At a digital meeting on the inquiry’s report organised by SULF, Robert Andersson, the union’s head of negotiations, started by saying:
“This report is a major event, and we at SULF think it contains some very good proposals.”
The leader of the inquiry, appeals court justice Mattias Pleiner, went on to explain that the inquiry consisted of two parts. Firstly, it was to propose measures to attract foreign doctoral candidates and researchers to Sweden and retain them in the country.
“The other part was to focus mainly on reviewing the regulatory framework to prevent abuse of residence permits for studies.”
Mattias Pleiner
Leader of the inquiry
As background to the first part of the assignment, Pleiner explained that many foreign doctoral candidates leave Sweden after completing their studies. One proposed measure to encourage them to stay is to allow doctoral candidates to be granted a residence permit for research instead of studies, while retaining the option of granting a residence permit for doctoral studies.
“The fact that a doctoral candidate is regarded as a student and not a researcher for the purposes of migration law has certain disadvantages. If nothing else, a change in the rules would be an important signal that doctoral candidates are also seen as researchers.”
The report also proposes various measures to improve the possibilities for foreign doctoral candidates and researchers to be granted permanent residence permits. One of the proposals is that scholarships for doctoral students should be included in the calculation to fulfil the self-support requirement for a permanent residence permit.
Additionally, it proposes that the qualifying period for a doctoral candidate or researcher to be eligible for a permanent residence permit be reduced from four years to three years if the applicant has continuously had some form of residence permit. At the same time, the possibility for people who have had a residence permit for four years during a seven-year period to apply for permanent residence would continue.
Another proposal is that a temporary residence permit could be cancelled in favour of a permanent residence permit. Under the current rules, applicants need to wait for their current temporary residence permit to expire before they can apply for a permanent residence permit.
“We believe that this proposal is important for doctoral candidates, so that they can plan their futures and their lives much more easily than they can today,” said Pleiner.
Opportunities to look for work after completing a doctorate would also be improved by making residence permits valid for 18 months instead of the current twelve months, according to the inquiry’s proposal. In addition, it proposes that it should be possible in certain cases for people to leave Sweden while their residence permit application is being assessed.
Some improvements when it comes to changing residence permits after entry into Sweden have also been proposed.
“In particular, a family member of a researcher or doctoral candidate should be able to apply for residency as a researcher or doctoral candidate themself. In many times the accompanying family member is also highly qualified.”
Also among the report’s proposals is that it should be made possible for people covered by the Temporary Protection Directive to change to another residency status, for example, residency for research. As Pleiner pointed out, people who have come from Ukraine are in many cases highly qualified and may be of interest for research positions.
In addition, the report proposes various measures to provide more opportunities for people to be granted permanent residence, including making amendments to the text of the legislation to allow the combination of periods with different types of residence permit when applying for a permanent residence permit, which to a large extent already happens in practice.
The inquiry report also calls for the self-support requirement to be defined more clearly in the Aliens Ordinance, and it recommends that previous income should also be taken into account and that a forecast of future income should be made, reasoning that a doctoral candidate who has had sufficient income previously should be considered likely to fulfil the self-support requirement in the future.
Pleiner also discussed the inquiry’s review of the rules on residence permits for studies. “We have focused on whether the regulatory framework itself incentivises abuse of the system,” he said.
“With this in mind, we propose limiting the possibility to work while studying without needing a work permit to a maximum of 15 hours per week.”
The inquiry also proposes that acceptable progress in studies for a renewed residence permit should correspond to the requirement for a Swedish student to be granted continued financial support from the Swedish Board of Student Finance (CSN). This would mean that the student would be required to complete 62.5 per cent of the studies during the first year.
“We also propose to limit the scope for people to switch from a residence permit for studies to a residence permit for work,” he added.
The report also contains proposals aimed at improving the exchange of information between state authorities and promoting more efficient processing of applications by the Swedish Migration Agency and the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO).
Participants at the meeting expressed satisfaction with the report’s proposals, except with regard to one point: that the provisions will not come into force until March 2026.
