Connecting Higher Education to Industry: A Critical reflection on Swedish and Iranian HE Policies and Practices

Azizi, N. , Thang, P.-O. and Nikounejad, S. (2021) Connecting Higher Education to Industry: A Critical reflection on Swedish and Iranian HE Policies and Practices. In: Proceedings of the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Vocational Education and Training Network (VETNET), Geneva, Switzerland, 6-10 Sep 2021, pp. 26-34. (doi: 10.5281/zenodo.5172321)

Abstract

In recent years the importance of collaboration between higher education and industry has been increasingly acknowledged by HE’s policymakers and scholars and different national policies and practices all around the world have been carried out to bridge these two parties effectively. Although developing countries have realized the importance and necessity of university-industry collaboration, yet they are confronting a deep-rooted mismatch between universities and industry. This paper however, aims to critically analyze and compare relevant current mechanisms, policies and practices in Iran and Sweden. As multiple qualitative approach was used to enable deep exploration of participants. Participants included 29 Iranian and Swedish experts representing universities and industries who were purposefully selected and were interviewed using semi-structure interview. Data was analyzed via the coding method (open coding, axial coding and selective coding). Findings revealed that Iran and Sweden use two relatively different models to fill the gap between their universities and industries emphasizing on different aspects and players. Despite some similarities between these two countries in their approaches to link universities to the industry, the findings showed that in contrast to Iranian triple model in Sweden a five-way model is applied for university-business collaboration (UBC). Findings also show that despite the reported needs for close cooperation between universities and industries in Iran, current policies and methods, including the types of relationships and interactions and strategies used, need to be critically reviewed. In addition, given the findings on Swedish policies and methods for connecting universities and industries, some practical strategies have been proposed to improve the relationship between universities and industries in Iran.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Additional Information: Trends in Vocational Education and Training Research, Vol IV.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Azizi, Professor Nematollah
• Authors: Azizi, N., Thang, P.-O., and Nikounejad, S.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Education