Author: Vice-Chancellor’s Blog (Page 13 of 24)

(Original Swedish post published 18 May.)

From 14 to 18 May, I had the privilege of participating in South Africa–Sweden University Forum (SASUF)’s first Research & Innovation Week in South Africa. With 1,000 South African and Swedish participants from 30 universities, it can only be described as a success. The main seminar was held in Pretoria, but more than 40 satellite events were held during the week in 12 other cities. For example, I attended a meeting at ABB in Pretoria at which numerous Swedish companies operating in South Africa discussed with the universities the potential for collaboration between business and research.

SASUF is a cooperation project coordinated by Uppsala University and involving 23 South African and 7 Swedish universities. The objectives of SASUF are:

• to strengthen links between South Africa and Sweden in research, education and innovation, with a focus on the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030).
• to connect universities with research funding bodies, industry, ministries and civil society.

The project is funded by the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT), the South African National Research Foundation and the participating universities. After just the first SASUF week, our hopes have been far surpassed. The next SASUF Research & Innovation Week will take place in Stellenbosch in a year’s time, and again there will be satellite meetings in various places in South Africa.

Would you like to find out more about SASUF? You are welcome to contact Gustaf Cars, gustaf.cars@uadm.uu.se, or check out SASUF on Facebook.

Two alumni events were also held during the week, one on Thursday in Pretoria and one on Friday evening in Cape Town. These were organised by SASUF in cooperation with the Swedish Institute. The Swedish Ambassador to South Africa, Cecilia Julin, generously made the Swedish residence available for the opening of the SASUF Week and for an alumni meeting at which the Swedish South Africa Alumni Network was launched. Its chair, Irshaad Wadvalla, is a former exchange student in Uppsala who has now returned to South Africa to work with various projects in sustainable development.

The Vice-Chancellor has appointed six Advisers to the Vice-Chancellor to work with the University Management on a number of university-wide issues. These are Campus Gotland (Olle Jansson), internationalisation (Anders Backlund), equal opportunities (Cecilia Wejryd), research infrastructure (Kristina Edström), sustainability (Anna Rutgersson) and good research practice (Stefan Eriksson).

During the spring, they are appearing as guest bloggers here in the Vice-Chancellor’s Blog to write about developments in the areas for which they are responsible. This week’s guest blogger is Cecilia Wejryd, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Theology and Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor on Equal Opportunities.

 

Equal opportunities for good research and education

Six months have passed since the #MeToo movement began and it has become obvious that much still remains to be done in the area of equal opportunities and freedom from harassment and discrimination, both in society in general and in specific sectors and activities. As a university, we have a particular interest in these issues. Equal opportunities and gender equality not only create a better environment for individuals, they also enhance the quality of research and education. In other words, equal opportunities are a competitive advantage. This emerges clearly from Quality and Renewal 2017 and is apparent in the implementation of Charter & Code.

The Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor on Equal Opportunities is not responsible for taking action on equal opportunities at Uppsala University. This is down to departments and divisions under the leadership of their heads, supported by equal opportunities representatives, committees and groups on these issues. The HR Division and especially its equal opportunities specialists provide expertise, skills-enhancing courses and support in dealing with individual cases. My role as Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor on Equal Opportunities plays out in the midst of all this.

One of the responsibilities of the Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor is to chair the Equal Opportunities Advisory Board, which consists of representatives of the disciplinary domains, the students’ unions, the library, the university administration and the staff organisations. An important task for me is to help find arenas for dialogue, where those of us who play different roles in the equal opportunities area can meet across domain and faculty boundaries to inspire one another and share experiences. One such arena is the consultation group for those who lead the faculties’ equal opportunities bodies.

During the late winter, the Equal Opportunities Advisory Board conducted a follow-up of the Equal Opportunities Programme. The responses show that the programme is perceived to be relevant and necessary, that equal opportunities issues are on the agenda and that the University is well to the fore in many equal opportunities areas. It is also clear that improvements are needed in some areas. There are calls for more support for efforts against harassment and discrimination, and for more stable conditions for equal opportunities representatives.

