Mission Oriented Research Funding Agencies and the Changing Governance of the Universities – A New Dynamic? The Case of Sweden During the 1990s and 2000s

In most European countries different mission oriented research funding agencies have been set up to promote scientific knowledge and its application in specific areas. While research funding bodies shares many characteristics with other types of governmental agencies, the policy context of these agencies is characterized by its markedly strong imbalance between political and scientific actors. Even if mission funding agencies are driven by the interest of policy objectives, they tend to identify themselves strongly with the scientific community, although primarily with individual researchers or research groups, not the universities as organisations. However, since the 1990s the research and higher education systems have in many European countries undergone reforms, changing the relationship between the state and the universities. Firstly, by reforms intended to grant more autonomy to the universities, which, combined with a performance based funding regime, have made them acting more as strategic actors in issues concerning research funding. Secondly, research funding is increasingly distributed through large long-term grants, not the least by EU research programs, making the competitions between universities for research grants stronger. The purpose of this paper is to analyse what consequences these changes in the governance of the universities have had on the relationship between the mission oriented research funding agencies and the universities in Sweden during the 1990s and 2000s. How has the structure of the relationship and the strategies’ of the actors changed? Sweden is an interesting case since the universities are the main performers of public mission oriented public research, and since the Swedish state traditionally has had a strong ambition to steer research towards societal objectives. In the paper I will both analyse the overall development of the relationship and the actors’ strategies, but also make a more in depth analysis of two universities and their relationship with mission oriented funding agencies.