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- Bjare, Ulrika, 1978-
(författare)
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Vetenskapens självstyre - styrning, organisation och genomförande av universitetsforskning
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis deals with a tension in university governance concerning research policy actors’ mandate to decide on the academic organization and direction of research, vis-à-vis researchers’ perceptions of governance in research. This tension is addressed through an analysis of the ideas and attitudes towards universities as institutions, and research as a practice, expressed at the policy level in connection with major reforms. Additionally, it is studied how individual researchers perceive and relate to governance in research in relation to the governance system as a whole and to the university management. The study makes use of different theories and methods, including the idea of the social contract for science and perspectives from implementation and policy studies as well as enactment-perspectives and theories of metagovernance. Using a document analysis of policy documents the study demonstrates that significance has been attributed to the internal university organization by policy makers. The analysis demonstrates that policy perspectives on the internal organization of universities have been shaped by ambivalent attitudes aimed at controlling academic activities, while simultaneously adhering to norms of scientific autonomy. Through quantitative analysis the study further demonstrates a correlation between researchers' perceptions of steering in research and the internal management model of universities. Researchers at universities with a high degree of line-management perceive a higher degree of influence in research from the internal university management compared with researchers at universities with low degree of line-management. One explanation suggested is that an organization with line-management and few collegial bodies makes universities less resilient to external influence. Also, line-managed universities have a more instrumental character where external factors could have a greater impact on the internal leadership. The quantitative study also shows that researchers perceive a high degree of influence in their research through external funding. This result is consistent with previous research that has demonstrated the impact of external funding on the direction of research. Similar to the survey, the thesis’s interview study shows that governance through external funding is perceived as the most potent. Consequently, the most distinct adaptation to governance is through adjustments in research applications. These adjustments involve innovative processes and the ability to transform external funders' priorities into research proposals. In this process, prospective scenarios are created, where research aligns with both the scientific field's development and society's utility paradigm. The design of the research system means that a large part of the mandate to plan, administer, develop and negotiate forms for conducting research rests with individual researchers.
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| 2. |
- Silander, Charlotte, 1973-
(författare)
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Pyramider och pipelines : Om högskolesystemets påverkan på jämställdhet i högskolan
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Research on gender equality in Swedish higher education shows an unequal gender balance. Women are consistently underrepresented at the highest levels of the academic hierarchy. The lack of gender equality in academia has been illustrated by metaphors such as a narrowing pyramid, a leaky pipeline and a black hole. Unlike other problems in the academic context, gender inequality in higher education is seldom considered from a system perspective. The system of higher education has undergone major changes during the 1990s in terms of scope (more students, more faculty, more institutions, etc.), differentiation (inclusion of new disciplines) and geographical distribution (establishing institutions in previously unserviced areas). In this thesis, theoretical expectations concerning the effect of these changes on gender equality are developed.The thesis investigates gender equality in higher education by developing an analytical framework to analyze the system level and its impact on gender equality. The empirical data consists of two sets. The first set contains cross-sectional data on registered students, doctoral entrants, doctors, post-doctoral fellows, lecturers and professors in Swedish higher education. The second set is derived from the longitudinal integration database for health insurance and labor market studies (LISA), which consists of anonymized data on all individuals in the Swedish labor market that hold doctoral degrees.The main finding of the thesis is that the system of higher education does have an impact on the gender equality in higher education. The vertical gender balance has increased during the expansion of Swedish higher education during the 1990s. The horizontal gender balance has also increased, but the increase is limited to the student category. On the other hand, the system of higher education has not had an impact on the gender equality measured in terms of exits from academia. Instead, the analysis shows that the rate of men that leave academia is higher than the rate of women, and that commonly used metaphors portraying academia as a narrowing pyramid, a leaky pipeline or a black hole serve poorly as illustrations of the gender equality in academia.
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