From a ‘University Agenda’ to a ‘Collaborative Agenda’ – An Inquiry into a Tendency in Swedish Higher Education

The aim of this paper is to focus on the development of HE/CE in Sweden as a transition from a non-academic context to an academic context and a current trend back to a non-academic context considering the nature of the transitions, facilitating factors in these processes and consequences of the transitions.

Generally health professional higher education has been transformed from being short and work-based to become a university programme. This is supported by non-controversial Higher Education Acts and facilitated by ideological, economic/organisational and political points of view that emphasise labour market needs for women, equalities between the sexes, professional groups struggling for authorisation and professional position (status) and growing complexity in work tasks with demands for quality development. The consequences are a gradually growing self-esteem and self-awareness among professionals beneath physician status, signified by non-physicians taking managerial positions, as well as a growing awareness of the need for teamwork.

A transition in perspective concerning the usefulness of an academic approach in higher and continuing education for health professionals is ongoing. We seem to be standing on the top of an ‘academic hill’, and can see transitions towards formal learning in non-traditional learning contexts as well as an acceptance of the importance of non-formal learning in all kinds of contexts.

Theoretical, ideological and economic arguments influence the transitions as well as the students' aspirations and attempts to seek meaning. Which context or mix of contexts is most productive for the learning processes necessary for health professionals? Today high-quality collaborative efforts such as action research and clinical teaching are stressed. In Sweden this clearly appears as a transition from a ‘university agenda’ to a ‘collaborative’ agenda in which the labour-market has a growing influence upon HE/CE and research. The result of this study is also discussed in terms of a ‘collaborative view’ and a ‘competitive view’.