views on curriculum development and quality work at the programme level. Semi-structured interviews with a selected number of representatives of external stakeholders involved in various educational areas were conducted at seven higher education institutions. The participants argued that changes in their business sectors, and subsequent changes in the knowledge and skills in the labour needed, should encourage higher education institutions to adjust and develop their programmes. They did not anticipate or demand immediate changes in response to their comments, nor did they see themselves as a part of any quality assurance scheme. Uncertainties about the internal decision-making process and organisation in higher education institutions apparently do not facilitate external stakeholders’ understanding of their role in the larger scheme. However, all informants had comments on quality in higher education, perceiving it predominantly as something connected to the world of work. The practical implication of this study is that curriculum development at higher education institutions would benefit from communicating the internal decision-making processes to external stakeholders and agreeing on the expectations with them, in collaboration.

In Sweden, engineering education at the upper secondary school level was transformed in the early 1990s into a 2-year programme at the higher education level. This development could be seen as an opportunity for higher education institutions to expand the volume of engineering programmes, but also as a sign of external pressure for changes in organisational structure and identity. The main aim of this chapter is to analyse and understand how technical universities acted upon and responded to the proposals to change the system of engineering education in Sweden. The study underlying this chapter is a historical documentary research study, complemented by a select number of semi-structured elite interviews. The results show that while the university colleges embraced the idea of transformation, the leading technical universities were less supportive. In fact, three of the four leading technical universities/faculties structured their new engineering programmes as a dual system within the framework of a seemingly unified system. One reason was to protect the core of the organisations’ identities as strongly anchored in their research and master’s programmes. In reality, they used the change process as a way to preserve or even strengthen their existing identity, without adding or removing anything.

In Sweden, engineering education at the upper secondary school level was transformed in the early 1990s into a two-year programme at the higher education level. This development could be seen as an opportunity for higher education institutions to expand the volume of engineering programmes, but also as a sign of external pressure for changes in organisational structure and identity. The main aim of this chapter is to analyse and understand how technical universities acted upon and responded to the proposals to change the system of engineering education in Sweden. The study underlying this chapter is a historical documentary research study, complemented by a select number of semi-structured elite interviews. The results show that while the university colleges embraced the idea of transformation, the leading technical universities were less supportive. In fact, three of the four leading technical universities/faculties structured their new engineering programmes as a dual system within the framework of a seemingly unified system. One reason was to protect the core of the organisations’ identities as strongly anchored in their research and master’s programmes. In reality, they used the change process as a way to preserve or even strengthen their existing identity, without adding or removing anything.

I början av 1990-talet omvandlades den svenska gymnasiala fyraåriga ingenjörsutbildningen till en tvåårig högskoleutbildning. Införandet av den tvååriga ingenjörsutbildningen på högskolenivå, under en inledningsperiod kallad mellaningenjör, därefter högskoleingenjör, innebar stora förändringar för många lärosäten med avseende på exempelvis utbildningsvolym, men kan också ses som tillfälle då både lärosätens organisationsstruktur och identitet stod under ett förändringstryck. Huvudsyftet med den här studien är att analysera och förstå det som ledde till denna utbildningsreform, dvs. att identifiera och analysera argumenten hos de intressenter som var med och påverkade processen som ledde fram till riksdagsbeslutet 1989 att gymnasieingenjörsutbildningen skulle omvandlas, och samtidigt förlängas med ett år, till en ingenjörsutbildning på högskolenivå. Studien är en historisk studie som kombinerar dokumentsstudier, främst policyrapporter och statliga utredningar, med semistrukturerade elitintervjuer.

This paper presents the findings from a study of industrial adjunct professors at two higher education institutions in Sweden. The aim of the study is to investigate the rationales and expectations for companies to invest time and money in the collaboration that adjunct professors represent. The study also explores the tasks adjunct professors are involved in. The study is a two-case study comprising 31 semi-structured interviews with university management, adjunct professors and their employers, the companies.

The results from the study show that the stakeholders have different expectations for the adjunct professors. While the companies are oriented towards education and students as future employees, the universities’ expectations are more related to research and research training. Notably, the different expectations are rarely explicit or known to the stakeholders or the adjunct professors. The adjunct professor has to interpret the often unspoken expectations.

As regards tasks, adjunct professors are involved in research, research training, advisory services and engineering education, although the latter in a limited way. They are involved in the employability agenda and educational collaboration, but except in one single case they do not develop existing, or create new, engineering curricula. The study concludes that adjunct professors could be used as a strategic resource for developing engineering curricula, provided that the expectations are expressed from all stakeholders from the beginning of the collaboration.

