Aims and research questions
In Sweden, as well as in other countries, the gradual academisation and professionalization of a growing numbers of occupations has lead to the establishment of profession-based university disciplines and PhD programs, in order to develop and reinforce a scientific base for professional practice and education. A crucial element in this process is that professional practitioners are expected to seek admission to these doctoral programs, and by choosing a career as a researcher become involved in the continued development of scientific knowledge. The aim of this project was to analyse and compare some central aspects of professionalization by academisation within three profession-research-complexes (teaching, nursing and social work), namely (1) the recruitment of researchers via PhD-education, (2) the socialisation from professional practitioner to researcher and member of faculty and research community, their motives to become a researcher and their trajectories and further research activities, and (3) opinions about and strategies to handle the relations between research and professional practice and to uphold a dual legitimacy. Empirically, the project was based on (a) a survey to 1500 nurses, teachers and social workers with a doctoral exam (with a response rate of 49 %), (b) qualitative interviews with 50 full professors, associate professors and assistant professors in nursing, educational sciences (pedagogy, didactics etc.) and social work at several Swedish universities, and (c) literature on the state of the art and development within these disciplines.

Most important findings
First, several significant differences between the three areas could be detected. On the hand, the results show that multiple motives for becoming a researcher are normal but that desire for personal growth and personal challenge dominates declared motives in all groups. On the other hand social workers more often stresses political aspirations, while nurses and teachers more often highlights professional and practice-oriented motivations. Motives have also some impact on both the subject of the dissertation and research issues after PhD-exam. Studies on patients and professional practice and methods are, for instance, more common among nurses compared to social workers, which more frequently deals with research about organizations, social problems and social policy issues. Furthermore, normative perceptions of what research should be aimed at vary. Within nursing, more researchers claim that dominating functions of research should be directed towards development of methods and evidence-based practice, which is more contested among researchers in education and social work. There are also some striking similarities, for instance that more than 90 % of the respondents have stayed in academia as teachers and researchers after their PhD, and that many PhD’s experience difficulties to obtain sufficient conditions for conducting research.
    Another important finding is the similar view of the complexities of the relationship between research and practice. Most researchers find this relationship as crucial for legitimacy, but at the same time that it mostly not working as well as it should. There is a lot of similar talk about “the gap” between research and professional practice, and it’s commonly believed that the local organisations within health care, the school system and social welfare have major responsibilities for strengthening the relationship between research and practice. Thirdly, researchers within all of three areas describes difficulties in dealing with external (political as well as professional) demand for instrumental, relevant and useful knowledge for improvement of professional practice, and on the same time comply with scientific norms and standards, academic rationalities and demands. During the last decade some of the latter has been clearly reinforced, e.g. by growing needs for specialisation, sharper bibliometrical standards for allocation of resources and research funding etc. In general, this has accentuated the difficulties for profession-based disciplines and research to balance between external demands and strategies for academic success.

New research questions generated by the project
There is a need of international comparisons of the relationship between professionalization and academisation, either by the establishment of profession-based research disciplines or by other strategies for developing and reinforcing a scientific base for professional practice and education. These strategies differ between countries and one pertinent question is how national context and different strategies affect actual conditions for this kind of reinforcement.
    Furthermore, professionalization has a very large element of political ambitions, strategies and initiatives. In Sweden, parallel with some educational and research policies in these professional areas, there has also been a growing governmental interest to influence and control transfer and use of knowledge in schools, health care and municipal social services. This has raised tensions between the central government – and a more instrumental approach to research and professional knowledge use – and, on the other hand, the research community's view of science and research related to professional practice, particularly in human service organizations. This could be described as a cognitive struggle between different actors with different normative approaches to research and its prospective societal functions (which is particularly evident in the educational sciences and social work). An important research questions is how actual conditions of governmental “knowledge management” appears and is developed in different welfare regimes, welfare sectors and professions, and how to understand different stakeholders motives and beliefs, and thus the elements of the controversy between governmental actors and (parts of) the academy.

International connections
The project has been presented at a number of research conferences, e.g. on a couple of larger Nordic research conferences (organized by NORDPRO, a Nordic network for research on professions) and some international conferences (in Italy, China, Uganda, Slovenia, France, Denmark). The presentations have attracted great interest and brought discussions with other researchers about future cooperation on comparative studies. In more informal settings, the project has also been discussed with U.S. researchers (UC Berkeley, New York University.

Research information outside the scientific community
Besides presentations on a large number of lectures, seminars on several bachelor-, master-, and doctoral courses, results from the project has been presented at several seminars for nurses, teachers and social workers (for example at seminars arranged by various unions).

Most important publications
The most significant publication will be the book that will be published in early 2018, mainly because it, in a more comprehensive way, will present and discuss findings and conclusions mentioned above. Among other publications article (3) should be mentioned, describing motives and aspirations among nurses, teachers and social workers with a PhD. This type of research, focused on particular professions with university-based undergraduate programs and related PhD-programmes, is very rare in both Sweden and internationally. Article (5) should also be mentioned, dealing with the internal view of science and academic knowledge among researchers in different disciplines. This kind of research is also quite rare.

Strategies of publication
The strategy has been to publish different kinds of texts in the form of articles, book chapters and anthology contributions and a final book. We have also chosen to publish in both Swedish and English, and when it comes to scientific papers sought to do this in both traditional scientific journals as in "open-access"-journals (articles 3, 5, 7).  The final book is written in Swedish, mainly because the structure of this kind of university disciplines, as well as research conditions in the health sciences, educational science and social work are somewhat different from those in other countries. Publication (1) is a chapter in a textbook on human service organizations that are used in undergraduate programmes for social workers and other welfare professionals. Article (9) is a popular science article published in a union journal.