The Swedish National Innovation System 1970-2003 - Vinnova

13 Human Resources
The Swedish national innovation system is not at the
top of the OECD rankings in terms of the number of
higher educated people in the population. However,
the situation improved considerably in the 1990s
and early 2000s. The Swedish education system has
increased its focus on higher education and at the
same time increased the education rates considerably
in recent years. As a consequence, Sweden is now
among the leading countries in the OECD in terms
of the rate of increase in the total number of higher
educated people, higher educated natural scientists
and engineers, as well as in terms of the number
of PhDs. The majority of those individuals with a
higher education and PhDs in the Swedish national
innovation system are employed in the public sector.
Of these, most have been educated in social sciences
or humanities. An overwhelming majority of those
with a higher education in natural sciences and
engineering, NSEs, are employed in businesses.
Business sector employment of NSEs is highly
concentrated to knowledge-intensive business services
and high-technology and medium high-technology
manufacturing firms. SMEs belonging to industrial
groups generally have a substantially larger percentage
of NSEs on their payroll than independent SMEs.
Business sector employment of PhDs has increased
substantially in recent decades. PhD employment is
highly concentrated to large industrial groups and
the PhD-intensity in SMEs belonging to industrial
groups is higher than in independent SMEs. This
indicates a considerably higher absorptive capacity in
SMEs within industrial groups than in independent
SMEs. Outside the business sector, universities
and technical colleges dominate in terms of NSEs.
The general labour market mobility rates are not
particularly high in Sweden and the mobility of
researchers from the business sector to universities
seems to be low.
Importance of higher educated human resources
The knowledge and competence of individuals are the
most important resources in innovation. The availability
of competent individuals to a large extent determines the
innovation capacity of innovation systems. Therefore, the
volume, distribution and flows of human resources are
important for the performance of innovation systems. 52
The distribution and intensity of higher educated
workers within different industries should be important
determinants for the absorptive capacity for new
knowledge in the firms in these industries. Research
competence is a particularly important capacity in
relations between firms and the science-producing
system. The mobility of human resources can be
considered as an important factor for knowledge transfer,
both within and between sectors. 53
Percentage of higher educated people in the
population
In terms of the percentage of total population with at
least a theoretically based tertiary education, Sweden is
ranked twelfth in the OECD’s list. It should be noted
that the Swedish education system has historically
been less geared towards theoretical higher educations
than several other OECD countries. 54 Therefore,
Sweden would be considerably more competitive
in human resources terms if tertiary educations of a
practical or vocational nature were included. In terms
of the percentage of tertiary graduated NSEs of the
total number of graduates from tertiary education,
Sweden is more competitive and is ranked third by the
OECD. Leading countries in this respect are Korea and
Germany, figures 13.1 and 13.2.
In terms of the total numbers of new university
degrees in relation to the population size, the Swedish
performance has improved substantially in the last two
decades, particularly within the field of engineering.
This is partly a consequence of structural changes of the
engineering education system, marked by a shift towards
longer programmes of study, which can more closely
be compared with international standards for higher
education, and partly a result of a volume expansion of
higher education, with a rather strong focus on the field
of engineering.
The Swedish national innovation system has in
the past decade achieved a significant improvement
in performance in terms of generating new research
graduates. In terms of research graduates between
25 and 34 years of age, Sweden is at the top of the
OECD rankings. This indicates that Sweden is taking
active steps to build a foundation for future research
competence in the national innovation system. This is
a consequence of increasing examination pass rates in
the Swedish university system in recent years. Sweden
is particularly competitive in terms of the number
of people with new PhDs in engineering and less
competitive within natural sciences.
Distribution of higher educated people in the
economy
A large proportion of those employed people in Sweden
who have completed a tertiary education, 78 per cent,
are educated in social science, humanities or in some
other field than natural science or engineering. About 55
THE SWEDISH NATIONAL INNOVATION SYSTEM 1970–2003 45