Strengthening Swedish university research

This chapter reviews the policy initiatives aimed at supporting research excellence in Sweden, their background and their apparent effects. It starts out with a discussion of the rationales and history of scientific and sectoral research funding in universities, on a general level and in the specific context of Sweden. It then presents two main initiatives of the 2008 and 2012 Research and Innovation Bills (i.e. the increase of institutional funding for universities and the Strategic Research Area Programme), and situates them in the broader context of the funding policy of benchmark countries and of other Swedish sources of research funding. Finally, it assesses the main effects of these policies against their specific objectives and the lessons learned from international experiences.