In mid-March, we celebrated this year’s Equal Opportunities Day and presented the Equal Opportunities Award to Michael Thuné. The theme this year was #MeToo. Katarina Bernt Rasmussen and Anneli Häyrén gave much appreciated talks. The day ended with a thought-provoking panel debate. The event was well attended, but it became clear that there is a need for an English language day in parallel to the Swedish language day.

Many different important actions are under way at different levels in the equal opportunities field. Here I will just mention a few of them.

The Discrimination Act has been amended to tighten up demands for documented and active measures against all seven grounds of discrimination. The HR Division is helping departments and units to adapt their equal opportunities work and, together with other divisions in the administration, is reviewing the need for structural changes in the University’s general information and support relating to equal opportunities. At present, the HR Division and the Legal Affairs Division are jointly reviewing the University’s Guidelines for Dealing with Cases of Harassment.

Gender mainstreaming affects everyone and could certainly receive more attention. Part of what is needed is a deeper awareness of gender and gender equality in all aspects of recruitment and promotion processes. One reasonable objective is that the candidates in all recruitment processes should include both women and men. Another aspect of gender mainstreaming is to restart and further develop the online gender equality indicators tool that has been down during the restructuring of the University’s internal information and management system (GLIS).

The University’s decision to go forward with Charter & Code is fully in line with gender mainstreaming. I see Charter & Code as a multifaceted means of increasingly integrating equal opportunities and gender equality in all activities at the University.

The recently adopted Action Plan for Broader Recruitment is also a significant component of our equal opportunities efforts. The plan sets out new objectives and strategies for our efforts to combat social recruitment imbalances in our educational programmes.

I would also like to mention the initiative of the Buildings Division to make the University accessible regardless of disabilities, and the University’s diversity initiative, which includes placements and training in diversity-aware management and development.

The faculties’ equal opportunities groups and equal opportunities representatives at departments and divisions take numerous interesting initiatives, ranging from literature analyses from an equal opportunities perspective to developing a Code of Conduct for employees. I cannot present all the good projects here but encourage you to get in touch with your local representative for further discussion.

In my work this spring, I have particularly focused on finding tools to increase the proportion of women among professors and heads of department at Uppsala University.

If Uppsala University is to continue to be one of the world’s highly ranked universities, work on equal opportunities is essential. Equal opportunities and gender equality enhance the quality of research and education!

Cecilia Wejryd, Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor

(Original Swedish post published 26 April.)

Once a semester, the University Board meets for an extended overnight conference with study visits and strategic discussions. This time we were on Gotland. After the flight to Visby, the bus ride across Gotland, and a windy and chilly ferry crossing to the island of Fårö, we were met by Kerstin Kalström with coffee and home-baked buns at Hammars, Ingmar Bergman’s home on Fårö. Bergman’s home is now managed by the Bergman Estate on Fårö Foundation, which enables artists, authors and film-makers to spend time there. Since Uppsala University is involved in the Foundation, our researchers also have this opportunity, which many are keen to make use of. We continued with a visit to Bergmancenter, which has exhibitions illustrating Bergman’s role as film-maker, author and Fårö resident.

After lunch we moved on to Campus Gotland, where Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor Olle Jansson and Deputy University Director Therese Iveby Gardell presented the University’s activities on Gotland. They gave us both a historical retrospect on the merger and its rationale, and a future outlook with plans for the next five years. Campus Gotland is five years old in July and is a real success story. Sometimes it’s useful to be reminded about all we have achieved and that it is still a work in progress.

In the evening, County Governor Cecilia Schelin Seidegård hosted us at the Residence. She is a great supporter of Uppsala University and Campus Gotland and has contributed to Campus Gotland’s success and to good cooperation in the region. It was an enjoyable dinner.

On the second day, we had an ordinary University Board meeting. As always, the meeting began with a Vice-Chancellor’s report, which is an update on what is going on at the University and what has happened since the previous meeting.

Many of the speakers at the meeting took part via a link from Uppsala. This was a very hands-on way of showing how we are working on travel-free meetings and communications between Uppsala and Gotland. It all went smoothly.

