Adapt challenges Sweden's universities to meet growing demand for continuing professional development
Sweden's universities must adopt innovative approaches to address lifelong learning needs. But how? The Adapt project will explore new methods through experimentation.
Employees can enrol in credit-earning courses without needing prior admission. Alumni have access to reserved seats in these courses, and teachers are compensated with overtime pay for their teaching efforts. These initiatives, called experiments, are part of the Adapt project, which aims to meet the business's lifelong learning needs.
Adapt is funded by Vinnova with SEK 25 million and will continue until 2026. The project is coordinated by KTH Royal Institute of Technology and is carried out in collaboration with Örebro University, Chalmers University of Technology and Linköping University.
Project leader: Mattias Wiggberg, KTH.
Institutional representatives: Amy Loutfi, Örebro University; Jan Gulliksen, Royal Institute of Technology; Fredrik Heintz, Linköping University; Ulrika Lundqvist, Chalmers University of Technology.
To keep pace with the rapid technological advancements in society, professionals must regularly invest in continuous skills development, particularly in advanced digitalization. This creates new demands on Sweden's higher education institutions (HEIs).
To adapt and improve our capacity to meet the demand for lifelong learning, several strategic principles and policies at HEIs must evolve. The Vinnova-funded project "Adapt – a new business model for industrial skills development" addresses this challenge.
The project aims to establish an experimental workshop – a policy lab – where various policy changes can be tested in practice and evaluated. Five experiments have been identified for implementation over the coming years. Each of the HEIs participating in Adapt will test different experiments. Here is a list of the proposed experiments.
Fast track to continuing professional development
Sweden's higher education institutions need to be more flexible and responsive to industry needs. Currently, a professional must first wait for a new admission period to open, then apply for the course, and finally wait for the admissions process to be completed.
The KompLätt experiment aims to change this radically. The idea is that industrial employees, given their manager's approval, can take existing programmes and stand-alone courses without enrolling through regular admissions.
They will receive a certificate or diploma and credits if they successfully complete the course.
Adapt hopes this will facilitate industry investment in continuing professional development.
Special alumni offer
Adapt believes that former students and alumni are a key target group. First, they are currently working and need to develop their skills, and second, they already have a relationship with their university, which may lower the threshold for further study.
As part of the IAlumni experiment, Adapt HEIs will establish a special offer for their alums, which includes a late registration option and earmarked seats on attractive courses.
Each Adapt HEI will select one or more pilot courses as a first step. If successful, there are plans to expand the experiment and offer alums the same programme at other Adapt universities.
Extra pay for voluntary overtime to attract teachers
Many faculties and schools find it challenging to free up resources for lifelong learning. To address this, Adapt is piloting the EdIncentive experiment, whereby teachers will be given the opportunity to work overtime voluntarily to enhance their professional development.
The premise is that teachers may be interested in working a little extra and, in so doing, earning a supplementary income. In turn, this could boost the opportunities for HEIs to offer more continuing professional development for practitioners.
The experiment will investigate the legal feasibility of this, the proposal's attractiveness to teachers, and the potential risks involved.
Industry experts could be offered mentorship with professors
It can get lonely at the top. And for the top industrial experts, standard programmes and courses are not an option. Developing their skills requires more personalised support from another expert in the same field.
In the UK, there is already an initiative where top industrial experts can seek advice and guidance on specific scientific problems from university professors. Adapt would like to test this initiative in Sweden as well.
The experiment aims to open up opportunities for businesses to invest in mentorship programmes involving a selected pool of academic experts.
Lecturers in industry to add value to lifelong learning
The creation of new teaching posts often requires demonstrating a teaching need. However, this need is generally based on regular courses. But what if universities could also establish teaching positions based on the teaching needs of lifelong learning?
To tackle this problem, Adapt is piloting a new Industrial Lecturer position. The role involves interacting with industry and promoting lifelong learning initiatives. An essential part of this experiment is developing a sustainable funding model to which both industry and academia contribute.
All experiments will be completed and evaluated by the end of 2026.
- Adapt aims to identify possible structural and cultural challenges for universities to offer lifelong learning. By experimenting, the goal is to create an empirical basis to encourage shifts in how our universities operate," says Amy Loutfi, Professor of Computer Science and Örebro University's representative of the project.
The four universities participating in the experiments are KTH, Örebro University, Linköping University and Chalmers University of Technology.
Text: Jesper Eriksson
Photo: Örebro universitet
Translation: Jerry Gray