Adjungerade professorer har funnits i Sverige i drygt 30 år. Det finns dock få studier om vad de adjungerade professorerna bidrar med och särskilt deras bidrag i utbildningen. Syftet med den här studien har därför varit att öka kunskapen om personrörlighet mellan akademi och omgivande samhälle. 

Studien visar att det sällan finns uttalade förväntningar på vad den adjungerade professorn ska uträtta under sin tid som ”gränsgångare”. Varken lärosäte eller företag är tydliga med att formulera och/eller formalisera förväntningar. Intervjuerna visar också att förväntningarna skiljer sig åt; lärosätena förväntar sig att den adjungerade professorn ska bidra till forskningen och företagen vill komma närmare studenterna och utbildningen. 

Ett fokusområde i studien har varit de adjungerades roll i utbildning, särskilt avseende deras roll i utveckling av ingenjörsutbildning. Med ett enda undantag är utveckling av utbildning inte någon framträdande arbetsuppgift för någon av de intervjuade adjungerade professorerna. En slutsats från studien är att det sannolikt är mycket svårt att skifta balansen i de befintliga adjungerade professorernas arbetsuppgifter mot mer utbildning, däremot är det fullt möjligt att definiera detta som tydliga arbetsuppgifter vid rekrytering av nya adjungerade professorer.

Introduction

The entire system of higher education has changed radically during the last decades. This includes for example both changes in the structure of funding as well as increased demands from the labour market. One strategy to adopt to the new conditions is to develop close ties to external organizations such as industry (Clark 1998; Slaughter and Leslie 1997). This paper investigates expectations on, and roles of, researchers from industry, affiliated part time at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). In this paper we call these researchers “affiliated faculty”. The questions are, what are the expectations from HEIs as well as from industry on the affiliated faculty? And how does this correspond to the role taken by these affiliated researchers?

Methodology

The paper is based on the results of documentary studies and interviews at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Mälardalen University. In total 27 interviews, including affiliated professors and management from industry and HEI, are undertaken. From this material, a pattern has been distinguished through content analysis (Patton 2002).

Preliminary Results

The interviews reveal that high but divergent expectations are placed on the affiliated faculty. Affiliated faculty are expected to bring in new experiences and contacts from industry to enrich the university environment. However the process of affiliating a professor is described as very dependent on personal contacts. The affiliated faculty are also a way of promoting the university, making its research and its brand more visible outside academia. By contrast, industry has its primary focus on educational aspects. Industrial partners are, for example, interested in bringing concrete industrial problems that can be used as examples in teaching and learning. Affiliated professors themselves express that one of their missions is to identify the best students for future recruitment. From a personal perspective, the affiliated professors appreciate the possibility of having the time to go deeper into questions that they do not find time for in their ordinary jobs.

Mobility in the form of people moving between academia and surrounding society is one of the most direct and supposedly effective forms of knowledge transfer. Mobility in terms of adjunct faculty from industry is often used by higher education institutions (HEIs) as a means to strengthen research and research education. More seldom are adjunct faculty members used in the development of the curricula of bachelor and master level programmes even though companies collaborating with universities claim that one of the main reasons to collaborate is the connection with education and thus the competence of the future. The main reason to introduce adjunct professors in the higher education system in Sweden in the mid 70?s was to increase resources in research education. This new resource was, and still is, funded by the company where the adjunct professor has his employment. However, the expectations from key stakeholders; the university, the company and the adjunct professor have never been under scope. Furthermore, the actual balance between research and education and the overall work-load situation for adjunct professors has never before been investigated. In this paper, the situation for adjunct professors has been studied at two HEIs with the purpose to investigate their balance of work, their interests and their possible intention to change the balance to more education at bachelor and master level. In addition, the stakeholders, i.e. the ?parent? companies and the two HEIs were asked the same questions. Data from 31 interviews have been used in the study. The analysis is building on previous research in e.g. knowledge transfer [e.g.1], entrepreneurial universities [e.g. 3], collaboration in higher education [4], academic drift [5] and from policy reports. The results show that both industry and adjunct professors have an interest in education at bachelor and master levels. The bottleneck is, as always, lack of time as the adjunct professors normally only spend one day a week at the university. Furthermore, the HEIs have other expectations, such as research and even research funding from the adjunct professor and his/her company. The adjunct professors represent a resource which is expended but perhaps not expediently spent due to stakeholders? different expectations.