Much of the morning session was devoted to auditing and our internal audit. Margaretha Edman Bojeus from the Swedish National Audit Office and our own Director of Finance Claes Nilsson went through the National Audit Office’s report. Internal auditing is the University’s tool for ensuring that the University follows rules, guidelines and procedures, and works systematically to achieve its objectives. Internal Auditor Sven Jungerhem participated via a link from Uppsala. Internal Audit has analysed the situation of heads of department and directors. This analysis will serve as useful input in the review of the role of head of department that the Vice-Chancellor has decided to conduct. Internal Audit also told us about an audit of the University’s operational planning. It shows that the process works well on the whole.

Uppsala University’s Mission and Core Values are given specific form and substance in various programmes and action plans. At this meeting, we had a follow-up of the programmes for external collaboration and equal opportunities. The Vice-Chancellor was also instructed by the University Board to revise the Mission and Core Values and see whether it is possible to find a structure in which the various thematic programmes can be integrated. The instructions call for the revised proposal to be ready for adoption in December 2019.

The final point on the agenda was a preparatory discussion and progress report on the operational plan for 2019–2021. The University Board is due to decide on the plan at its meeting in June. Daniel Gillberg introduced a thorough follow-up of education, research and collaboration based on the Mission and Core Values. It ranged from the publication of research findings and changes in the number of fee-paying students to the number of students taking freestanding courses, the number of doctoral students and progress in the initiatives concerning assistant senior lecturers and gender equality. This was followed by a discussion of fundamental factors and key issues in this year’s operational planning process.  By way of conclusion, the University Board also received a short report from the working group on the University’s rules of procedure.

The members of the University Board also constitute the Board of Foundations associated with Uppsala University (SSAUU), under whose supervision Uppsala University Foundations Management of Estates and Funds manages 604 foundations, each with their own statutes and rules. The Managing Director of Uppsala University Foundations Management of Estates and Funds, Kent Berg, reported on developments and results in 2017. Thanks to the foundations, several million kronor can be distributed each year in the form of scholarships for the University’s students, research grants, support for cultural heritage, etc. Uppsala University Foundations Management of Estates and Funds, incidentally, recently acquired the property that houses most of the activities at Campus Gotland. The foundations enable Uppsala University to do many important and good things that would not otherwise be possible.

(Original Swedish post published 24 April.)

The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (writing) is on a flying visit to Japan to attend the opening of the exhibition “The Art of Natural Science in Sweden: Treasures from Uppsala University”. The official opening took place on Monday evening (Japanese time), in the presence of a hundred or so invited guests, but plenty of people were already there in the morning. The King and Queen of Sweden and the Emperor and Empress of Japan were given an advance showing, watched by a huge number of media representatives. This was a special occasion for Uppsala University, as both King Carl Gustaf and Emperor Akihito are honorary fellows of our University.

Uppsala was represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and by Gustavianum: Deputy Director Mikael Ahlund, who has curated the exhibition; Senior Adviser Catharina Lindqvist, the driving force behind the event; and Museum Director Marika Hedin.

The exhibition is about the interplay between art and science in the 17th and 18th centuries. The focus is on four well-known Uppsala figures – Olof Rudbeck the Elder, Olof Rudbeck the Younger, Carl Linnaeus and Carl Peter Thunberg. It has been put together in cooperation between the university museums in Uppsala and Tokyo and is on display at the Intermediatheque museum facility, located in the former Tokyo Central Post Office, until 26 August 2018. Anyone heading that way is warmly recommended to visit it.

The exhibition is part of the celebration this year of 150 years of diplomatic relations between Sweden and Japan, which were established in 1868. The exhibition itself is also a reminder that scientific contacts between Japan and Sweden go almost a century further back than that. Linnaeus disciple Carl Peter Thunberg made his famous and important research visit to Japan as early as the mid-1770s.

The opening of the exhibition also provided an opportunity to draw attention to current efforts to strengthen research contacts between Japan and Sweden. The MIRAI project involves seven Swedish and eight Japanese universities – including Uppsala and Tokyo – that are seeking to develop cooperation in fields such as ageing, materials science and sustainability.

Many thanks to the sponsors and to those at Gustavianum and the University Library whose hard work and professionalism have made this event possible!

(Original Swedish post published 22 April.)

