Lars Geschwind

• PhD
• Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology

The benefits of student–faculty interactions are substantial in fostering undergraduate students’ social and intellectual growth throughout their academic pathways. In particular, out-of-class interactions offer several opportunities for students to engage meaningfully with faculty members in the campus environment. This study employs a qualitative...

Student participation in university classrooms plays a pivotal role in student learning and success in higher education. We conducted a qualitative study to comprehend how students navigate complex classroom environments. Our aim is to understand how students perceive class participation and interactions with teachers and how they interpret teachin...

In this article, we study how meritocratic systems and gender equality concerns are negotiated across different organisational spaces in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Based on a case study of the organising of a tenure track system in a Swedish university, we suggest that the intersection of meritocratic processes and gender equality work c...

This study explores the role of network administrative organizations (NAOs) in science diplomacy (SD) by means of a qualitative case study approach. The case in point is a Swedish government initiative to coordinate the internationalization efforts of domestic funding agencies. We examine how the NAO IntSam balances between governmental directives...

This article analyses how the future has been discussed in Swedish higher education and research policy, providing an overview of public inquiries during the period 1970–2020. Expanding on the conceptual framework of German historian Reinhart Koselleck, the article approaches discourses on the future through the analytical lens of sociology of expe...

This paper discusses the transformation of university governance through the introduction of new types of internal management structures through strategic councils. Through interviews with internal stakeholders at three Swedish universities with varying structural characteristics and disciplinary profiles, the study investigates how different int...

This open access book expands the scholarly and policy debates surrounding digital transformation in higher education. The authors adopt a pluralistic conceptual framework which uncovers three analytical elements – contexts, mediations, and type of effects – for unpacking empirical manifestations. The publicly funded higher education systems in Nor...

A broader systemic framework pertaining to multiple manifestations at various scales and involving an increasing number of internal and external stakeholders was introduced in the first chapter of the volume, and further explored empirically in the following chapters. In this final chapter, the editors further discuss the complexity, dynamic, and m...

Digitalisation-related challenges and opportunities in higher education are not new, but awareness of their transformative potential has increased, with global trends including massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other forms of technology-enhanced open education. The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasised the importance of flexible forms of teaching...

Discipline has proved to be one of the most powerful factors in both shaping and explaining different aspects of internationalization, including academic research. Country-related characteristics such as country size, geographical position, and the use of English as the main language can also explain differences in internationalization of research....

Internationalisation of the curriculum has been the subject of various debates in recent years in higher education institutions. In particular, the need to incorporate local knowledge systems when internationalising the curriculum continues to be a major challenge in African universities. This study explores faculty members’ experiences inherent in...

Classifications of higher education institutions into categories that are more or less clearly differentiated through prestige and status are legion in the world of higher education. The notion of parallel categories with comparable statuses, such as those of different types of universities, is however much less well understood. This paper investig...

The impetus of this study is to explore the internationalisation of higher education policy in Mozambique at a national level. Internationalisation has been one of the major themes of discussion across countries but except for South Africa, it is rarely researched in sub-Saharan Africa from the perspective of the policy of higher education at a nat...

There is growing interest in the underlying mechanisms affecting female leaders in Higher Education (HE). This article compares four countries – Germany, Norway, Poland and Sweden to identify key structural conditions (enablers and barriers) for female representation in academia by studying the regulative framework of government policy. Two researc...

Internationalisation is transforming higher education institutions worldwide. However, the understanding of internationalisation, the rationales presented, the strategies applied and the challenges encountered differ between contexts. One challenge, especially for universities in the Global South, is how to consider internationalisation with a deco...

Managerialism in higher education has gained prominence in recent decades. One of the crucial elements of this approach is the steering of the higher education sector, including the introduction of multiple forms of evaluation of academic work. Little is known about how academics

In this chapter, we outline the notion of peer review and its relation to the autonomy of the academic profession and the contract between science and society. This is followed by an introduction of some key themes regarding the practices of peer review. Next, we specify some reasons to further explore different practices of peer review. Briefly, t...

