Recruitment of Students at Uppsala University, part of the project Regardless of Background

The project Regardless of Background aims to strengthen Uppsala University’s work on widening participation in higher education. The point of departure is the thematic evaluation carried out by the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) in 2020–2022, in which the university received several recommendations for developing its work in this area. The goal is for the student population to better reflect the composition of the wider population and for the university to be able to formulate and follow up clear objectives for its recruitment efforts.

The project consists of three parts:

• Rapid analysis of student recruitment: A high-level analysis based on readily available data on students’ backgrounds.
• Database and long-term mapping: The creation of a database using microdata from Statistics Sweden (SCB), enabling more detailed mapping of recruitment at both programme and course level. The database will also be usable for recurring follow-ups over time.
• Support activities and follow-up: Proposals for structures to support university units in their work on widening participation and to ensure continuous monitoring.

The mapping covers aspects such as social background, gender, Swedish/foreign background, and geographic background within Sweden. It includes education at first-cycle, second-cycle, and doctoral level. The results should, as far as possible, be comparable with national figures from UKÄ and provide a basis for the university’s continued strategic work on widening participation. In addition to a number of oral presentations and talks, the results have been compiled in the report linked below.