A day at work can contain so many different meetings and conversations. Yesterday started with our meeting the new head of UUI, Pirkko Tamsen; it was her fourth day at her new job. Welcome – we truly hope you will enjoy working here. Then Eva rushed off to introduce Uppsala University’s Conference on Educational Development. The auditorium was packed, and the conference papers were excellent.
Uppsala University’s Conference on Educational Development
In the afternoon there was a meeting with the Swedish Research Council (VR) in Stockholm. VR has been directed to propose a model for allocating resources to universities and university colleges that comprises peer review of the quality and relevance of research. Eva is a member of the reference group for VR’s assignment. From VR, I (Eva) went on to the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, where there was a meeting of the Governing Board of the Göran Gustafsson Foundation. They support research in SciTech and MedPharm, with prizes for junior researchers. Back to Uppsala towards evening – time for a concluding dinner for the Leaders Programme. It was a pleasure to see everyone who had participated in the programme once again; we all gave a joint lecture in February. There was a great deal of praise for the Leaders Programme, and participants stressed the importance of the network they had acquired.
This morning Eva introduced TeA Day in a packed auditorium at Polacksbacken. The seats had all been spoken for within three hours, which shows the importance and popularity of the meetings of the Network for Technical and Administrative Personnel Uppsala University (TeA).
The Swedish Cancer Society was invited to come to Uppsala University today. Eva and Ann Fust met the group together with Vice-Rector Britt Skogseid during lunch and presented our University. They also expressed our deep gratitude for the support we receive for our cancer research. In the afternoon they will be visiting Rudbeck Laboratory and listening to research presentations.
Presentation for the Swedish Cancer Society
Later in the afternoon Eva will be welcoming participants in the National Quality Coordinator Meeting, who are convening in Uppsala 17-18 October. The focus is often on quality issues, with a polemical article in today’s UNT, for instance.
During the day we have also found time to prepare our domain dialogues for the autumn. The management has dialogues with the respective disciplinary domains to go through long-term strategies and discuss operational development. This autumn’s dialogues will have a special focus on how strategic commitments are to be addressed in 2014, what strategic matters need to be highlighted in the University’s operational plan for 2015, and what should be proposed to the government in coming budget discussions.
Yesterday we received the application figures for 2014. The application pressure is rising – again!
In total, Uppsala University has gone up 39.1% compared with applications to UU for the 2013 spring semester. Just looking at Campus Gotland the number of applicants has doubled compared with the number applying to the former Gotland University College in the spring of 2013. The number of unique applicants for courses at Campus Uppsala is rising by 13.7% compared with the spring semester 2013.
As we said – a day at work can contain many different meetings and conversations of various kinds. And it never gets boring.