Expert discusses the future of higher education based on Swedish experience

Several national systems offer a more interesting perspective on these contradictions than Sweden's. The Swedish higher education landscape is characterized by strong state support for education and research, significant institutional autonomy, an emphasis on academic freedom, a close link between universities and society, and a long culture of international interaction. Nevertheless, Sweden is not a complete model; its universities, politicians, and society as a whole are discussing how autonomy, accountability, innovation, and institutional governance should develop.

It is this incompleteness that makes the Swedish experience valuable to the entire world. To understand what global leaders in higher education, businesspeople, and politicians can learn from the example of Sweden, a conversation was held with Alex Mattsson, a Swedish associate professor and international business strategist. His professional viewpoint intentionally sits at the intersection of academic thinking and commercial practice, giving him a unique opportunity to analyze the relationship between universities, industry, and society.

According to Mattsson, his view is not aimed at presenting Sweden as an ideal model, but rather at posing a more important question: what principles embedded in Swedish education can be applied to make better decisions elsewhere?

First thing to understand about Swedish education

Alex Mattsson argues that higher education cannot be viewed merely as a service that issues diplomas. The university is part of the country's intellectual, economic, and social infrastructure. Education, research, and societal engagement are closely linked. If they are separated into different institutional priorities, universities may become highly effective in producing results but lose sight of their broader purpose.

The Swedish system recognizes that the responsibilities of higher education extend beyond classroom teaching. Universities must conduct research, provide education, engage with the surrounding community, and promote lifelong learning. Academic freedom is also protected in this system. This creates an important foundation. For him, the key lesson is understanding the institution's mission: when university staff realize the reason for their existence, decisions regarding curricula, research, international partnerships, industry engagement, and innovation become much more consistent. The question is not how well the university works, but whether it fulfills the right mission.

The significance of the 'Pra-academic' identity

Mattsson explains why his 'pra-academic' identity is becoming increasingly relevant to higher education: the problem of the distance between knowledge and practice is growing. Academia is capable of generating complex theories, concepts, and research findings, while business confronts these ideas with the complexity of real markets, clients, organizations, and decisions. Both sides need each other: industry poses complex questions to academics, and the academic environment provides industry with analytical depth.

The most valuable interaction does not occur when a company asks a university to solve a problem, but when scientists, students, and practitioners jointly investigate that problem and discover that the initial question might have been flawed. It is this combination that makes learning powerful. Universities should not fear practice, and business should not fear intellectual depth.

What Sweden does right regarding academic autonomy

Mattsson points to an important principle of Sweden: autonomy breeds responsibility. There is a misconception in higher education policy that greater control automatically leads to better results, but he does not believe this. Strong universities need space for reflection, experimentation, attracting talent, forming partnerships, and defining academic priorities. If every important decision is made externally, institutions eventually turn into policy administrators rather than knowledge creators.

However, autonomy does not mean isolation. A university must have the freedom to act while remaining accountable to society. This distinction is critically important. Swedish universities operate within the national legal system while retaining significant responsibility for academic and institutional decisions. At the same time, Sweden is examining the organizational form of its public universities and the balance between institutional autonomy and public accountability. This debate is healthy because it shows that autonomy is not an endpoint, but a relationship that must constantly be negotiated between universities, government, and society.

Do governments just need to give universities more freedom?

Mattsson categorically denies that this would be a simple solution. He warns that autonomy without capacity can lead to fragmentation, autonomy without accountability leads to complacency, and autonomy without strategic direction can leave institutions with great freedom but no clear direction.

A more significant lesson is this: first create competent institutions, and then entrust them with significant responsibility. Governments have legal obligations: they must protect academic freedom, establish robust quality systems, invest in research and education, define overall national priorities, and ensure the responsible use of public resources. Then, university leaders must have enough space to transform these conditions into institutional strategy. This is a management challenge. Good management is not about controlling every decision, but about creating the conditions under which the right decisions can be made.

What the global higher education sector can learn from Sweden's relationship with industry

The first lesson is that interaction with industry should not be seen as a secondary element of the university's mission. Industry is one of the places where knowledge is tested. Students may study strategy, entrepreneurship, internationalization, or organizational behavior in the classroom, but when they work with a real company, they encounter ambiguity. Real problems rarely appear as clean academic questions. The market is unpredictable, clients change their minds, organizations disagree internally, and the international environment introduces cultural and regulatory complexity. Students must learn to cope with such situations, which is why he supports live cases, international teams, and practical involvement.

There is also a broader conclusion: employment should not mean preparing students only for today's jobs. It should involve developing people capable of understanding problems that have not yet been fully defined. To strengthen this link, university leaders should change the dialogue itself. Instead of asking companies what they can provide to the university, they should ask about the problems they are trying to solve. Then, researchers and students should be involved in that conversation. The strongest partnerships are intellectually reciprocal: a company may possess market knowledge that academics lack, and researchers may have conceptual or methodological tools that leaders do not have time to develop. Students bring curiosity and a fresh perspective. By combining these perspectives, something new can happen. Therefore, university leaders must think beyond sponsorship, internships, and recruitment; they must create knowledge ecosystems. The question becomes: how can the university and the surrounding economy learn from each other? This is strategically far more interesting than simply counting corporate partnerships.

Internationalization: too narrow a concept

Mattsson believes that viewing internationalization only as competition to attract foreign students is too narrow. Internationalization must change the intellectual character of the institution. A foreign student should not just occupy a seat in the classroom; they bring a new market perspective, a new cultural experience, and a different interpretation of familiar problems, which changes the audience itself. The same principle applies to international research partnerships. A university may have many agreements but still be weakly internationalized. The real question is whether international relations create intellectual exchange: do researchers collaborate, do students work across borders, do institutions develop new knowledge together, and do international partners challenge established assumptions? That is meaningful internationalization.

The Swedish experience is particularly interesting because international recruitment exists within a broader political and financial framework where students from countries outside the EU, EEA, and Switzerland usually face application and tuition fee requirements. This poses a strategic question to universities everywhere: if foreign students are viewed primarily as sources of income, internationalization becomes transactional; if they are viewed as intellectual partners, the institution enriches itself in a much deeper sense.

How to make internationalization more meaningful

To make internationalization more substantive, universities must stop measuring it predominantly by volume. The number of international students does not equal intellectual international capacity. Universities must ask themselves: can their graduates work in different cultures, does their faculty collaborate internationally, does their research address global issues, and does their curriculum expose students to different ways of interpreting the world? Internationalization must be integrated into academic life, not placed in a separate administrative department; it must manifest in teaching, research, and institutional strategy, influencing the university's own understanding of its role. A global university should not just be a local institution with international students; it must be capable of thinking beyond its own national assumptions.

The importance of lifelong learning

Sweden also places great emphasis on lifelong learning, which is becoming increasingly important due to the disappearance of old links between education and employment. The old model assumed that people learned, got a degree, and then entered professional life, but this model is becoming less realistic. Technologies change, industries transform, professional roles evolve, people change careers, and organizations require new competencies. Consequently, universities must become institutions where people can return throughout their professional lives. Swedish higher education already recognizes lifelong learning as part of the broader responsibilities of universities, while the national skills ecosystem pays close attention to adapting education to the changing labor market.