Omfattande förändringar i den högre utbildningen världen över är nära sammanhängande med globaliseringen. En global utbildningsmarknad växer fram präglad av stark expansion och en snabbt föränderlig efterfrågan bland allt mer välinformerade människor i stort behov av nya kunskaper. Reformer och stark utbyggnad i många länder, skärpta krav från näringslivet, demografiska förändringar samt en ökad rörlighet för studenter, lärare och forskare, leder till ökad konkurrens inom och mellan utbildningssystemen. Betydelsen av en internationellt konkurrenskraftig högre utbildning förväntas öka för att ett land ska kunna hävda sig i den globala konkurrensen. I "Globaliseringen och den högre utbildningen" bedöms förutsättningarna för svensk högre utbildning att hävda sig i en global konkurrens med utgångspunkt från hur svenska lärosäten är organiserade, finansierade och från nuvarande position i den globala rankingen.

The focus of this report is on the growing importance of skills upgrading in SMEs, coupled with the search for a comprehensive policy approach to meet the new needs and opportunities in this area. Emphasis is placed on the diversity of SMEs, ranging from the vast community of relatively stable and mature firms to the more limited group of high-tech and/or potentially fast-growing categories of firms which we may know as gazelles or similar names. The report argues that it is time to apply a specific double-edged approach to strengthen these firms’ competencies and the preconditions for regional and societal growth in increasingly knowledge-based societies.

SMEs are more vulnerable than large firms; they invest less in R&D and their processes for skills upgrading are often problematic. Public funding is commonly provided to educational or public research institutions, earmarked for promoting courses adapted to the needs, for instance, of traditional or “blue-collar” sectors. There is an inadequate interface between traditional educational institutions and the specific knowledge and competency needs of SMEs and entrepreneurs. This situation, which is due to fundamental incentive problems, leads to frustrating outcomes. The report highlights the presence of: partly contradictory interests between owners/managers and workers; lack of information, skills and/or time at management level; and differences in bridging the highly specialised demands for skills development at business level and the more general supply of skills by education providers such as universities.

Against this backdrop, the report examines a new way forward – an approach that aims to address the upgrading of core skills at SMEs and to increase the supply of adequate external, professional services while also trying to augment potential positive synergies between these two levels. Examining the policies pursued by a set of selected countries, however, permits identification of only a few serious attempts to foster a coherent approach to encompass direct training of SMEs and measures to bolster complementary service providers. Most programmes remain piecemeal and have various limitations. Weaknesses commonly relate to the dominant influence of supply-side perspectives in training programmes. There is also generally a lack of effective identification of and adaptation to SME needs. Still, the report identifies a few cases of clear-cut synergies between measures at the two levels, notably in Belgium and Ireland.

Whereas R&D is important for innovation and growth, other factors crucially contribute to enabling the diffusion and use of technology widely in the economy. This paper examines particularly the challenges confronting SMEs in the upgrading of skills. Measures bridging the supply of general training by universities and the demand for idiosyncratic skills on the part of SMEs should be paralleled by those that mobilise more complementary contributions of external professional service providers. Science parks and incubators can help foster a more favourable interface between academia and business in several respects. Sweden, being a country with high R&D-intensity, strongly internationalised big business and extensive research in universities, needs to cherish new approaches in this area. Reviewing the experience of Science Park Jönköping in cooperation with Jönköping University, the paper presents a number of lessons and conclusions how, and by which actors, more relevant capabilities and matching roles may be cherished.

Venture capital is not a panacea for higher growth and increased economic dynamism. But it is becoming increasingly important for many countries around the world, alongside other forms of funding for start-ups and early-stage business expansion and in the presence of appropriate conditions for restructuring, technology development, diffusion and entrepreneurship. Yet a number of factors are holding back venture capital’s economic contribution. It is up to individual countries to identify their own problem areas and ways forward, and here ample opportunities exist to learn from the experiences of others. Most lessons have so far tended to derive from the US experience, but in this new report IKED has taken stock of developments in the Nordic countries, notably Sweden and Denmark. The report combines observations of international patterns and trends in investment behaviour with assessments of the Nordic experience, highlighting specific areas where lessons can be learned.

Turning new technology and knowledge into commercial achievements is a cumbersome and risky task. Though national venture capital markets differ widely in terms of their characteristics and performance, they are becoming more responsive to the specific demands of national and regional industrial structures. Up to now, the US venture capital industry has been studied most extensively and efforts often aim to replicate this model elsewhere. Yet Sweden and Denmark are both ranked among the strongest in the world in terms of innovation and the knowledge-based economy. Both countries’ venture capital markets have expanded strongly in recent years and are now mature and dynamic.

Based on global trends and a comparative assessment of Nordic venture capital markets, the report concludes that more should be done to enable diversified flows of international and cross-border investments in different countries. The public sector has an important role to play in the early stages of enterprise formation and technology commercialisation, and must take steps to cherish the development of more mature venture capital markets. However, governments must act on market conditions and arrange for socially motivated risk reduction without crowding out private initiatives if they are successfully to promote public investment strategies. Further, governments often play a counter-productive role through a range of factors affecting entrepreneurship and industrial renewal. Reforms are needed to encourage a bottom-up spirit of renewal.

For the Nordic countries specifically, the report examines the surge in Sweden’s private equity market, which was one of the most expansive in the world in the 1990s and showed remarkable resilience post-2001. In Denmark, the public sector has boosted its seed activity and higher investment has been allocated to innovative, early-stage companies. Both Sweden and Denmark should, for example, dismantle restrictions on institutional investors and reduce taxes on capital gains to encourage investment by business angels and entrepreneurs. In a cross-border context, the Öresund region provides an example of transnational processes being hampered by the weakness of seed capital in southern Sweden, of exit markets in Denmark and of effective mechanisms for cross-border investor and entrepreneur networks.

The report adds to existing studies on venture capital in at least four ways. First, it views the venture capital industry from a global perspective and examines and compares market trends and policies over a number of years. Second, it emphasises the unique role of venture capital as connected to other players that are greatly relevant to innovation, including entrepreneurs, and underlines the role of policy initiatives to ensure a healthy interaction in this respect. Third, it critically reviews the role of public intervention and the public sector’s way of handling risk when fostering technological development. Last, it looks in some depth at both good and flawed policy practices from the Nordic countries – whose experiences are rooted in great strengths with regard to innovation as well as rapidly evolving venture capital markets – and highlights current policy issues which may also be of more generic interest.