Whether or not it was a perfect overnight conference is a question for the heads of department to answer, not us, but the sign that greeted us on our arrival certainly raised our expectations. It read ‘Perfekt internat’. (As you may know, the Swedish word for ‘head of department’ is ‘prefekt’.) We have annual overnight conferences with our heads of department – it’s important and rewarding to meet across department, faculty and disciplinary domain lines to discuss shared challenges and to get to understand one another better. This semester’s overnight conference focused specifically on the role of head of department. We are conducting a pilot study to analyse the issue and Oskar Pettersson described how far that study has come. Three heads of department gave their views and reflections on the project. On the second day, we turned our attention to career support. Three heads of department gave us examples of the career support provided at their departments. This exchange of experience was widely appreciated. Uppsala University’s new model for career support was presented by Åsa Kettis and we then divided into groups to discuss what is needed in future and how we can best prepare teachers/researchers to be the academic leaders of tomorrow.

Back in Uppsala we met Uppsala University Postdoc Association. UUPA is a newly founded association for postdocs, an important group that is sometimes a little neglected. A good initiative!

Anders has left for Japan where he will take part in the opening in the presence of the King and Queen of Sweden and the Emperor and Empress of Japan of an exhibition of treasures from the University’s collections in Museum Gustavianum, which will be on show in Tokyo during the spring and summer. The exhibition is about the interplay between art and science in the 17th and 18th centuries. The focus is on three well-known Uppsala figures – Olof Rudbeck, Carl Linnaeus and Carl Peter Thunberg.

I (Eva) am sitting at Copenhagen Airport right now hoping to be in time for the Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture at Uppsala Castle later today. The speaker is UN Secretary-General H.E. António Guterres. The lecture begins at 17:00 and will be streamed live online (so if I’m not in time I can always watch it online).

(Original Swedish post published 13 April.)

The Vice-Chancellor has appointed six Advisers to the Vice-Chancellor to work with the University management on a number of University-wide issues. These are Campus Gotland (Olle Jansson), internationalisation (Anders Backlund), equal opportunities (Cecilia Wejryd), research infrastructure (Kristina Edström), sustainability (Anna Rutgersson) and good research practice (Stefan Eriksson).

During the spring, the Advisers will appear as guest bloggers here in the Vice-Chancellor’s Blog to write about developments in the areas for which they are responsible. The first guest is Anna Rutgersson, Professor of Meteorology and Section Dean for Earth Sciences, and on top of that, as stated, Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor on Sustainability Issues. Uppsala University’s overall objective is to “gain and disseminate knowledge for the benefit of humankind and for a better world”, through education, research and collaboration. It is difficult to imagine a more relevant area for achieving this objective than sustainable development, in a broad sense of the term.

University for sustainability

April – now light and spring are with us again after months of cold and darkness. It is easy to feel motivated to work for a sustainable future for our world, and for our University. As Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor on Sustainability Issues, it is my privilege to work on University-wide issues of relevance to sustainable development and to promote joint efforts to use our University’s fantastic resources to achieve more in this area.

The Global Goals for Sustainable Development set out in Agenda 2030 are shared objectives that we can use as a starting point for creating a better world for all. The university and higher education sector can potentially do much to address these goals. Naturally, one thing we can do is to limit the direct burden on the climate and environment caused by our own activities and staff. Still more important, however, is our ability to work towards the common goals through the education we give our students and through our research. It is these activities that enable us to achieve a greater impact and wider influence. We must remember in this context that the Global Goals focus not just on ecological but also on social and economic sustainability.

Uppsala University conducts top-quality research in many fields. We could use this research even better to achieve the goal of contributing to a better world. I am convinced that the way forward is to increase opportunities and motivation for research cooperation between disciplinary domains and fields. It is in these border areas that we can find new solutions and research that breaks new scientific ground.

Last December, the Vice-Chancellor approved funding to coordinate a number of research initiatives crossing subject and domain boundaries, under the name of Uppsala University Sustainability Initiatives (UUSI). We have now started the process of defining these initiatives. On 22 May, 13:00–16:00, we are organising a workshop to discuss possible initiatives, and I hope for many creative ideas and enthusiastic participants. Anyone interested can register here (form in Swedish).

