Assessment panel’s task

The Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) tasked us with reviewing programmes leading to licentiate and doctoral degrees in architecture. Annex 1 presents our assessments with the related justifications and a proposed overall assessment for each programme reviewed.

We hereby submit our report to UKÄ.

Assessment panel’s composition

The assessment panel included the following members:

• Professor Mark Dorrian, University of Edinburgh (chairperson and subject expert)
• Professor Susanne Komossa, Delft University of Technology (subject expert)
• Erik Karlsson, Malmö University (doctoral student representative), until February 18, 2018
• Dr Katarina Graffman, Inculture (employer and labour market representative).

See annex 2 for circumstances regarding conflicts of interest.

Assessment panel’s work

The evaluation is based on the requirements laid out in the Higher Education Act (1992:1434) and the Higher Education Ordinance (1993:100). In cases in which the higher education institution offers both licentiate and doctoral degrees in architecture, they were evaluated as one unit. Assessment material consists of the higher education institutions’ self-evaluation, including annexes formulated based on Guidelines for the evaluation of third-cycle programmes, Swedish Higher Education Authority 2016, general and individual study plans, interviews with representatives of the reviewed programme and doctoral students, and other material produced by UKÄ. This material is presented in annex 3.

Assessment process

From the material, we have assessed the quality of the programmes based on the following aspect areas and perspectives.

Aspect areas:

• environment, resources and area
• design, teaching/learning and outcomes
• followup, actions and feedback.

Perspectives:

• doctoral student perspective
• working life perspective
• gender equality perspective.

The assessment panel’s preliminary report per programme was sent to the relevant higher education institution for review, so the higher education institution was able to point out any factual errors. The review period was three weeks. The responses from the higher education institutions are presented in annex 4. We have reviewed the higher education institutions’ responses, and in cases in which we assessed them to be relevant, changes were made in the reports.

Overall the assessment panel is very impressed with the quality of third-cycle programmes in architecture in Sweden. The organisation of the programmes and their systems and processes are generally effective and robust, and are clearly of a high standard when viewed in an international context. In the interviews the assessment panel found evidence of a high degree of student satisfaction as well as committed and engaged staff at both strategic and operative levels.

The assessment panel was struck by – and strongly commends – the collaborative ethos that exists between the schools of architecture involved in doctoral education in Sweden. The most impressive and evident manifestation of this is the ResArc initiative to which all the schools contribute. The panel sees this as exemplary and quite distinctive internationally. It has promoted effective sharing of resources and expertise, has expanded and diversified student experience, and has allowed limitations of scale, which would otherwise have been experienced, to be largely overcome. The importance of the initiative and the role it has played in the panel's assessment lead to obvious concerns about its future form, given that the funding that has supported it has now come to an end. The assessment panel emphasises the importance of finding a way to address this. If ResArc ceased to function effectively, third cycle education in architecture – especially in the areas of the humanities and social sciences – would be significantly diminished.

Despite the comments above, the assessment panel are surprised that possibilities of collaborative supervision of doctoral research across schools within the ResArc network has not been explored, although the interviews showed that there is clearly enthusiasm for this. The panel urges the schools to reflect upon and discuss possible futures for the ResArc initiative. It has the potential to become something like a national 'Graduate School' for research in architecture, but this has to be judged in relation to the importance given to the identity and distinctiveness of the schools' individual programmes. It would be productive for the schools to collectively discuss various options and strategies.

The assessment panel notes that the number of doctoral students enrolled in the schools tends to be rather low in relation to the available supervisory resources and that some of the schools would clearly benefit from having more students. In addition, the student cohorts appear rather uniform, with small numbers of international students. Greater diversity in student enrolments would certainly benefit third-cycle education in Sweden as a whole.

Alumni relations remain generally underdeveloped across the schools and much more could be made of the connection with previous students. Ways in which alumni expertise and experience can be fed back to enrich the programmes should be explored, together with the potential of the alumni network in helping graduates transition to professional roles. The assessment panel could not find any evidence of systematic recording or detailed awareness of alumni successes (for example, in applications for prestigious postdoctoral awards) that would help the schools assess the quality of their programmes and graduates in an international context.

The assessment panel notes that none of the schools appear to have in place any system of research leave for staff. While basic pedagogical and supervisory training is standard across the schools, this does not address supervisory competence in terms of the maintenance of the supervisors' expertise in their own fields of research, which are inevitably ever changing. A properly designed system of sabbatical research leave would help address this.

In general the discourse on the development and emergence of non-standard forms of PhD (i.e. not monograph-based) seems less developed in the schools than might be expected. This is something that the assessment panel recommends be explored more vigorously and explicitly.

In conclusion, the assessment panel is grateful to the staff and students of the participating schools for their enthusiastic engagement in the assessment process. The panel members wish the schools well for the continuing successful development of their third-cycle programmes in architecture.

For the assessment panel

Mark Dorrian

Chairperson