Swedish VET has faced vast reforms since the 1990s. Political decisions have changed VET for youth (16+) as well as for adults. Firstly, the centralized steering of upper secondary VET, initiated in 1970, became decentralized during the 1990s. However, a movement toward recentralization has characterized the last decade. Secondly, governance by goals, results and marketization have become leading concepts in Swedish education policy. This has resulted in new types of facilitators that operate also VET, based on beneficial interests. Finally, also the forms for vocational higher education have been subject to changes. The consequences of these changes for the different forms of VET in terms of how VET is organised, the division of labour between different actors, as well as for the vocational knowing they are expected to contribute to within various vocational areas are examples of issues that need to be illuminated within the field of vocational pedagogy.

Further, Swedish VET teacher education has for several decades paid little attention to VET teachers as a heterogeneous group. They represent a variety of vocational areas. The specific challenges in teaching/learning for e.g. construction related vocations as compared to hairdressing, tailoring or waiters has not been acknowledged. Instead, content as well as course literature for VET teachers mainly have focused general teacher knowledge.

When it comes to Swedish VET research, the history of VET has been illuminated from several different perspectives, e.g. educational, economic, and social history. These studies have for several decades dominated this field of research. Other studies represent different issues, different perspectives, various vocational areas and different decades or even centuries. Another way of describing the current status of Swedish VET-research at the time of the applications was that there was neither a comprehensive body of research that showed how VET had been shaped for various vocations nor research that illuminated changes over time. Studies of teaching/learning within VET were scarce. Finally, the Swedish researchers within the field are few and most of them aged 50+. In short, Swedish VET-research has been uncoordinated and related to individual interest.

This was the situation when a group of researchers from various Swedish universities decided to coordinate efforts on a national as well as on an international level. One of the results from these efforts was an application for funding from the Swedish Research Council in April 2010 for a PhD-programme on vocational pedagogy (Grant No 2010-5917) aiming at illuminating processes of teaching/learning in VET. Shortly after this application was accepted, the Swedish Government decided to fund PhD-programmes for teachers in subject didactics for a licentiate degree, equivalent to half a doctorate (Gov. U2011/1201/F). A second application for a PhD programme on vocational subject pedagogy was submitted and also this one was accepted (Grant No. 2011-5301). The PhD-students in this latter cohort are employed by their schools, which in turn get a substantial economic contribution during their studies from the government. The students’ theses as well as future work are expected to contribute to school development.

In total, twenty PhD-students have been accepted at six universities; five for full doctorate degrees and fifteen for a Swedish licentiate (half a doctorate).

In this symposium, we present the programmes, the common strategies and activities that were planned in order to strengthen the formation of the programmes and thereby also the PhD-students into the field of national, Nordic, and international VET research, but also to strengthening Swedish researchers’ national and international networks. A map of the main foci in the 20 PhD-theses in progress follows the introduction. Finally, representatives for each of the PhD-programmes present papers related to their respective theses in progress.