Description: Three aspects will be highlighted: A tradition of applied and policy-related research, a contested relation to teacher education and professional work, and the increasingly strong impact of utility, market and excellence thinking. - A long record of applied research, especially related to educational reforms and development efforts. Swedish education research was closely linked to the implementation of the comprehensive school reform in 1962 and the 10-year experiment period preceding it. Research was supposed to guide political decision-making and evaluation of the new school system. Later, such research was criticised for being too utilitarian, uncritical and of low quality. Even if sector research has decreased considerably, educational research has continued to be externally funded to a rather high degree, and has accompanied several of the educational reforms - A disputed relation to teacher education and teachers´ professional practice. In the 1980s and 90s, teacher education was subjected to several extensive public investigations. In year 2000 a reform aiming at modernisation and increased quality of teacher education was decided upon, a strengthened research basis being one of its major means. Educational research was described as insufficient in meeting the demands of applied research from the teaching profession and teacher education. The relation between education research and teacher education is one of the most controversial issue in the early 2000s. - Strongly affected by demands of productivity, utility and excellence. Swedish research policy has followed a global pattern by focusing on natural science, medical and technological research as a means to develop the knowledge economy. The same motives and logistic are increasingly adopted in social science. Funding is increasingly directed to "centres of excellence" and large research projects. Articles in "the best" international journals becomes the favoured form of research production, and quality of research is reduced to simple quantitative measures. Increasingly, Swedish educational research has to relate itself to international research, e.g. the E.U. and a future European Research Council.