Abstract
This article is an historical analysis of Swedish policies for internationalisation of higher education and research from the 1970s and onwards. The analysis is carried out against the theoretical backdrop of the competition state, as a type of state reformulating and restructuring the relation between the national and international during the second half of the twentieth century with the aim of making society fit for international competition. Focussing on arguments as to why Swedish universities need to be internationalised, how this should be done and which parts of higher education that should be internationalised, the article shows the development of Swedish internationalisation policies, starting in the 1960s and -70s where focus was on international solidarity, inward student mobility and the internationalisation of teaching. In the 1980s and -90s the idea of a knowledge driven economic development was the central paradigm, resulting in a stronger focus on research and international research collaboration. To this the 2000s and -10s added a focus on ingoing mobility, both as a source of revenue through tuition fees, and a way to recruit skilled labour.
Highlights
National and international in higher education and research The history of higher education and research contains an obvious tension between the national and the international
Focussing on arguments as to why Swedish universities need to be internationalised, how this should be done and which parts of higher education that should be internationalised, the article shows the development of Swedish internationalisation policies, starting in the 1960s and -70s where focus was on international solidarity, inward student mobility and the internationalisation of teaching
At the CRE conference in Genoa in October 1980 Ernst Erik Ehnmark from the international secretariat of the UHÄ presented the final evaluation report of Swedish internationalisation[40] as well as a revised action program focusing on staff mobility. His speech marks an interesting shift in Swedish internationalisation policy as the needs of Swedish science were presented as one of the main reasons for enhancing mobility: Mobility of staff and students will probably be a more and more important function of the international dissemination of specialized knowledge
Summary
National and international in higher education and research The history of higher education and research contains an obvious tension between the national and the international. In his article Enders pictures globalisation as a phenomenon challenging the idea of the nation state while the state at the same time has been crucial for implementing “global processes.”[9] Saskia Sassen argues in a similar manner and refers to the role of the state in relation to globalisation, as an “interface between national and supranational forces.”[10] It is reasonable to argue that in order to understand national university policies in general it is important to consider what kind of nation state we are dealing with This perspective has been present in Swedish research on the relation between the modern state and science. The competition state As briefly mentioned above the policies aiming at the internationalisation of higher education and research need to be related to more profound changes in the international environment and to the attempt of modern states to deal with global processes. According to de Wit the rationales can be divided into four different groups as shown in table 1
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