Dr Martin Gellerstedt is an associate professor in Informatics, specialized in statistics, at University West, Sweden. He has been combining teaching, research and consulting for nearly three decades and has published numerous articles in various disciplines. Dr Gellerstedt enjoys applied research which involves informatics and smart use of data. He is head of the SPSS-Academy – a cooperation between the University West and IBM/SPSS offering courses in statistics on campus and online. He is also deeply committed in post-graduate education as chair of the subject committee post graduate education in informatics and work-integrated learning at University West.

Higher education is perhaps facing the most unprecedented challenges ever. Financial turbulence, high unemployment rates, demographical changes, technological development and increased demands for high competence certainly implies the importance of putting cooperation between academia and working life on top of the agenda. 
 
The aim with work integrated learning is to enhance learning and prepare for working life by letting knowledge from research go hand in hand with experience based knowledge. This is often discussed in the view of how working life could cross the border into academia. However, a challenge for higher education is to discuss how to cross the border in the opposite direction. How could academia support learning integrated work? How could we foster a new generation of professionals to become boundary crossers, reflective practitioners and be a part of a continuously improved community of practice?