Language programme to strengthen employees' skills in Swedish and English

Hans Adolfsson, Vice-Chancellor

ImageMattias Pettersson

“Improving employees' language skills in Swedish and English increases quality throughout the university's operations, which is in line with the university's vision of having supportive systems and services that promote cutting-edge education, research and innovation. Umeå University is successful in recruiting staff and students from other countries, but to utilise the full competence of the staff, good knowledge of Swedish is needed. We also see that technical and administrative staff are requesting courses in English to best support teachers, researchers and students who come from other countries”, says Vice-Chancellor Hans Adolfsson.

Varied offer to meet different needs

In October 2023, a pre-study was launched, which resulted in an application to the Local Development Fund (LUF) for funding for a four-year pilot project. Funding was granted and the aim is to turn the project into a long-term organisation.

Lars Nordlander, Head of Human Resources

ImageMattias Pettersson

“The employer as well as employees face several challenges when employees are not able to fully participate in all parts of an organisation that is situated in a Swedish-speaking context. A well-established language programme provides conditions for the employer to offer participation and for the employee to exercise good employeeship”, says Lars Nordlander, Head of Human Resources.

The project group that worked on the pre-study has designed the proposal based on current research, workshops with subject-specialised teachers, external analysis and evaluations, and experiences from previous language courses at Umeå University.

Frankie Ekerholm, Faculty coordinator at Faculty Office of Science and Technology

ImageMattias Pettersson

“Something we particularly considered was that technical and administrative staff requests skills development in English. The focus on this staff category is one of the parts of the proposal that feels like an exciting direction for the work with competence development at Umeå University. Another is the variety of competence development activities that are included in the proposal, both in terms of duration and content”, says Frankie Ekerholm, project manager for the pre-study.