Peer review is the most legitimate form of evaluation in academia, and a pillar of many decisions and processes in education, research, and other areas of life in higher education. Its legitimacy is based on the peer having relevant expertise to make judgements about the evaluand, and on its presumably external and disinterested character. However,...

Despite growing academic interest in understanding the conditions under which resilient organizations adapt to challenging circumstances, little attention to date has been paid to the role played by ‘soft’ factors such as identity as an enabler or property of resilient behaviour. In this chapter, we propose that different forms of legitimacy contri...

This open access volume explores peer review in the scientific community and academia. While peer review is as old as modern science itself, recent changes in the evaluation culture of higher education systems have increased the use of peer review, and its purposes, forms and functions have become more diversified. This book put together a comprehe...

In this study, the national education policies and the selected four universities policies were analysed to evaluate their intent to the alignment with the sustainability. An assessment tool based on the 17 SDGs and on Mozambique’s commitment goals to the 2030 Agenda was developed as instrument of analysis. NVivo 12 software was used to codify the...

This article builds on the concept of nested hybridity. It emphasizes professional practices and organizational design in studying hybridity of steering and management of professional public service organization. The article compares public sector dynamics in higher education in Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The data consists of surveys and intervie...

en Recently, a number of inbreeding cases have surfaced that have fuelled public criticism of recruitment practices and the lack of mobility in the Swedish higher education sector. This study focuses on recruitment practices at Swedish universities, particularly the divergence between what seems to be a practice of hiring internal candidates and a...

This article sheds light on some challenges that internationalisation raises for policymakers regarding public funding of higher education in a welfare state by examining policy logics for introducing tuition fees for international students in Sweden 2011. Using thematic analysis of documents related to the Swedish reform, we identify how an increa...

In this chapter, we analyze the key policies in research, development, and innovation (RDI) and the role of the higher education sector in Sweden. The chapter begins with a policy overview of RDI, followed by a discussion of the innovation capacity and research performance of Sweden and an analysis of the role of higher education in RDI. After desc...

This chapter investigates how recent developments in European higher education resemble the current state of the most popular sport on earth: football. It begins by showing how both football and higher education, as organisational fields, have emerged as deeply embedded entities within national and/or local contexts, with only weak links to the tra...

This chapter investigates the gender differences in managerial practices across three Nordic countries: Finland, Norway, and Sweden. It analyses two aspects: (1) perceptions regarding competition, and (2) motivations for undertaking academic work. The chapter is based on an empirical dataset which was compiled from national surveys (conducted in 20...

On 30-31.3.2021 (from 9.00-13.00 on each day), a group of Nordic researchers based at the Universities of Agder (Norway), Aarhus (Denmark) and KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) will host the first of a series of two workshops on "Understanding Digital Transformations of Higher Education Teaching and Learning in the Nordics and Beyond", fun...

Political discourse and policy reforms worldwide have highlighted the importance of promoting the knowledge economy by stimulating academics’ societal engagement (ASE). Such narratives partly aim at influencing academics’ attitudes and behaviors. Earlier work that has investigated such influence has tended to overlook the development in humanities...

Centralisation is a recurrent theme when the organisational structure of contemporary higher education institutions is on the agenda. This may be in large part because of the unsolicited effects of decentralised organisational structures. The aim of this study is to explore how professional support staff at higher education institutions perceive th...

The era of hybrid governance is here. More and more organizations occupy a position between public and private ownership. And value is created not through business or public interests alone, but through distinct forms of hybrid governance. National governments are looking to transform their administrative systems to become more business driven. Lik...

Some technical universities offer programmes where students receive two degrees: one in engineering and one in education. This is a rather novel phenomenon that occurs in, for example, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Greece, and Israel. Degree programmes in education challenge the boundaries of what technical universities have regarded as their sphere of...

In Sweden, engineering education at the upper secondary school level was transformed in the early 1990s into a 2-year programme at the higher education level. This development could be seen as an opportunity for higher education institutions to expand the volume of engineering programmes, but also as a sign of external pressure for changes in organ...

