Proposed system for rewarding collaboration between education and society

About a month ago a swedish political party suggested that some of the financial support given to education should be prioritized to those schools that create valuable relationships with the industry. 

Read about that here: http://www.utn.se/en/artikel/2014-04-04/proposal-financial-assistance-work-related-activities

Now Vinnova, the swedish innovation authority, on behalf of the government a proposal for a system to reward interaction between higher education institutions and the society. The proposal is based on an expert panel evaluating the quality of  hos swedish universities and institutes are working with collaboration with society, taking the schools different approaches into account. Areas that will be assessed include what specific strategies for collaboration the schools are using, if collaboration is valued as a qualification for employees and how the institution works with educational practice and master's theses.

Read more here: http://www.tidningencurie.se/22/debatt/debatter/2014-05-14-vi-maste-belona-samverkan-mellan-larosatena-och-samhallet.html

UTN’s Student Liaison Officier with responsibility for labour market issues continuously works together with representatives from the University on strategies for cooperation with the labour market in the education and that cooperation should be valued as a qualification for employment. Hopefully, this work, because of the proposal, can get even more attention and priority.