Surprise alliance foils plan for more university autonomy

An unexpected alliance between the Social Democratic Party and the right-wing Sweden Democratic Party (SD) looks set to block an inquiry announced in late January by Sweden’s Minister for Education into the feasibility of increasing the independence of universities and possibly turning them into “foundations” rather than state bodies.

The proposal by the Minister for Education Johan Pehrson is scheduled to be presented for a parliamentary decision on 12 June.

Because the present minority government does not have sufficient representatives to secure a majority in the parliament, if both the Social Democratic Party and the Sweden Democrats vote against it – as they indicated in a meeting of the parliamentary education committee on 15 May they would – the proposal will likely fail.

According to reports by Dagens Nyheter (DN) the two parties are opposed to the proposal for widely differing reasons.

While the Social Democrats believe the move towards greater independence for universities would prevent the government from being able to more closely guard academic freedoms at universities, the Sweden Democrats, inspired by the Trump administration in the US, argue that politicians need to have greater opportunities to prevent universities from engaging in “woke activities”.

Patrick Reslow, spokesperson for the Sweden Democrats, told DN more politicians ought to take an interest in what is going on at the universities. He is of the opinion that if universities become “self-owned foundations”, they will be beyond the control of politicians.

“What we are seeing now at American universities is that they are often driven by woke, as for instance at Columbia and Harvard [universities],” Reslow is reported to have argued.

He said it had never been proven that private universities produced better results compared to state-owned institutions.

In January 2025 Reslow argued that government support for Chalmers University of Technology should be reduced because of its intention to establish a new diversity, equity and inclusion unit to enhance the university access of under-represented groups, according to a report by Expressen.

“The university is engaging in ‘woke’ instead of strengthening education and research,” he said. “Since Sweden has free education, it is the responsibility of the politicians to see that the taxpayer’s money is used for the greatest benefit of the students,” he added.

Increased academic freedom

Minister Pehrson’s proposal, announced in a radio interview on 23 January, envisages colleges and universities becoming “more self-governing” instead of being controlled through political decisions and regulatory letters.

He believes that this would facilitate, among other things, better academic freedom at universities, better international collaborations and more funding through "strategic donations".

Dr Andreas Nord, an associate professor in the Department of Biology at Lund University and board member of the Young Academy of Sweden, told University World News the academy advised the government to initiate the latest investigation and believes reforms are necessary to "strengthen the institutional independence of universities in Sweden".

"Sweden stands out in comparison with many other countries in that universities are controlled by the government as a typical governmental agency. This makes academia vulnerable to being politicised," said Nord.

"We believe that future reforms must carefully consider the challenges involved, ensuring continuous and long-term public funding, maintaining the principle of public access to official documents, guaranteeing that institutions remain non-profit and that education stays tuition-free. Any reforms should safeguard research in all academic subjects."

He said the investigation should be "broad" and should consider alternate forms of governmental agencies that are more independent and protected from political control.

The idea of loosening the relationship between the government and universities has been raised several times in Sweden in the past – and in the other Nordic countries.

A summary of the debates on the issue over time was published by Universitatslararen in March 2024 under the title “If higher education institutions cease to be state authorities” (in English).

In 2008, the then Alliance government wanted universities and colleges to cease being governmental authorities. The issue was investigated under the leadership of Professor Daniel Tarschys from Stockholm University but sparked strong fears, among other things, of impaired transparency.

Tarschys told University World News in 2021 that his proposal for greater university autonomy, made in a white paper to parliament, had been applauded by large parts of the university community but had also met with scepticism from others fearful of declining government support for higher education.

“The political response was lukewarm. As of today, Swedish universities and other institutions of higher education (with a few exceptions) continue to be regular government agencies, which does not give them an adequate degree of independence. Institutional reform is still called for”, he said in 2021.

Since then, various higher education stakeholders have frequently raised the issue of greater autonomy.

In January 2025, the Swedish trade union and professional association for university teachers, researchers and doctoral candidates (SULF) said in a press release that although it did not support the idea of a foundation model for universities, it welcomed Pehrson’s initiative to investigate the organisational model of universities and university colleges, “in particular with regard to their self-governance in relation to the government and with the ambition to increase academic freedom”.

“The foundation model is in itself no guarantee that the autonomy of the higher education institutions will increase, and we think that the foundation model is too narrow.

“It is important that the investigation makes a broad analysis of different organisational models to ensure that the higher education institutions are getting the best preconditions to perform their activities with the highest quality and are protected by academic freedom,” Karin Åmossa, head of policy and international affairs at SULF, said.

The Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF), which organises 38 universities and university colleges in Sweden, has also raised the issue of self-governance repeatedly over the last few years.

In the spring of 2024, SUHF published a report titled Increased Control and Increased Bureaucratisation. A mapping out of the governmental control over universities and university colleges (in Swedish), written by Shirin Ahlbäck Öberg, professor of political science at Uppsala University, and Johan Boberg, a senior lecturer in the Department of Education at Uppsala University.