Higher education institutions identified as ‘technical universities’ enjoy considerable status in many countries. Yet studies of boundary negotiations from a range of settings suggest that opportunities to transform into a broader, research-based university often takes precedence over the alternative vision of remaining or moving towards becoming a...

This chapter provides an overview of the historical development of technical institutes and universities from their foundation in the late eighteenth century to the present time. Our account, which is focused on European experiences, shows that technical universities are characterized by their historical relations to the industrial revolution, and...

The volume is concerned with how technical universities respond to external influences but also are guided by internal processes of identity formation and reshaping of ideals and boundaries. In this chapter, we present two lines of inquiry and introduce the chapter contributions of the volume. An overarching question driving our research is what it...

As performance measurement has become increasingly common at Nordic universities, concerns have been raised that disciplinary differences create difficulties in comparing academic performances. To better understand the potential of utilising performance measures for the management of academic work, this study explores how academics perceive governa...

How can we conceptualize, evaluate and measure the value and performance of hybrid governance and organizations? This book offers a comprehensive overview of how hybrids produce value. It explores the drivers, obstacles and complications for value creation in different hybrid contexts: state-owned enterprises, urban policy-making, universities and...

This Open Access book analyses the past, present and future of the technical university as a single faculty independent institution. The point of departure is a view of changing academic realities, through which the identity as a technical university is challenged and reconstituted. More specifically, the book connects the development of technical...

The Responsible University: Exploring the Nordic Context and Beyond examines how the notion of responsibility manifests itself at various levels and in different phenomena within Nordic higher education institutions and beyond. The book looks at the history and current transformations of the idea of the responsible university; it investigates exper...

This concluding chapter takes stock of the major elements, both empirical and conceptual, that underpin the case chapters presented in the book. The chapter is organised in three distinct sections. First, addressing a largely scientific audience, the chapter attempts to make conceptual sense of the findings from an organisational theory perspective...

In this introductory chapter, the concept of the responsible university is introduced and put into context, first concerning other organisations and society at large, secondly in a historical perspective and thirdly related to policy initiatives across the globe. We also discuss how to implement this concept within the complex organisations that un...

The aim of this study is to explore the functions that professional networks could have as sense givers during the process in which professional support staff at higher education institutions make sense of their roles. The empirical data comprise interviews with three categories of support staff at three technical universities in Sweden and a revie...

This paper investigates the accountability mechanisms introduced in the universities in the Nordic countries by building on a typology of accountability types. By utilising survey data, it analyses how academics experience the changes in accountability mechanisms and how they perceive the impact of these changes on their performance. The analysis s...

This chapter offers an analysis of evaluation practices in and around the universities in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The analysis builds on a conceptual framework focussing on a typology of evaluation models and combines these with an actor’s perspective. The analysis shows that similar evaluation ideas and models have been implemented ac...

Universities are public organisations, which operate in a highly institutionalised environment. They are heavily dependent on public resources. As such, universities are susceptible to shifts in governance arrangements but are also far from being passive recipients of reform agendas. They face demands from multiple internal constituencies (academic...

Major reforms in the Nordic countries have increased the formal autonomy of higher education institutions (HEIs) to make decisions over their own activities, both academic core tasks and managerial/administrative activities. The issue addressed in this chapter is how these changes have affected the role of the academic leader. Across the four count...

In this final chapter, we revisit the overall aims of the volume and discuss the findings and implications for theory, policy, and practice. The general aim of the project has been to study the effects of the changing conditions of the environment under which Nordic higher education institutions operated during the period 2003–2013. A conceptual fr...

This chapter provides a brief description of how the four national systems included in this study—Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden—are currently organised and structured. In doing so, it illuminates several specific features such as the types and sizes of the institutions, enrolment patterns, performance measures, and funding. In addition, the...

The need for greater efficiency, productivity and quality in the higher education sector has triggered increased governmental interest towards different mechanisms of accountability, especially evaluation and performance measurement. This interest has developed over a relatively long period of time, but it has now reached its culmination point in m...

The purpose of this article is to challenge the idea of incompatibility between links to research and links to professional practice in engineering education. The concept of ‘academic drift’ is introduced, both related to drift towards theory and towards research links in the curriculum. Empirical data were collected through a case study conducted...

