Staying ahead in research is becoming more and more important for countries’ social and economic development (Kogan 2005). This is accompanied by discourses on hyper competitiveness at the global, national and local level, increased differentiation between and within universities and the preference of STEM subjects in relation to social sciences and humanities, in Sweden translated to Strategiska satsningarna. In addition, performance indicators such as bibliometrics and concentration of external research funding grants are having an increasing impact on the social organisation of research. The principles that are guiding these changes have generally been theorised under the umbrella of New Public Management. The overall direction of these discourses and practices are usually highlighted as general traits of The global knowledge economy (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 2000; Sandström and Benner 2000; Väälima and Hoffman 2008). Despite the efforts to formulate a common platform for a European policy on higher education and research, the organisation of research is often heavily mediated by country-based policies and politics. Against this backdrop, I will briefly outline a few areas that are subject to debate when New Public Management principles in Higher Education and Research are theorised. I will also give a few snapshots of the level of implementation in a selection of countries in order to highlight the Swedish context.

I take my point of departure from one specific national context butI intend to apply an international outlook since a) research has always been international to a degree, b) what is going on at the national level is often influenced by agreements across national borders, and c) such acomparative perspective will make critical features of Swedish national research infrastructures more visible.