Stockholm University has an extensive educational mission and a great responsibility to offer high-quality courses and programmes. It is likely the quality and content of our programmes and our reputation in the labour market that draws students to us. The main factor enabling us to offer programmes and courses in such a wide range of subjects, for different future professional roles, is that we have a breadth of research to match. The President recently blogged about Kerstin Sahlin’s study, which describes how the important link between higher education and research is now at risk of being weakened at Swedish higher education institutions.
Stockholm University can offer students at all levels teaching and supervision that rests on a scientific foundation. Our teachers are usually very active researchers and thus well acquainted with scientific methodology and research front developments. At the same time, it is important that all faculty members are involved in educating and supervising students at different levels, and that doctoral students, as far as possible, gain teaching experience during their studies. This way, their knowledge and skills in research also benefit students and society. The teaching component often provides inspiration for research, and the knowledge acquired by the teacher together with the students can also be used in new, concrete research projects.
Naturally, there must be a base offering of foundation courses that introduce new students to a subject and provide them with basic skills. These may be courses that at first glance have nothing to do with research, but our quality system for education, in particular, shows that there are many links between education and research and that there is a great deal of interest within the departments in developing courses related to current research. At the same time, we know that research leads to the development of new knowledge, and that this development also changes the content of foundation courses.
The latest research bill strongly emphasised this connection, and in the Swedish Research Council’s latest call for centres of excellence, applicants were asked to describe the connection to possible future courses and programmes. Stockholm University has been awarded one grant for the humanities and one for the natural sciences, which is very pleasing. We in the Senior Management Team are now discussing input to the forthcoming research bill and the possibility of once again emphasising the importance of maintaining a close link between research and education.
This is a text written by the Deputy Vice Presidents Elisabeth Wåghäll Nivre, Henrik Cederquist and Yvonne Svanström. It appears in the section ”Words from the University’s senior management team”, where the management team take turns to write about topical issues. The section appears in every edition of News for staff which is distributed to the entirety of the University staff.