The abolition of the national Swedish institute for building research: Social change & political compromise

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The closure of the National Swedish Institute for Building Research at the end of 1993 and its replacement by two new university departments was the culmination of a longer process of social change during which the old Institute gradually lost its role as a source of public planning for the by then completed post‐war urbanisation of Sweden. The Institute had been undergoing a process of academisation since the late 1970s to adapt to these changing circumstances, but the process was interrupted by the decision of the newly‐elected bourgeois government in 1991 to abolish the Institute. This decision took place under the unique circumstances of a commitment to dramatically increase research funding in general by using some of the capital in the Wage Earners Funds that were being abolished at that time. However, the decision became politically controversial and, after two acts of parliament, led to the compromise that replaced the Institute with two university departments. This resulted in only a modest reduction of funding for building research but it completed the process of academisation of building research in what ultimately became a complicated downsizing solution. This article traces these processes and the various interests that were involved in it.