Graduate and postgraduate  Work and Organizational Psychology courses started in 1976 at Umeå University. Work and Organizational Psychology students were some initiators and key participants in the early and coming OD projects. Other participants later enrolled because they expected those courses to be practically helpful. Many contacts with students in qualified professional positions evolved into fruitful project collaboration but also gave us ideas about creating new effective forms of education and training for individual practitioners through an action-oriented teaching approach to R&D about psychological, social, and organizational challenges at work.

Nevertheless, we were well aware of the difficulties for most professional students to conduct significant studies or changes at their workplaces. Accordingly, we aimed to prepare them for development work to facilitate their participation in ongoing projects. Our solution to such challenges was to train the students to apply general scientific methodological principles to handle common but complex problems in their working life. Planning outcome became three prevalent, demanding distance courses 1994-2005/06.

Another challenging category of nonprofessional students studied' Personnel science' aimed at human resource management. A sample of those students chose our course alternative, Work and Organizational Psychology. However, a lack of relevant work experience is a significant handicap in this connection. We tried to compensate for a strong emphasis on scientific methodology as a model for practical problem-solving and participation in supervised fieldwork.

Our philosophy behind the renewal of education and training in Work and Organizational Psychology originated from fieldwork. Many calls for scientific support from society and working life about solving psychological and social problems were frequent but often influenced by postmodernistic views or naivety regarding potent actions. According to our practitioner view, traditional theory and methods seemed too general and not sensitive enough to the diversity of people and contexts. We saw instead a need for training in case modeling and action research rather than conventional education about general content principles of the subject based on quantitative and statistical methods. That judgment inspired the planning and implementation of courses.

This view was later reinforced in connection with commissions from companies and civil and military authorities to conduct training in planning, developing, and evaluating activities according to action research methods. Some of these campaigns appear under the themes 'Training of Development Officers' and 'On Civil

Project Planning' [ 'Research Methodology and Application'
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