Based on data from interviews conducted with 14 academic managers at two Swedish universities, this article investigates the consequences of the increasing prevalence of performance measurement in the higher education sector. The study contributes to the discussion of how performance measurement impacts academic work, focusing specifically on its i...

This open access book investigates the effects of changes in leadership and managerial structures of Nordic universities resulting from reforms in the last decade. It builds on a rich, comparative dataset across a multiplicity of system-wide (macro) and organisational (meso and micro) dimensions, namely: reform or policy initiatives; drivers, aims,...

This book explores how the notion of the responsible university manifests itself at various levels within Nordic higher education. As the impetus of the knowledge society has catapulted the higher education sector to the forefront of policy agendas, universities and other types of higher education institutions face increasing scrutiny, assessment a...

This chapter describes and analyses the development of doctoral education in Sweden. Since its origins in the late nineteenth century, doctoral education has become an essential part of the higher education system also representing a significant part of the total research undertaken. The findings shed light on important themes in this development....

This paper explores the complex mix of rationales behind major change initiatives in the Swedish higher education sector. In three case studies, the paper investigates how changes are motivated, communicated and made sense of by higher education institutions. The cases show that the external drivers, related to the need for quality improvement, res...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SISTER has on the behalf of The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and The Stockholm Institute of Education (LHS) evaluated the collaboration between the two institutes of higher education. The Swedish government has assigned KTH and LHS to develop Teacher education program with emphasis on technology and science. Our impression...

This study aims to contribute to the understanding of knowledge interactions, particularly personnel mobility, between university and industry. More specifically, this paper studies the appointment of senior industry practitioners as part-time visiting professors at universities, in the role of adjunct professors. The paper relies on qualitative da...

This paper aims to analyse and discuss the professional support staff at higher education institutions in Sweden in terms of how they view their roles and what the success factors for them are. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with support staff from the fields of business liaison, internationalisation and strategic research support...

This contribution focuses on how one hegemonic idea – excellence – which has significant impact on science and higher education policy was translated in two Nordic countries: Norway and Sweden. Building on key concepts emanating from political science and organizational sociology, the article assesses how excellence was locally translated by policy...

This paper studies doctors in Norway and Finland to compare how identities among professionals in managerial positions were expressed after changes in management in the aftermath of ‘New Public Management’ (NPM) reforms. Studying shifting identities provides a basis for investigating how institutions have changed and illuminates how agents within a...

In this special issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, our point of departure is the global financial crisis initiated in 2008.The papers presented here emanate from a research project1 funded by the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Council for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NOS-HS). Our interest is in comparing dyn...

This paper examines whether subject-specific admission tests may allow Swedish higher education institutions to admit better-performing students. The performance of students admitted via a mathematics and physics aptitude test was reviewed with a focus on activity, retention, and credits earned, and the results were compared with students admitted...

Academic career systems have been in focus lately as a means to attract talented researchers and teachers. In this paper, we compare tenure tracks at three Swedish universities. The analysis relies on qualitative data, including interviews and policy documents, and revolves around three questions: How is the tenure track designed? What were the dri...

Yliopistojen henkilöstöjohtaminen on linkittynyt historiallisista syistä valtionhallinnon henkilöstöjohtamiseen. Tämän lisäksi yliopistolainsäädäntö on luonut vahvan juridisen kehikon henkilöstön pätevyyksille, tehtäväkausille ja tehtäville. Siirtymä byrokraattisesta henkilöstöhallinnosta kohti (strategista) henkilöstövoimavarojen johtamista on vas...

This paper presents the findings from a study of industrial adjunct professors at two higher education institutions in Sweden. The aim of the study is to investigate the rationales and expectations for companies to invest time and money in the collaboration that adjunct professors represent. The study also explores the tasks adjunct professors are...

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is to identify faculty perspectives on the integration of work-related issues in engineering education. A mixed methods approach was used to explore faculty attitudes towards work-related learning, to describe activities related to working life that have been introduced into the curriculum and to identify factors t...

