Certain common elements can be identified regarding teacher education programmes and their development in advanced knowledge-based economies, by which we mean nation states that are thoroughly reliant on knowledge production and communication for economic stability and growth and the smooth running of their institutions. They have their basis in three strongly expressed policy ideas. The first is the recognition that scientific knowledge (i.e. facts and principles that are acquired through the long process of systematic theoretical and empirical inquiry and stringent disciplinary investigation and analysis) is increasingly essential for economic growth and social, technological and cultural development (e.g. SOU 2008:105). The second is a recognition of the relationship between formal education (schooling) and economic production and the third is a recognition of the role of teacher education in respect to this relationship and the value of placing this education inside the modern university.