University-society collaboration on the agenda : The rhetoric of expectations

This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge on how the concept of ‘collaboration’ is being produced and reproduced – and filled with meaning – as it is articulated in news content and opinion articles about the organisation of knowledge production within higher education in Sweden. We build on a textual analysis on the public discussion in the aftermath of the announcement of the research policy bill “Knowledge in collaboration” (Prop 2016/17:50) and take as a point of departure that social phenomena are constructed and given meaning through talk and texts. Our analysis shows that the concept ‘collaboration’ carry certain expectations and values concerning the organisation of knowledge production, and highlights that these ideas are not only polarised among actor groups, as well as within groups, but also contain political ambitions. The concept of collaboration can be interpreted as an idea that provides universities with prescriptions and guidelines for how to do their everyday work – what kinds of activity is valued and appropriated and what is downplayed and over time maybe even sorted out.