The political motives for reinstating national school inspection in 2003 and reinforcing it through the establishment of the Swedish School Inspectoratein 2008 stressed the necessity of sufficient state involvement in order to retain and ensure nationwide educational quality and equivalence. Since then, additional political efforts have been made to intensify and exercise national state control over education. On July 1, 2011, the Education Act gave the agency enhanced legal support. The aim of this study was to describe and analyze a sample of school leaders' stories of the regular inspection that have been conducted in their schools since the legal changes came into force. School leaders of 20 compulsory schools were interviewed. Theinterviews were analyzed and the results were presented in eight themes. In the following analysis, change mechanisms that had been initiated in the schools during the inspection process were examined through a theoretical framework of evaluation influence. The results from the second analys is also illustrated conceivable forms of pathways that link inspection processes to inspection outcomes. Finally, the empirical findings were discussed in terms of constitutive effects and education governance. The study was a part of the research project "Governing by inspection. School inspection and education governance in Sweden, England and Scotland".

Recently the technological and organizational infrastructures of institutional repositories have been questioned. For example the British so-called Finch report  from last summer argued that further development, as well as higher standards of accessibility of repositories, are needed in order to make them better integrated and interoperable to ultimately bring greater use by both authors and readers. Not only the technical frameworks and presumably low usage levels are criticized but also the lack of “clear policies on such matters as the content they will accept, the uses to which it may be put, and the role that they will play in preservation”. The report concludes that: “In practice patterns of deposit are patchy”. As in the UK, today, all universities and university colleges in Sweden, except a couple of very small and specialized ones, do have an institutional repository. A majority (around 80%) are working together on a co-operative basis within the DiVA Publishing System with the Electronic Publishing Centre at Uppsala University Library acting as the technical and organizational hub. Because the system is jointly funded, and the members contribute according to their size, it has been possible even for smaller institutions with limited resources to run a repository with exactly the same functionalities as the biggest universities. In this presentation we want to demonstrate the ever-increasing importance of institutional repositories in Sweden. Starting more than a decade ago the DiVA Consortium has, for some time, been addressing the problems now raised by the Finch report in a number of areas.

Abstract: The forest industry plays a key role in global economic development and environmental conservation. The Swedish forest industry has a leading position in world forest clusters. The strategy of the Swedish forest industry is giving the environmental and the production objective the same high priority. On the other hand, China, as the second largest economy in the world, operates the forest sector in a different way. The aim of this paper is first to look at how sustainable the Swedish forest industry is and learn what aspects of it can be possibly applied by China, by making a limited comparison between these two countries. Literature review is the main method, combining with SWOT-analysis and comparative study. After analyzing the environmental economic and social aspects of sustainable development within the forestry sector in both countries, a brief summary is made using SWOT-analysis, which highlights strength, weakness, future potential and threat. The study and analysis shows that a delicate balance between the production and the environmental objective is kept in Sweden. Even though the forest industry is one of the most energy intensive industries, Sweden has accumulated some experience in streamlining production line and enhancing the resilience of forests aiming for climate change mitigation. As the biggest developing country in the world, China’s forestry has developed extensively. China shows limitation in extraction and handling with forest resources, but also potential in the forestry industry. Though limited, this comparison gives some clues on how and what policies and measures could be applied in China. China could draw some experiences from Sweden in forestry development, technology innovation and operation patterns.

The institution of farm service was mainly a West-European phenomenon. It was linked to the high age at marriage and it was an important system for the distribution of labour in agriculture. In Sweden, the use of farm servants in peasant agriculture intensified in the 18th century and remained important up till the advent of industrialization. The growth of a class of property-less, rural labourers did not undermine the system of farm service, as is sometimes claimed. Patriarchalism was an ideology intimately connected with farm service. During the 18th century, however, patriarchalism was not the common frame of reference among the upper classes when discussing state policy towards serv­ants. Patriarchalism did not become an important ideology until the beginning of the 19th century. It was inspired by the liberal critique of the old, mercantilist attitude towards labour. At the grass-root level, farm servants showed a culturally defined hostility towards wage labour. They tried to exchange wages in money for different kinds of rights and liberties, which might have served the purpose of disguising the employer-employee relationship to the peasant masters. An egalitarian ideology, typical of especially northern Sweden's peasantry, might have strengthened this hostility to being wage earners instead of having independent ways of making a living. / digitalisering@umu

The purpose with this report was to investigate the possibilities for smaller district heating plants to use recovered wood waste (RT-flis) as fuel. A smaller district heating plant in the north of Sweden (Sorsele värmeverk AB) was the main study object. To be able to incinerate this fuel there are a number of requirements that need to be fulfilled according to the law. In addition to these requirements, the incineration of this fuel also needs to be profitable. The results for this study were obtained through interviews, investigations of the incineration laws and the fuel supply, as well as an analysis of the opinions occurring within the personnel of the heating plants. The results show that the possibility to incinerate RT-flis depends on the appropriate technology; the possibility to fulfill the requirements of the law, as well as it has to be profitable. All these parameters are in close relation to each other. Whether it is technologically possible to use RT-flis largely depends on the construction and technology of the heater, which affects the possibility to fulfill the requirements on, for example, air emissions. Economically, main issues include investments into measuring equipment, but also the accessibility of fuel. The most important aspect is the quality of the fuel (e.g., contaminations).

