New report shows how hard it is to be a foreign PhD student

Higher education stakeholders say that a new report that investigates how international PhD students feel about living and studying in Sweden is an indictment of the current migration system – in part because not one of the 40 students interviewed said they would recommend studying in Sweden to others.

The report, produced by the Doctoral Candidates’ Association of academic union Sveriges universitetslärarförbund (SULF-DCA), titled “How current migration policies harm international researchers and undermine higher education in Sweden: Testimonials from PhD students and postdoctoral fellows”, is based on interviews conducted over two years with doctoral associations, university administration, and union representatives from nearly every university in Sweden.

It includes testimonials from 40 current international PhD students and recent graduates at the Swedish universities of Chalmers, Linköping, Linnaeus, Lund, Gothenburg, Karolinska, Umeå, Uppsala and Stockholm. The interviewees represented diverse nationalities, academic disciplines, and higher education institutions in Sweden.

“The testimonials reveal a harsh (and often invisible) parallel reality for non-EU researchers, whose immigration status impedes full participation in academic life.

Their widely corroborated experiences of professional marginalisation, diminished quality of education, and limited research opportunity contrast starkly with the public image of Sweden’s modern, inclusive, internationalised, and democratic higher education system,” the report noted in its overview.

The report also shows a reduced quality of life and significant consequences for the mental health of PhD students and confirms a trend reported by University World News, most recently.

Aimee Miles, a spokesperson for the SULF-DCA board, said: “We asked all the interviewees whether they would recommend other international researchers to come to Sweden ... The answer was an overwhelming no ... It became clear that current migration policies continue to cause significant problems for many people”.

Among the comments made by the interviewees were the following:

• “If your intention is to stay in Sweden, you can’t prioritise your research or career – you have to sacrifice it.”

• “I like to live in Sweden, but to be honest, I felt a bit trapped here, missing out on potentially great opportunities. I do it all in the hope of getting permanent residency.”

• “My suggestion to keep foreign talents and researchers: either change the requirement of PR [permanent residency] or change the policy of recruiting freshly defended researchers.”

Miles said in an article published in Universitets läraren that she believes new PhD students are misled by the official image of Sweden’s inclusive, internationalised higher education system. The reality they meet when they arrive is completely different.

“It is a system that is fundamentally unequal in nature. As a third-country doctoral student or researcher, you are relegated to second-class status. The people we interviewed felt that the migration policy was structured to ensure that they fail and that they were hostage to arbitrary and arcane bureaucratic processes,” she said.

Miles said that the SULF-DCA shows in the report that PhD students and postdocs from non-EU and non-EEA countries “face major obstacles that other PhD students do not: long processing times, opaque and inconsistent criteria for assessment of permit applications, systematic unfairness, lack of opportunities to apply for long-term residence status and limited possibilities to appeal the Swedish Migration Agency’s decisions”.

She said that the report also shows universities are not doing enough to support PhD students and many supervisors and administrators do not have the skills required to communicate with the Swedish Migration Agency.

“Doctoral students often feel that they do not get support from their departments, their supervisors or the university administration in general. Universities need to do a better job of supporting international researchers, not just make broad statements about the importance of internationalisation,” she noted.

According to Miles, many of the interviewees in the report regret that they chose to move to Sweden and not to another country. “The conclusion is that Sweden is no longer an attractive country for international early-career researchers,” she said.

The report can be summarised very simply: Sweden urgently needs to reform its migration policy for international researchers from non-EU and non-EEA countries, she concluded.

Easing of restrictions

In an email to University World News, Miles said that the government had recently taken steps to rehabilitate the image of Swedish higher education by announcing new proposals that would ease some restrictions for non-EU academics and PhD students in particular.

“However, these proposals face a long path to ratification, if they are approved at all,” she said, adding that Swedish migration policies were “just as unwelcoming to international researchers today as they were four years ago when the Alien’s Act reforms were passed”.

“Since the Ministry of Education aims to promote Sweden as an attractive destination for international researchers, the government should take concrete steps to ensure that it actually delivers on its promises.

“They would do well to acknowledge the widespread dissatisfaction voiced by international academics who are already residing in Sweden today.

“The fact that not a single researcher in our investigation said they would really recommend a PhD or postdoc in Sweden is a pretty strong indictment against the current migration system, and no amount of window dressing will conceal the fact that there is a dire need for reform,” Miles said.

Threat to internationalisation

Dr Andreas Nord, associate professor in the Department of Biology at Lund University, commented to University World News on behalf of the Young Academy of Sweden, saying: “The restrictive turn in Swedish migration policy may threaten the internationalisation of Swedish higher education institutions and the innovation capacity of society.

“Lengthy processing times and poorly adapted regulations at the Swedish Migration Agency make international recruitment difficult.

“These issues are well known and continue to be problematic. No country is self-sufficient in talent, meaning that international mobility is crucial for enhancing the quality of research and education.

“It is of utmost importance that Sweden’s migration regulations and administrative processes do not deter foreign doctoral students and researchers from embarking on an academic career here.”

Nord said that the Young Academy of Sweden had raised the issue repeatedly with the government and had actively contributed to a recent governmental inquiry on the matter. “It is important that Swedish legislators act now,” he noted.

In the meantime, Nord said the organisation did what it could to help incoming researchers navigate the system.

“We have published A Beginner’s Guide to Swedish Academia, which offers a practical introduction to the Swedish university system. Sweden is a great country to do research in, but the problems foreign researchers face are real and need to be resolved,” Nord said.

A ‘good addition to the debate’

Topias Tolonen-Weckström, chairperson of the doctoral committee at the Swedish National Union of Students (SFS), told University World News that his organisation sees the new SULF-DCA report as a good addition to the current discussion on migrational rights for researchers and doctoral students in Sweden and an important comment on the recent government’s migration investigation handed over in December.

“The testimonial-based format gives much needed voice to those who are affected by changes in migration legislation and who are often not visible in the migrational discussion that considers their rights.

“Like SULF-DCA, SFS commented on the policy proposals in the government's investigation, and we agree on, for example, reducing the qualifying period for permanent residence to two years, down from three years suggested in the investigation.

“In addition, the long processing times of Migrationsverket (the Swedish Migration Agency) have been a problem we also have long been worried about,” Tolonen-Weckström said.