The aim of this paper is to study academicstaff’sknowledge about working life outside academia and how contacts with employers and work related learning are integrated in higher education. Thisis the first research report from the project Science and Technology in Society, funded by the European Socialfund (2012-2014), which aims at increasing faculty awareness of working life issues at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)and Stockholm University, the Faculty of Science (SU).In this paper,we examine the academicstaff’s relationto working life outside academiain terms of their own work experience outside academia, theirknowledge about the world of workfor studentsandtheir opinion onthe need for work related learning.The results indicatethat there are some differences, e.g. academic staff at KTH seem to have more work experience outside academiaandthey have integrated more work related learning than academic staff at SU, while staff at SU to a higher extent seem to think there is a need for an increase of work related activities.The tentative conclusionsarethat an increase in commitment from and partnerships with employers as well as opportunitiesfor academic staff to spend time in workplacesoutside academia could increase work related learning in engineering education as well as in science education.