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EDUCATION

Sweden to help universities commercialize innovations

Several colleges and universities in Sweden are to receive money to set up offices of innovation which will help researchers turn their discoveries into commercial enterprises.

Published: 22 October 2008 08:54 CEST
Sweden to help universities commercialize innovations

The initiative will help researchers apply for patents and licences, promises higher education and research minister Lars Leijonborg, along with enterprise minister Maud Olofsson, in an article in the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

“[Research] institutes play an important role as a link between research at academic institutions and companies. By increasing resources and strengthening organizations, we’re creating the conditions for internationally competitive institutes in Sweden,” write the two ministers.

In the article, the pair preview some of the programmes to be included in the government’s new research bill, set to be presented on Thursday.

The goal of the new bill is “to strenghthen Sweden’s position as a research nation and in so doing strengthen competitiveness in a globalized world in order to contribute to increasing Sweden’s economic growth”.

Sweden will be better at commercializing innovations, which will in turn create more jobs, according to Olofsson and Leijonborg.

Access to venture capital will increase, and legislation governing institutes of higher education will be changed to increase demands on schools to work together with the business community and society.

EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

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