Student-run and professional – this is how we work

Stockholm University Student Union (SUS) is Sweden's largest student union, with circa 10,000 members each semester, and our main purpose is to monitor and participate in the development of education and the conditions for studies at Stockholm University. We are convinced that students' influence, participation and community create a world-class university experience.

On this page you’ll find information about how SUS is governed, which issues SUS is working with at the moment, how we work and with what. Want to know more about SUS and what it means to work student-led and professionally? Contact SUS’s Chief Operating Officer Camilla Sjölund Lundevall and she’ll answer your questions.

SUS’s democratic mission

All students that are members of SUS have the right to influence the organization’s work. This is established in the Swedish Higher Education Act, which describes the student unions’ democratic mission as something that is achieved by giving all students, within the are of activity covered by the student union, the right to be members of the student union and to vote in the student union election.

In other words, SUS is a democratic organization, and it is the members who decide who will be elected to SUS’s highest decision-making body – the Representative Assembly. The members decide this by voting for different student union parties in the Student Union Election.

SUS’s democratic governance – this is how it works!

1. SUS’s members elect the representatives for the SUS Representative Assembly once a year – by voting in the Student Union Election.

2. SUS’s Representative Assembly is the highest decision-making body of SUS, and they make decisions about SUS' three-year activity plan, framework budget and what issues SUS will pursue, among other things. They also appoint the SUS Board, as well as the SUS Presidium (the President and Vice President). The 35 students who are elected to the Representative Assembly meet four times every academic year. SUS’s representative assembly also establishes the directions and goals for SUS’s work for the next three years, by accepting the strategic operating plan.

3. SUS’s board is responsible for the organization’s activities as well as leading and allocating work and responsibilities by, among other things, deciding on SUS’ one-year operational plan. This plan defines the organization’s working plan to ensure that the SUS office is able to report the results and goal fulfillments in accordance with the Representative Assembly’s wishes and decisions. The 14 students (seven ordinary members and seven alternate members) who are elected to the SUS board meet once a month.

4. SUS’s President and Vice President form together SUS’ presidium, heads the board’s work and play an active part in the SUS office’s work by, among other things, making decisions. They also represent the University’s students in a variety of meeting forums on a central level at SU. The SUS President and Vice President make up the SUS presidium, and part of their assignment is to maintain an active and prospective dialog with the University’s leadership. The Presidium opens doors, creates spaces and drives influence, as well shining a light on opportunities in existing and newly developed forums. The two students that are chosen for the presidium are considered elected representatives with full remuneration for the span of one year.

SUS’s prioritized Advocacy Issues 2024–2025

After the student union election, the parties in SUS’s representative assembly accept the strategic operating plan, which establishes the directions and goals for SUS’s work during the next three years. They also agree on a number of prioritized advocacy issues that will be part of the organization’s work in the coming year.

• A safer campus
  Students feel worse than professionals of the same age and with the increased uncertainty in the outside world and the growing threat picture, many students feel worried. It is important that Stockholm University has sufficient routines to handle threatening situations and that these routines are clearly communicated to the students. It includes SU to prepare a crisis plan, to ensure that students are safe and student associations can run their activities without them being violated. SU must be an open university where everyone is welcome.

• More efficient development of study and research environments
  It is important that SU has spaces for the students to enjoy and be educated in. It is therefore important to ensure functioning student and doctoral influence in matters relating to the work environment, this includes the possibility of exerting influence in English. High rents in academic buildings mean that departments cannot afford lecture halls and many university buildings are in need of maintenance or equipment. Often there is also a lack of exam halls. SUS must put pressure on Akademiska hus to lower rents and increase the quality of the buildings, and on the university that spaces must be available for student-run activities.

• A central database for doctoral courses
  SU should create a central database of searchable courses for PhD students, to facilitate the process of finding courses that are most favorable for research studies.