Conference — Research on higher education

Respondents: Shirin Ahlbäck Öberg (Uppsala University) and Torgny Roxå (Lund University)

Tone Dyrdal Solbrekke is Professor at the Department of Education and Academic Developer at LINK - Center for Learning and Development, at the University of Oslo and Visiting Professor at Örebro University.

She has extensive experience as a researcher and practitioner in higher education, both as a teacher and leader, in recent years with a special focus on understanding 'professional responsibility' and the purpose of higher education.

Her ongoing research focuses on both theoretical development and empirical research on how the roles and responsibilities of university teachers are changing and how local contexts affect the formation and development of academic developers.

The book Leading Higher Education As and For Public Good: Rekindling Education as Praxis - a product of the Formation project - published by Routledge in 2020, moves between theory and practice and shows opportunities and limitations of deliberative attitude and communication in research, academic development and teaching in higher education.

Respondents: Andreas Bergh (Örebro University) and Max Scheja (Stockholm University)

Sharon Rider is Professor of Philosophy at Uppsala University, where she was Vice Dean of the Faculty of Arts 2008–2014. She sits on the board of the research network HERO (Higher Education as Research Object). Her latest publication is World Class Universities: A Contested Concept (Springer 2020).

Respondents: Lars Geschwind (KTH) and Katarina Mårtensson (Lund University)

This position paper discusses the question of how one can understand what higher education [högskolepedagogisk] research is, its organizational and ideological domicile and something about its scientific possibilities and status. Three different ways of defining this research are tested, which results in an attempt at a provisional definition. Finally, a number of consequences of this definition are discussed.

Sverre Wide is Associate Professor of Sociology at Örebro University. His research is mainly in the field of sociological theory and he currently works on the project "Academic ignorance - a necessary prerequisite for research and higher education?" He is secretary of the Nordic Sociological Association, a member of Kriterium's editorial board and one of the editors of the series Arbetsrapporter från Högskolepedagogiskt centrum vid Örebro universitet. His most recent publication is Schack och social interaktion.