Drawing on data from 399 Swedish doctoral theses, this chapter explores the epistemological foundations of higher education research. Using an analytical framework whose elements are the institutional organization of researchers and knowledge, the object of study, and the object of knowledge, we found that higher education research is mainly a conc...

Following the spirit of an earlier volume in the series focusing on 'Comparative Approaches to Organizational Research', the mandate of the current volume is to provide a comparative account of dynamics across two organizational fields - health care and higher education - and, subsequently, two specific types of organizational forms - hospitals and...

This chapter analyses the preconditions and forms of consolidation in the Swedish higher education system over the last decade. After a rapid development and expansion of the system between 1994 and 2004, there have been several initiatives to consolidate and streamline the sector. There have been few direct interventions intended to trigger reorga...

Among the recent mergers in Swedish higher education, two have been takeovers, where the smaller party has been fully integrated into the larger party. These are, firstly, the takeover of Stockholm Institute of Education by Stockholm University in 2008 and, secondly, the takeover of Gotland University College by Uppsala University in 2013. Our comp...

In this introductory chapter to the volume, the editors present the findings from a literature review undertaken on the topic, and link classical organizational perspectives to the study of merger processes involving higher education institutions. The chapter provides a brief overview of developments across Nordic higher education by referring to B...

In this final chapter, the volume’s editors reflect upon the empirical and theoretical contributions from the book. The chapter is structured according to a number of ‘dimensions’ which have appeared in the previous chapters. It is concluded that the historical contexts and path dependencies play crucial roles also in the case of mergers. Furthermo...

This study presents and analyses the process of creating a new university, with special focus on its brand and identity. Current developments in higher education, including an increasing focus on the university as an organisation coupled with marketisation and a global race for reputation and status through rankings and other means, result in unive...

The present report discusses the teaching-research nexus in policy and practice at KTH. The study consists of a literature review, a survey and case studies at two schools at KTH as well as insights from the experiences of TU Delft, Netherlands. Themes discussed in the study are leadership and management, funding, career paths and higher education...

The book examines ongoing dynamics within the organizational fields of health and higher education, with a focus on collective (public universities and hospitals) and individual (professionals) actors, structures, processes and institutional logics. The fact that universities and hospitals share a number of important characteristics, both being hyb...

There is a lack of in-depth studies on how technology transfer organizations (TTOs) are organized and developed. This paper examines the evolution/institutionalization of TTOs in Tsinghua University (TU), as a microcosm of the development of TTOs in Chinese universities. It explores two issues in particular: what kinds of TTOs have been developed i...

This book addresses the critical knowledge gaps of mergers involving higher education institutions. It is based on a comparative research project (spring 2013-spring 2015) investigating the phenomena of mergers involving higher education institutions across the Nordic countries – Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. The study involved close to 30 s...

In this special issue of the European Journal of Higher Education, a number of experienced scholars provide a broad picture of the most recent round of mergers involving higher education institutions in Europe and beyond. In doing so, they address issues pertaining to the different phases described above and from various theoretical perspectives an...

It is widely acknowledged that the Nordic countries rank highly when it comes to the role of women in the labor market. Equality of opportunity on gender grounds has been a central topic in the labor policy agendas of many Nordic governments since the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Notwithstanding this trend, studies reveal that there are still su...

In this study, two multidisciplinary Social Sciences and Humanities research schools in Sweden have been investigated regarding disciplinary identity-making. This study investigates the meetings between different disciplines around a common thematic area of study for Ph.D. students. The Ph.D. students navigate through a complex social and organisat...

The purpose of this research review is to map out the research about higher education that has been conducted in Sweden since the new millennium and to create proposals for future research initiatives and priorities. It constitutes an overall picture of initiated, ongoing and completed research projects in the first decade of this century. It also...

The Nordic countries are well-known for their traditional emphasis on equality of opportunity. This chapter traces the role of women leaders in academia in Norway, Sweden Finland and Denmark. In so doing, it takes stock of the number of female leaders (2004-2014 period) at the level of management and leadership structures (Board, Rector, Vice-Recto...