The State of Educational Research in Sweden

Robert Thornberg
Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University
February 2012 (Source: Vetenskapsrådet)

In Sweden there are three main financiers funding research in educational sciences: Vetenskapsrådet (VR; the Swedish Research Council), Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ; Bank of Sweden Tercentrary Foundation), and FAS (the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research). During the period of 2005-2010, the sum of the grants amounted to SEK 1.3 billion (75% from VR; 8% from RJ, and 5% from FAS) that covered 345 projects and programs.

Most of the grants (75,4 %) were received by the older universities (Stockholm University: 22,4 %; Gothenburg University: 16,4 %; Uppsala University: 12,8 %; Linköping University: 9,3 %; Lund University: 9,3 %; Umeå University: 5,1 %).

About ten percent (9,9 %) were distributed among the younger universities (Örebro University: 5,5 %; Linné University: 2,9 %; Karlstad University: 1,1 %; Mid Sweden University: 0,4 %). 10,2 % were distributed to university colleges (“Högskolor” in Swedish; Malmö University College: 2,9 %; Jönköping University Foundation: 1,3 %; University of Borås: 1,3 %; Kristianstad University: 1,0 %; Södertörn University: 1,0 %; University of Gävle: 0,8 %; Mälardalen University: 0,7 %; Ersta Sköndal University College: 0,5 %; The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences: 0,5 %; Halmstad University: 0,2 %; Blekinge Institute of Technology: 0,1 %).

A lesser part of the grants (3,5 %) were distributed to professional colleges (“Fackhögskolor”) such as Karolinska Institutet (1,2 %) and others, and 1,0 % were distributed to research institutes.

The grants for research in educational sciences were during this period distributed across the disciplines according to this: Education (26,5 %), Didactics (26,4 %), Sociology (9,0 %), Other Social Sciences (7,7 %), Linguistics (6,3 %), Other humanities and Religious Studies (6,1 %), History (5,2 %), “Other Education etc.” (3,3 %), Psychology (3,1 %), Political Sciences (2,9 %), Economics (1,4 %), and other disciplines (2,1 %).

Using the categories laid down by the VR to make a classification of different areas within research in educational sciences, the funded projects were distributed according to this: 37,1 % to individual learning, 26,9 % to didactics, 19,0 % to value issues, 10,2 % to history of education, 9,1 % to effect studies, 7,9 % to professional issues, and 7,0 % to group processes (the sum is more than 100% since 45 % of the funded projects were classified to more than one category).