Turning to the direct impact on the environment and climate for which the University and its staff are responsible, there are several interesting and difficult questions to work with, and considerable interest among staff and students. One recurrent issue that we are working on concerns staff travel, another is how Uppsala University Foundations Management of Estates and Funds invests the University’s funds and what ethical and other considerations should be taken into account in making these decisions. No investments are now made in companies in the oil industry or the arms industry, for example. Is using investments as a tool the right way for various types of organisations to influence the development towards sustainability? We will discuss this and other questions at a panel debate on sustainable investments on 19 April, together with researchers and representatives from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra) and the Council on Ethics of the Swedish National Pension Funds. We would also like to draw attention to Earth Day, which takes place on the following Sunday, 22 April. Everyone is very welcome to participate.

(Original Swedish post published 27 March.)

On 4 January 2018, the government inquiry on governance and resources (STRUT) presented a proposed general model. The proposal is intended to serve as a basis for continued dialogue and is described in the report as an outline designed to encourage different stakeholders to present comments that will help to move the work of the inquiry forward. The issues that the inquiry is dealing with are important and in this response, Uppsala University would like to offer some comments on the proposed model.

On one level, it is easy to sympathise with the starting points and assumptions formulated for the general model. Core academic values, closer links between education and research, the emphasis on a long-term perspective, trust and agreements – these factors are rightly emphasised as fundamental principles for a governance and resources system for the higher education sector.

Despite this, our position on the proposed model is fundamentally critical, for two main reasons: first, in our view, the inquiry has so far failed to address certain quite essential issues; and second, in practice the proposal opens the way for increased micro-management and increased monitoring of the activities of higher education institutions.

Although some of the problems described are very recognisable, the level of precision and analysis is inadequate to justify the sweeping changes that the inquiry proposes. Uppsala University does not find that the inquiry has managed to build a convincing case for the need for a completely new model of governance.

Several essential points need to be resolved – if not in detail, at least in principle – before a general governance model can be set out. In this respect, the inquiry has put the cart before the horse.

These essential points include the following:

• Are concepts such as ‘agreement’ – and ‘trust’ – at all meaningful in a context where higher education institutions are not independent legal entities and where the government appoints both the majority in the board and the head of the institution?
• To work in the long term, the agreements would need to replace the current annual appropriation directions, which in turn would presuppose that Swedish higher education institutions had greater institutional autonomy than is now the case.
• It could also be asserted that agreements of the kind described would shift the strategic initiative from the board to the government. Is that desirable?
• Further, it is not apparent how government bills, institutional strategies, agreements, appropriation directions and follow-ups would be synchronised and coordinated in the governance system. There is an obvious risk that one would be added on top of the other.
• If educational capacity and funding are not to be regulated by a settlement system as at present, what principle will the alternative be based on? At present, the government can influence educational quality by the level of price tags and quantity by the funding cap. For specific areas, the government can also give targeted instructions to increase capacity, exercising either hard or soft governance. What are the equivalent governance mechanisms in the proposed model? And how will the flexibility that the design of the funding cap model de facto offers be guaranteed in an alternative system? On our assessment, the inquiry underestimates the flexibility and decision-making freedom that the current model offers on the education side.

Even if it is difficult to take a position on every aspect of the general model, we therefore consider there is a considerable risk that it will open the way for increased micro-management and increased monitoring and control on the part of the government, which would result in poorer conditions for top quality education and research.

We therefore propose that the inquiry also look at other alternatives, in the first place, adjustments to the current governance model. In practice, this model gives higher education institutions considerable freedom of action, even if it needs adjusting in certain respects.

The inquiry should also more clearly include the issue of autonomy in the discussion. Increased autonomy (at a minimum, giving Swedish higher education institutions special powers to enable them to act as independent legal entities) is essential if a model involving agreements is to be at all meaningful. Another question concerns legislation to establish not only the freedom of research but also the freedom of education, as a starting point for discussions on the governance of higher education institutions based on political objectives.

The regulation in Sweden of qualification descriptors and qualitative targets in the Higher Education Ordinance is almost unique in an international perspective, and far from satisfactory.

The following sections elaborate the thinking behind our comments.

Governance model: increased autonomy promotes quality

Increased autonomy promotes quality in education and research. It is good that the inquiry raises core academic values as a fundamental pillar and sheds light on the need to remove obstacles to increased freedom of action and better collaboration. It is also a good philosophy to base the governance model on trust. However, the inquiry’s proposals risk leading instead to increased external governance and reduced autonomy. The level of institutional autonomy in Sweden today is uniquely low by international standards, and consequently greater freedom of action and increased control over their own affairs are perhaps the most important prerequisites for enhancing the ability of Swedish higher education institutions to develop.

