Second cycle education

Background of the programme

For Sweden to continue being a competitive country with high innovation skills, the educational offering at the country’s universities and university colleges (henceforth called universities in the call text) must be of high quality, have a clear connection to the knowledge frontier, and also be relevant to the needs of the labour market. To ensure this, universities and the business sector need to engage through collaboration to analyse needs and develop relevant educational activities. By matching the subject areas of expertise of the universities with competence needs in the business sector, the relevance of the educational offering to the labour market can be ensured, and the Knowledge Foundation therefore offers the programme Second cycle education.

Project design

The programme offers funding to develop or further develop master’s programmes, or second-cycle components of professional degree programmes, in collaboration with the business sector and other stakeholders.

To match the specific needs and conditions of the applicant’s research and educational environment, the programme is offered in two variants – Mini and Maxi. More details about the two variants can be found in the call text.

The project requires a defined and sufficiently comprehensive engagement from external partners in order to ensure the relevance of the educational offering to the business sector. Thus, the Mini variant requires participation from at least two two mutually independent partners, while the Maxi variant requires at least five.

Terms and conditions

Applicants: Universities within the Knowledge Foundation’s target group with degree-awarding powers at master’s level or higher. The programme can be carried out in collaboration between research and educational environments at several institutions. Read more about the institutions we support.

Co-funding requirements: No requirement.

Maximum funding amount: SEK 500,000 (Mini) or SEK 2 million (Maxi)

Project duration: 1 year (Mini) or 3 years (Maxi)

The programme’s contribution to strong research and educational environments

The specific purpose of the programme Second cycle education is to integrate the academic environment’s research and education activities and to contribute to provision of competence within the business sector.