Vision, goals and strategies

Through our vision statement, we emphasise that the University of Borås is to be a university that continues to follow and drive the development of society and which takes responsibility for the challenges of the future. At a time when the public debate is threatened by the denigration and rejection of knowledge, the university must be an independent and critically reflective actor that takes responsibility for the debate and uses its unique position to freely design education and research. The university's responsibility is to offer future generations education that is based on current research. At the same time, the university's research has a responsibility to contribute to the critical examination of society’s development.

The university works together as a whole. Together with students, staff, collaboration partners, and across organisational boundaries, we identify and delineate topical issues that are or will become challenges in education and research. We see theory and practice as intertwined perspectives that enrich one another and that, together, contribute to quality in education and research. It is the university's responsibility to ensure that the scientific basis of these partnerships is sound so that it corresponds to the high quality requirements for higher education and research.

The University of Borås has developed into a distinctive and strong university. Our continual development of distinctive education and research has resulted in complete academic environments and excellence in the form of a number of  educational and research areas that lead nationally as well as internationally successful teaching groups established at the university. Through our vision statement, we show our intention for the university to continue our work to develop our distinctive education and research environments in order to contribute to sustainable societal development. The responsibility for this is shared by all our staff and is something we do together, regardless of organisational boundaries and work tasks. We are courageous and we work together across boundaries.

In order to meet the challenges and expectations that higher education and research face, it is important for the University of Borås to be an attractive university. The attractive university affirms and encourages free and critical thinking, questions established truths, and, with a scientific approach, both challenges and participates in the public debate. At an attractive university, differing opinions and competencies are respected, and we have the ability to conduct constructive discussions based on facts. The attractive university takes responsibility for the future and the goals formulated in Agenda 2030. This means that a global perspective and gender mainstreaming are self-evident aspects of our education and research.

The attractive university is attractive both to present and future students and to staff and conducts its work together with external partners in the public sector, business and industry, and cultural life.

To ensure the high quality of education and research at the University of Borås, the university is to have complete academic environments. A complete academic environment is characterised by a balance and a close relationship between our educational programmes and research as well as degree-awarding powers at all levels of the educational system. A complete academic environment is likewise characterised by nationally and internationally recognised environments as well as sustainable development, gender equality, and internationalisation, in accordance with Agenda 2030.

A complete academic environment has well-developed collaborations with the surrounding society and a balance between research that is externally funded and that receives direct government funding.

Digitalisation is to characterise the activities at the university. By developing the university's digital work approach, the University of Borås will be more attractive to staff, students, and external parties. Digitalisation is to be a natural element of education and research as a way to distinguish the university.

By continually developing distinctive education and research, the University of Borås becomes a more attractive university. In order to make the best use of our conditions and resources, education and research at the University of Borås need to continually develop in distinctiveness. This means, for example, that the university's priority areas, study programmes, and research groups all continually develop in distinctiveness.

Through an environment that is characterised by problematisation, critical thinking, curiosity, and personal responsibility, and together with well-developed and suitable physical and digital environments, the foundation is created for good knowledge development in education and research.

By crossing borders in our work throughout the entire university, both in ways interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary and within the disciplines, the university can best utilise our resources and conditions to achieve our goals. This presupposes that the education and research activities and Professional Services work together for the continued development of the university and in order to ensure and improve quality. Working together in this way depends on a culture and core values in which everyone’s equal value is self-evident as well as trust and respect for one another.