Work-integrated learning (WIL) has become an increasingly prominent feature of higher education policy and practice, both in Sweden and internationally (Areskoug Josefsson et al., 2025, 2025). Framed variously as educational content, pedagogical approach, or organizing logic, WIL operates simultaneously as both policy and practice within universities’ educational and research activities. As a research field, WIL has traditionally focused on learning in and through work and on the interaction between education and working life, drawing primarily on interdisciplinary social science traditions such as adult education and working life studies. In recent years, the field has expanded in terms of disciplinary traditions and analytical orientations, encompassing both normative approaches aimed at developing WIL practices and more critical perspectives that interrogate WIL as a policy idea. 

Alongside its development as a research field, WIL and the parallel concept of Work-integrated education (WIE), has gained increasing prominence as a pedagogical approach in higher education in several national contexts (Billett, 2025).  

In policy and practice, WIL and WIE are often presented as a means of integrating theory and practice and strengthening the relationship between higher education and the labour market (Jackson & Dean, 2023). However, the defining characteristics of WIL are rarely made explicit. As a result, WIL is interpreted and enacted in multiple, and sometimes divergent, ways (Areskoug et al., 2025). This conceptual ambiguity constitutes a central point of departure for the present study. 

From a policy-sociological perspective, WIL can be understood as a form of governance through which higher education is mobilized to address politically constructed societal challenges, particularly those related to labour market needs and national competitiveness. Within this logic, higher education is positioned as a mechanism for the efficient provision of labour market-relevant knowledge and skills. In the Swedish context, work-integrated practices have developed over several decades through policy reforms emphasizing workplace-based learning, lifelong learning, and closer relations between higher education and professional life. More recently, WIL has been formalized as an explicit policy instrument, particularly within professional education and teacher education, through targeted funding and regulatory frameworks. 

This study examines how WIL is interpreted, recontextualized, and shaped within a Swedish university with an explicit WIL profile. The university was established in the early 1990s in a context marked by political ambitions to strengthen collaboration between higher education and working life. From an early stage, work-integrated models such as cooperative education were developed, and WIL was strategically articulated as the university’s defining profile. Over time, WIL has been institutionalized through the formalization of a dedicated research environment, the establishment of doctoral education, and a range of pedagogical initiatives. One central example is the introduction of a comprehensive WIL certification process for all educational programmes (including both professional and theoretical programmes) between 2018 and 2024, aimed at aligning educational practices with the institution’s WIL profile. 

Adopting a policy enactment perspective (Ball et al., 2012), the study focuses on the intersection between top-down policy discourses and bottom-up academic practices in both research and education. By analysing how WIL is enacted in the local institutional context, the study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of WIL as a policy-practicing approach and highlights its implications for knowledge production, professionalism, and the relationship between higher education and working life. 

The study adopts a policy-sociological approach grounded in Ball et al.’s theorization of policy production and policy enactment (2011, 2012) to examine how WIL is produced at the intersection of policy discourses and academic practice. From a policy enactment perspective, policy is not understood as a linear process of implementation but as something that is interpreted, translated, and enacted by actors within specific institutional, historical, and material contexts. Policies are thus seen as both discursive and material practices shaped through ongoing processes of negotiation and meaning making. The study is designed as a qualitative case study. The empirical material consists of all research publications produced at the university concerning WIL between 2016 and 2025, as well as all WIL certification reports generated during the certification process 2018-2024. By analysing how WIL is interpreted, recontextualized, and operationalized within the specific institutional setting, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of WIL as a policy-practicing approach and highlights tensions between governance, academic traditions, and educational practice in higher education. The empirical material is analysed using a narrative analysis model, focusing on how WIL is storied and justified across research publications and certification reports, and how these narratives align with or challenge dominant policy discourses (Sukhera, 2022).

The findings indicate a gradual shift in how WIL is understood and enacted, particularly in the differentiation between WIL as a research-oriented policy and work-integrated education (WIE) as an educational practice. This process will likely further development in research practice and educational practice as the contextual and transferable knowledge of WIL and WIE is increasing. The preliminary findings indicate that the institution’s understanding and enactment of WIL has evolved over time, reflecting shifts in both policy priorities and academic practices. A central result is the increasing differentiation between WIL as a research-oriented policy concept and WIE as an educational and pedagogical practice. The identification of four traditions of WIL and their enactment indicates a nuanced understanding of different ways WIL is interpreted and practiced, potentially leading to more tailored approaches that suit specific disciplinary or institutional contexts. These traditions reflect different assumptions about the purposes of higher education, the role of working life in academic knowledge production, and the relationship between theory and practice. Rather than constituting a single, coherent model, WIL emerges as a heterogeneous and negotiated policy-practicing approach, shaped by disciplinary traditions, institutional history, and governance mechanisms. This might also contribute to reducing conceptual ambiguity and fostering clearer policy and practice alignment. More broadly, the findings suggest that the outcomes of WIL-related policies cannot be fully understood in short-term or linear terms. Instead, they point to the importance of analysing WIL as an evolving policy practice whose effects unfold over time through complex interactions between governance, professional norms, and institutional contexts. By foregrounding these dynamics, the study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how work-integrated learning is enacted, contested, and stabilized within contemporary higher education.

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