Key Performance Index for Creating an Integrated and Sustainable Academy – A University with the Ability to Meet Future Needs and Challenges Identified in Society and Industry

Abstract

Key performance indexes (KPIs) in various forms have always been used in one way or another in the production and processing of raw materials. The need for KPIs was accentuated with the advent of industrialism in the western world. The way and strategy of manufacturing industrial products has been divided into several so-called developmental transformations. Primarily after the depression of the 1930s and after the Second World War, a way of working and a basic view was gradually created that has resource efficiency and goal achievement as a fundamental idea. This publication describes how KPIs can be used in higher education to create a sustainable academy to meet challenges in industry and society over time. This with a focus on sustainability and continuity as well as a strategic integration between the academy’s various missions. These missions consist of teaching, research and collaboration. Furthermore, according to the Higher Education Ordinance, teaching shall rest on a scientific basis and, when appointing senior positions, equal weight shall be attached to the merits that can be linked to teaching and research. In addition to teaching and research, collaboration must be conducted with the surrounding society. Society places increasing demands on the knowledge conveyed in teaching to harmonize with current needs and to prepare for future needs and challenges. A starting point for the publication is that needs and challenges can best be met through a conscious and strategic integration between the academy’s various missions. Another aspect that is highlighted in this publication is the importance of strengthening the collaboration between basic subjects and more applied and industry-related subjects, which provides renewal in the applied subjects at the same time as the basic research can be utilized at a higher rate. In an industrial perspective, a more continuous TRL scale is obtained, which provides a more effective implementation of research results. A development path that strengthens the Academy’s mission areas is the principle of affiliation of personnel from industry and other sectors of society and increased admission of industrial doctoral students and other external doctoral students. In order to monitor the development of the respective mission areas of academia and its integration, the use of KPIs will be addressed. A discussion of their benefits will be highlighted but also the associated difficulties, especially when conditions change. The conducted literature study shows that there are very few or rather no found publications dealing with KPIs for the integration of the Academy’s different missions. KPIs are well developed for higher education in terms of its implementation and associated economics. Corresponding published work related to KPIs in research deals primarily with conventional academic bibliometrics.