This article analyses how the future has been discussed in Swedish higher education and research policy, providing an overview of public inquiries during the period 1970–2020. Expanding on the conceptual framework of German historian Reinhart Koselleck, the article approaches discourses on the future through the analytical lens of sociology of expectations. The findings demonstrate that all inquiries that attempt to advance arguments for policy change address the future—with temporal perspectives usually limited to the coming 15–20 years—whereby the future is conceptualised as an unknown and complex ‘knowledge society’, characterised by acceleration, high demands and fierce competition. A number of inquiries discuss the future development based on empirical data like shrinking age cohorts among potential students, while others describe threats and challenges based on needs for creating a sense of urgency. Inter- and multidisciplinarity, with respect to such future needs in both research and education, is consequently a key area of discussion throughout the period in question. Several other themes emerge as prevalent, including technological change and digitalisation as well as broader issues of how to organise the curriculum and lifelong learning. The historical analysis presented in this article is crucial for ongoing university debates, as it is demonstrated that temporal dynamics and future imaginaries have been highly formative for the development of Swedish higher education and research.

本文分析了瑞典高等教育和研究政策中如何讨论未来，并概述了 1970 年至 2020 年期间的公众调查。本文扩展了德国历史学家莱因哈特·科塞莱克的概念框架，通过期望社会学的分析视角来探讨未来。研究结果表明，所有试图提出政策变革论据的调查都着眼于未来——时间视角通常仅限于未来 15-20 年——未来被概念化为一个未知且复杂的“知识社会”，其特点是加速、要求高，竞争激烈。许多调查基于潜在学生年龄群体缩小等经验数据讨论了未来的发展，而另一些调查则根据创造紧迫感的需要描述了威胁和挑战。因此，考虑到研究和教育方面的未来需求，跨学科和多学科性是整个时期讨论的关键领域。其他几个主题也越来越普遍，包括技术变革和数字化，以及如何组织课程和终身学习的更广泛问题。本文中提出的历史分析对于正在进行的大学辩论至关重要，因为它证明时间动态和未来想象对瑞典高等教育和研究的发展具有很大的影响。