The report took as its point of departure the university reforms of 1993 when the governance of higher education institutions was decentralised. But the price of increased freedom was more control and evaluation. This in turn led to more bureaucratisation, the authors found.

More recently, in June 2024, SUHF published a report titled Governance at higher education institutions: How the academy can take a greater responsibility for professional development for the future (in Swedish) written by Ingeborg Amnéus and Pam Fredman.

SUHF also produced a summary report earlier this year titled Universities and university colleges under change, which gathers all debates about the governance of universities and university colleges.

Criticism of the alliance

Reaction to the alliance forged by the SD and the Social Democratic Party has come from various quarters, including the media. In Hallandsposten, the newspaper of the Liberal Party, editor Elin Larrson on 18 May criticised the agreement between the SD and the Social Democratic Party arguing, they were demonstrating “worrying tendencies” of not being willing to stand up for academic freedom.

“Academic freedom is the basis for Sweden to have both world-class education and research and for a climate of open debate. Around the world academic freedom is now in decline, not least in the US, where the situation is alarming,” she wrote.

Larsson questioned the lack of common ground between the two parties over the issue of academic freedom, saying that the Social Democrats should be careful to join forces with the Sweden Democrats since “the party earlier has demanded that the government support for universities should be withdrawn from universities practising left-wing ideology”.

Professor Emeritus Lars Engwall, an academic in business economics at Uppsala University, who wrote in an op-ed article in Svenska Dagbladet that “simple measures” could be taken to improve academic freedom at Swedish universities, told University World News he was sceptical of the proposal to undertake another investigation into the institutional arrangements for Swedish higher education institutions.

“The reason is that two such investigations have already been undertaken with no resulting changes. I therefore, in the article, suggest some other changes to increase academic freedom.

“At the same time – even if I do not expect any changes to take place after this third investigation – I am, of course, very critical of the unholy alliance between Social Democrats and Swedish Democrats [aimed] to stop the investigation,” he added.

“I think the Social Democrats are wrong when they say that the state owns the higher education institutions. As for the Swedish Democrats, I find it extremely worrying that they aim to intervene into what these institutions are doing,” he said.

Reacting to the alliance between the two parties, Ahlbäck Öberg, who undertook the university governance report for SUHF, wrote on Linkedin on 17 May that it was illuminating that the present organisational model of higher education governance was “so flexible” that it could be used to support diametrically opposing arguments: one that seeks to protect academic freedom and another that seeks to open them to political governance.

“This is not a serious discussion and also extremely problematic in a time when we see the need to protect the academy since the culture, the press are being dismantled in many places in the world, she wrote.

A ‘worrying naivety’

Professor Erik Renström, rector of Lund University and chair of the internationalisation committee of the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF) at Lund University, said the two parties’ criticism of the government's ambition to investigate how universities can become more independent from the state cannot be interpreted as anything other than “a worrying naivety on the part of some members of parliament regarding the need to strengthen academic freedom and the self-determination of universities”.

He said in recent decades, several studies in the EU had shown that Sweden was not particularly outstanding in terms of academic freedom and autonomy.

“Above all, Sweden stands out negatively in terms of the autonomy and self-determination of universities.

“In reports from the European University Association, the latest from 2023, Sweden ranks low (21st out of 35) in the part of the study that measures organisational autonomy. Sweden also ranks low in the category of economic autonomy, in 23rd place,” Renström stated.

He said the current organisational form as an administrative authority is not adapted to the special missions and activities of higher education institutions and has an “excessively close connection to the state”.

“In addition, higher education institutions need their own legal capacity to be able to carry out their special mission effectively. With their own legal capacity, universities would be able to enter into certain agreements that are currently not possible without passing through the Riksdag.

“The freedom of action would create new conditions for joint education, research projects, company formation and innovations between Swedish and international higher education institutions and companies,” he said.

Renström argued that the close connection to the state is perhaps most clearly seen in how state university and college boards are appointed.

“The government can appoint a majority of the external board members. In the same way, the country’s rectors are appointed by the government. It is not difficult to imagine what the consequences could be if a government that is hostile to free universities takes power. Today, there is no protection against this,” Renström said.

A missed opportunity

Mats Benner, a professor in science policy studies at Lund University’s School of Economics and Management and past member of the Swedish government’s Research Advisory Board (2009 to 2010, 2015 to 2016), said: “Victor Hugo once talked about an idea whose time has come.

“In Sweden and for university governance, that time was in 2009 when all the stars stood right for an overhaul of state-university relations, with an exemplary clear and concrete blueprint in the Tarschys report and a broad political backing of the idea.

“For a variety of reasons, but not least hesitancy among Swedish universities, the idea fell flat.

“Now, when the idea has resurfaced again, 15 years later, the situation is different, and universities are again seen as vital to national political interests in a highly volatile world. Too bad about that missed opportunity!”

This story was updated on 22 May 2025 to reflect comments from a representative of the Young Academy of Sweden.