In order for town centres to manage increased competition in retailing, co-operation between stakeholders in a strategic alliance has become more important. A typical set of stakeholders in a strategic alliance for strengthening retailingare retailers, local authorities and property owners. The roles of retailer’sand local authorities’ are well researched. However, the role of property owners is not. The aim of this paper seeks to unfold the role of property owners in a strategic alliance. This is a case study of a medium-sized town in which semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders were conducted. In the chosen town there is a TCM alliance co-operation at work. The above mentioned stakeholders are possible members in an alliance. The case studied shows a fragmented property owner market with no dominant property owner, as it is in many medium-sized towns. Our study shows that many stakeholders look at the role of property owners as crucial for town centre development. However, property owners do not see that they can significantly contribute to or benefit from the development.The main reasons for this opinion are that they consider themselves as not having enough resources or the capability to influence the town development.

Today’s globalized economy puts considerable pressure on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as they are forced to compete in a world where business is often conducted over nations’ borders. This globalization has also led to the creation of free trade areas such as the European Union, where most traditional barriers to trade have been removed. Despite this there still seems to be several, more invisible, barriers that hampers business between member states. We therefore intend to examine how companies in two member states – Lithuania and Sweden – have been affected by such invisible barriers and how they are trying to cope with them. This research has been conducted using following theoretical foundation; Invisible barriers, knowledge, the Uppsala model, psychic distance and networks. Our empirical data have been gathered by holding semi structured interviews with 7 SMEs, this data have then been analyzed with the help of our theoretical foundation. We have found substantial evidence pointing towards the importance of psychic distance and lack of knowledge when explaining the barriers still in existence. Furthermore we have also discovered the duality of knowledge and networks which can be both barriers in themselves as well as ways for companies to work their way around previously mentioned barriers.

The research is aimed at investigating how the common EU social and economic strategies, namely the 'Lisbon strategy' and the 'EU 2020', have been influential as a 'EU incentive' in European social partners having drawn the matter of employment of migrant workers both at Member state level and at European level by looking into their respective changes in responses towards the matter in the course of the two strategies. The research has found that there have been changes made in the European social partners' responses regarding the problematic matter of migrant workers' employment, namely precarious working conditions and lower employment rates than native workers, at all levels. To be specific, the trade unions have begun to emphasize more proactive protection of migrants at workplace than before. However, there is little evidence that it was the result of either the Lisbon or the EU2020. It was rather much more because of the evolving European economic market circumstance that has been getting liberalized more actively as the single market goes on, featured by the problematic side of the increase of posted workers and agency workers. Especially, the research is also aimed at shedding a light on how the Lisbon and the EU2020 have been articulated in the two different economic, social and employment models, namely the Nordic model and the Western model by investigating the Swedish case and the UK case in the study of Member state level social partners.

Our aim is to gain knowledge of some areas of public services available to unemployed youngpeople in Sweden and to study how these services are implemented in practical social work. It was toview that what services are conducted for unemployed young people, why these services conductedand the outcome. The mainly causes of unemployment, effects on unemployment and needs ofunemployed young people were also examined in this research. A qualitative research method waschosen in this study. Through four semi-structured interviews with social workers and intervieweesfrom Social Services and Swedish Public Employment Office, their experience and own optionsupon the subject were shared. The results of the study are presented in three themes and analysedfrom the perspective of empowerment theory and welfare theory. The main result of our study is thatservices conducted for unemployed young people as the implementation of public policy comprisesmulti-dimensions and social work professions played an important role to help with improvement oftheir situation by meeting their needs and solving the problems they have in various ways during theprocess of intervention. Outcome of the services showed both positive influence and negativelimitations need to be improved in future work.

Liquid Biofuels mainly Bioethanol and biodiesel are the main replacement for fossil fuels in the current world. But there are questions and concerns about the present biofuels production, mainly when it comes to matter of sustainability. In this thesis paper,Strategic Life Cycle Management data along with Life Cycle Analysis data has been used to analyze the sustainable biofuels condition in Sweden and the Netherlands. Data also has been collected through the interview from different stakeholders in Sweden and the Netherlands.