Go to main navigation Navigation menu Skip navigation Home page Search

An Educational Mission for the Digital Age

Since 1909 the Stockholm School of Economics has collaborated with the business community and society at large to carry out a mission: To make Sweden more competitive through advanced education in the economic disciplines, with education programs designed around up-to-date research in those fields. That research and teaching continue today.

Yet, as the pace of change increases globally - social, political, technological, and environmental change - the tools that business school graduates need also change. In our efforts to provide these tools, SSE has expanded its conception of education. Inspired by the philosopher Ingemar Hedenius, tomorrow's successful decision makers will be "free and alive in relation to what is uncertain". We want to offer students a well-rounded education that prepares them to take on the world and its lack of order with humility and curiosity. We call this educational mission FREE. By defining attributes of the graduates that our community will need, this acronym helps guide the School's educational work, communicate the nature of that work, and clarify student expectations. 

Education and knowledge development are processes involving not only the mind but also the body and soul.
Lars Strannegård
Professor and President of the Stockholm School of Economics

FREE

We want to graduate decision makers who exhibit:

- a fact and science-based mindset. SSE is fundamentally an academic institution where facts provide the basis for all critical and analytical thinking. An ability to appraise information and evaluate various kinds of knowledge claims has always been important, but perhaps never more so than in our current era where demagoguery hides behind "alternative facts" and "fake news", all while many citizens live within their filter bubbles. 

- reflection and self-awareness. While these qualities take many forms, SSE's graduates should understand their roles in the world, the impact they have on others and on finite resources, all with an awareness of their own values, their personal preferences, and, ideally, with insight into the sources of those values and preferences. 

- empathy and cultural literacy. These characteristics distinctly distinguish the human decision makers from the computers, robots, and AI systems that will change the work content of the future. These characteristics rest upon an ability to cross boundaries and understand others on their own terms, as SSE graduates will meet and collaborate with others across many national, cultural, professional, and conceptual boundaries. 

- entrepreneurship, and responsibility. These attributes combine because true entrepreneurs take risks and accept responsibility for their actions and decisions. Graduates who merge creative change and personal accountability will challenge the status quo in order to improve enterprises, communities, and society as a whole. 

SSE's traditional expertise in economics, finance, and business administration represents the core, but other elements of FREE are needed to prepare decision-makers for the future as it seems to unfold.