(Original Swedish post published 30 September.)
I’m penning these lines in Tartu, where I’ve been a member of the council of the university since the spring, which means being in Estonia a couple of times each semester. Apart from the council meeting, we had a joint meeting with the senate. Under the university’s rules of procedure, the council and senate must have at least one joint meeting per semester. Our own Academic Senate has held the first meeting of its new term of office and selected a new presidium: Charlotte Platzer Björkman, Jenny Eriksson Lundström and Josef Dahlberg. We look forward to many exciting and interesting debates in the Senate in the time ahead.
Charlotte Platzer Björkman, Jenny Eriksson Lundström, Josef Dahlberg
The University of Tartu was the second university in Sweden, as I’m sure you know, and Johan Skytte was its first vice-chancellor. Tomorrow the Johann Skytte Prize will be presented to Professor Amartya Sen. Don’t miss his lecture on “New Dangers for Democracy” at 17:30 on Saturday in the University Main Building.
The big event on Wednesday was the inauguration of Upptech (Uppsala University School of Technology), which has been established by the Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology to raise the visibility, profile and strength of the University’s research and education in technology. World-changing tech takes more than just Tech – a good slogan that emphasises the importance of breadth.
Director Mikael Jonsson
A delegation of around 25 people from China and Kangmei Pharmaceuticals visited the Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy on Thursday to discuss future initiatives. At the same time, the management of Glasgow University was here for a study visit to compare ways of working on various strategic issues. Glasgow was one of the co-founders of the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, so this is an example of how the network draws us closer to other universities in Europe.
We started the week with an enlarged Management Council meeting, at which we carried out the annual university-wide risk analysis. It’s interesting to conduct this analysis together and to draw on everyone’s combined wisdom to try to identify and evaluate risks so that we can achieve the goals we have set ourselves as well as possible. The risk analysis made it clear that infrastructure is an emerging issue. The week ended with the Vice-Chancellor’s Management Council travelling to the UK on Sunday to visit Durham University to discuss strategic partnership and exchange of experience on Monday.
Reception for international researchers at Gustavianum