The organization and the financing of higher education under negotiation. Position-takings on the main report of the Swedish Commission of Inquiry on Governance and Resource
In recent decades, Swedish higher education and research have undergone significant changes and seen a rapid growth. In parallel, more attention has been given to higher education institutions as strategic actors and the function of the higher education insti-tutions is currently under renegotiation with an increased number of actors demand-ing a say in its development. The Commission of Inquiry on Governance and Resources was set up to address a broad range of issues in higher education and research. Its work resulted in the report A Long-term, Coordinated and Dialogue-based Governance of Higher Education (SOU 2019:6). The article presents an analysis of referral responses to the report by constructing two related spaces: a space of position-takings and a space of referral organisations. Our conclusion is that the referral organisations’ position-takings are clearly related to their overall positions in the higher education sector as well as their more specific positions in the field of research and the field of higher education. This is also clearly visible in the argumentation of specific actors for certain standpoints.