The policy for the higher education system has been quite successful in both expanding the share of the population receiving university education and in broadening the recruitment base to include traditionally non-academic segments as well as students with disabilities or other disadvantages. In terms of gender balance, higher education has also made great strides towards a better gender balanced university. | VNU Journal of Science: Policy and Management Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4 (2016) 13-24 Science and Education Policy in Sweden – Some Salient Features1 Bo Göransson* Research Policy Group, School of Economics and Management, Lund University, . Box 117, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden Received 25 November 2016 Revised 2 December 2016, Accepted 20 December 2016 Abstract: While there has been a high level of consensus concerning the need of a high and sustainable level of funding for scientific exploration among policy makers in Sweden, there has been less agreement on the governance, organization and form of the research performed in the sector. The research policy debate today centers much on knowledge creation forms and governance. Most debaters agree that there is a need of pluralism in the research sector and that there is a genuine need of not only free basic and applied research but also of strategic research and needs-driven research. The policy for the higher education system has been quite successful in both expanding the share of the population receiving university education and in broadening the recruitment base to include traditionally non-academic segments as well as students with disabilities or other disadvantages. In terms of gender balance, higher education has also made great strides towards a better gender balanced university. Keywords: Science and education policy, research policy, higher education system 1. Science, technology and innovation policy 1 [1]2. These broad policy goals have benefited from a general consensus of opinion in the research policy community, resulting in a consistently high level of funding for R&D regardless of which political parties have been in power. Sweden is actually one of the top OECD countries in the terms of R&D expenditures per capita. In 2014, Swedish R&D amounted to of GDP, down from in the peak year 2001 but still well above the OECD Research and development (R&D) has received high priority for the last
