Template talk:Swedish universities

Notes

I moved Gothenburg, Lund, Stockholm, and Uppsala up one row, because they are the oldest, full-service, state-financed universities, and the one's most known across Sweden, Europe, and the world. Hope that's alright, it doesn't mean that the other universities and university colleges are bad, but there is a slight division into two groups within the university group, which this is supposed to resemble. Some of the other universities either cover mainly or exclusively certain fields (e.g. agricultural sciences, natural sciences (Chalmers, KTH, Luleå), medicine (KI)) as opposed to the full spectrum of academia, and other universities are relatively new (usually from the 1960s) as opposed to the "traditional" ones and have a newer image (e.g. Växjö, Linköping, Mid Sweden). Axt (talk) 13:01, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Sweden has six traditional city universities. There was a gap between Gothenburg, Stockholm, Umeå and Linköping founded in the 50s, 60s and 70s and the next wave of universities founded in the 90s and 00s. Also, these six universities all have more than 15000 students. I will undo. Jacob Lundberg (talk) 09:18, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, on the other hand Linköping became a university in 1975 and Umeå in 1965, while the oldest four universities were founded before 1960 and have 20,000 students or more and are therefore much larger than all the others. Also, they are either old/traditional (Uppsala, Lund), or situated in Sweden's two largest cities (Stockholm, Göteborg), which also distinguishes them from Linköping and Umeå. --Axt (talk) 15:23, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Is there really any need to divide them? Can't all universities be on the row? The arguments for separating them aren't (so far) very compelling. Innerear (talk) 02:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Sweden has relatively many universities in relation to its population, and most of them are rather new, receive only little research funding, and have less than 10,000 students. Uppsala, Lund, Gothenburg, and Stockholm are quite the opposite: international, large-scale, multi-faceted research universities. In my view, there is a difference. Of course, one could debate including Linköping and Umeå, but I think there is a difference between the larger/older/research-oriented universities on the one side and the new/small/specialised universities on the other. The Swedish government has also understood that the problem is not that there are not enough universities in Sweden, but that many of the universities are too small to receive international attention (e.g. Örebro, Mid Sweden), i.e. that the size and quality some of the existing universities is not satisfactory. I think we will see some changes in the Swedish universities in the next ten years, no matter who wins the 2010 election, but I also think that there is a clear difference between the large Top 4 universities and all the other already today. --Axt (talk) 09:26, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

PS: This is also mirrored in bare numbers in the List of universities in Sweden. There, all other universities have less than 20,000 students and/or (much) less research funding. --Axt (talk) 09:32, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

If you don't post anything reliable to back this up, this is just opinion. Sure, Lund and Uppsala and Gothenburg may be older and in some aspects different from the rest, but that isn't really a compelling reason to separate them in the list - one that's pretty short to start off with. Compare the list for London universities - Template:Universities_in_the_United_Kingdom. If there's no official distinction between them, I don't see why we need to create one on Wikipedia. Innerear (talk) 09:37, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The fact that Uppsala, Lund, Gothenburg, and Stockholm have the most students, the most research grants, the most academic disciplines, the longest history, and the best international standing is pretty reliable to me. When you compare the UK to Sweden, take into consideration that it's five or six times as big. --Axt (talk) 09:51, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

That's a distinction you are making. It's not official. Let's keep to official distinctions. The point I was trying to make with the UK template is that you could perhaps argue a distinction would be worthwhile to make if the list was considerably longer than it is (cf the UK one), but such a distinction isn't made even on that template. Special:Contributions/Innerear (talk) 11:15, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not a distinction that "I" am making -- it's an obvious distinction based on facts that anyone who knows a little about Swedish higher education can follow (and agree with). As for your UK example: on the contrary (!), the UK template has separate rows for Wales (with only 3 universities) and Northern Ireland (2), because it follows a geographic pattern, which is why it's perfectly alright to have an extra row with the 4 largest and oldest Swedish universities (i.e. to follow a size/age pattern), because they are perceived as the largest, oldest, most multi-facetted, and internationally best-recognised in Sweden. --Axt (talk) 19:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

There's quite a difference between a geographical distinction and one based on "4 oldest". There's a difference between "universities in Wales/England" and "4 oldest/5 oldest". The latter one is arbitrary (a distinction, indeed, you are making) while the first one is based on geographical borders. Innerear (talk) 05:13, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

This discussion and template has been hi-jacked by you "Axt" who among your other contributions to Wikpedia has decided to rename all university colleges in Sweden (XX University or XX högskola) to colleges (XX College) (e.g. Kalmar högskola to Kalmar College), a naming convention you invented on your own. While I am sure you make many useful contributions can you please keep your opinions separate from facts.

When it comes to your division of universities first note the following: 1. Research funding has to be normalized by the number of research active staff. A university with 6000 researchers with 3x funding of a university with 2000 researchers is simply not better in any sense of the word (by your measure California Institute of Technology would suck). 2. Number of students does certainly not reflect esteem: by that measure both Harvard and MIT (undergrad. students < 20,000) would be lousy universities and the Cairo University (> 200,000 students) would be outstanding. 3. When you state that Uppsala, Lund, Gothenburg, Stockholm etc. have the most academic disciplines you are really not stating the truth as can be easily realized by considering neither Gothenburg nor Stockholm have an institute of technology, and Stockholm does not even have a faculty of medicine. So by proper university standards the only real four universities in Sweden are these: Uppsala, Lund, Umeå and Linköping. If we go by a ranking actually adapted for Swedish education and research circumstances the top-10 higher educational institutes are ranked as follows:

1. Handelshögskolan i Stockholm

2. Karolinska institutet

3. Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

4. Lunds universitet

5. Chalmers tekniska högskola

6. Uppsala universitet

7. Linköpings universitet

8. Göteborgs universitet

9. Kungl. Tekniska högskolan

10. Umeå universitet

(Source: http://www.fokus.se/2008/10/hogskolerankning)

Only taking into account general universities this would lead to the following: Lund (rank 1), Uppsala (rank 2), Linköping (rank 3), Gothenburg (rank 4), Umeå (rank 5), Stockholm (rank 6) (Stockholm is ranked 11 in the above list, thus not visible in the top-10). So your opinion "...but I also think that there is a clear difference between the large Top 4 universities and all the other already today..." is just that, your opinion.

Now that said, what probably makes the most sense is to make a split at universities founded at or before 1977. This list would include Uppsala, Lund, Stockholm, Gotheburg, KTH, Chalmers, Karolinska, SLU, Umeå, Linköping, SLU. If the lists should be small then perhaps this cut:

Traditional universities: Uppsala, Lund, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Umeå, Linköping

Traditional specialized universities: Karolinska, KTH, Chalmers, SLU

New universities (founded in the late 90s): Örebro, Karlstad, Växjö, Mid Sweden

Everything else —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.1.66 (talk) 10:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)