In the best of worlds, the four-year agreements could lead to an increased emphasis on long-term perspectives and reduced political micro-management. However, there is an obvious risk that the opposite will be the case. Current international experiences, e.g. from Norway, show that the introduction of similar agreements if anything resulted in increased micro-management.

Since it is reasonable to assume the annual appropriation directions will continue to exist, in practice the four-year agreements would simply add another layer of governance. An increased emphasis on long-term perspectives and improved dialogue can also be achieved using existing instruments.

The procedures for higher education bills and four-year agreements raise a number of questions. In what order will the documents be prepared, and when? Is it realistic, for example, to believe that a government in office will be satisfied to exercise governance over higher education institutions on a single occasion, presumably at least three years into its term of office? We believe there is a considerable risk that the agreements would be supplemented by other, more ongoing governance.

We do not see the need for an intermediary function. We understand that the Ministry of Education and Research may need to reinforce the analysis function, but establishing an intermediary follow-up function risks undermining the dialogue between the higher education institutions and the Ministry, resulting in a weaker Government Offices.

Funding of education and capacity planning

The most serious danger we see concerns the proposals on the funding of education and capacity planning. The framework proposal means eliminating the current model of settlement involving a funding cap and price tags linked to the number of enrolled students and their performance. It is remarkable that this is done without offering the least hint of any alternative.

Fundamentally, the current model allows considerable freedom and flexibility in terms of educational capacity planning in general (allowing both government funding and student performance to be saved). At the same time, in principle the higher education institutions own the question of the educational mix and the balance sought between full-time equivalent students and annual performance equivalents.

The main problem in the current model concerns the price tags, which are probably too numerous and possibly poorly designed, but above all suffer from erosion. It is not clear how the new model will solve the structural underfunding of education. The risk is surely rather that the integrated funding that is proposed will make it even more difficult to argue for quality enhancement (read: more resources per student) than the current model, in which the real value (read: erosion) of the price tags can at least be followed over time.

Making the education component of funding in a new model part fixed and part variable is likely to have a marginal effect, unless the fixed part is completely dominant (90% or more) and the variable part only plays a marginal role. But the system will still presuppose some mechanism that governs both capacity planning and quality (= resource input per student) and until such a mechanism is described, it is impossible to take a position on the model.

One of the conclusions of the inquiry Högre utbildning under tjugo år (‘Higher education over twenty years’; Swedish Government Official Reports 2015:70) is that the educational supply in general is well balanced and that the capacity planning system is basically effective. The inquiry also finds that the educational supply meets the needs of the employment market, with the exception of some important but clearly defined shortage occupations in the school system and health and social care. Firmer governance would risk cramping the initiative of higher education institutions.

The issue of the skills supply in the school system and health and social care calls for a concerted national effort. There are many reasons why the need for labour is not met in these areas, some of which are beyond the control of higher education institutions (shortage of practice placement opportunities, lack of student interest). The work of higher education institutions on capacity planning must not be condemned wholesale because of a few significant problem areas. These specific problems must not be allowed to shape the entire governance model; a special solution is needed for them, but let the responsibility for capacity planning otherwise rest clearly with the individual institution. There is nothing to suggest that central government would be better at planning the capacity of educational programmes than the universities, together with students and in dialogue with society at large.

We also question the inquiry’s conclusion that the current governance model is to the disadvantage of lifelong learning. Education in Sweden is organised into courses that are well integrated with one another. All higher education institutions offer freestanding courses and tuition-free education makes these courses accessible to all. Instead, a crucial question is who is to finance lifelong learning. It cannot be the responsibility of the higher education institutions to offer tuition-free continuing professional development to broad sectors of society. Such courses should largely be regarded as contract education.

Give higher education institutions flexibility in their use of resources

Uppsala University sees the need for and advocates a freer use of funding for education and research, but the inquiry’s proposal makes the price of integrated funding too high. The inquiry believes that increased governance imposing new tasks would be necessary to gain approval for the proposal. We consider that it should be possible instead to create increased flexibility within the framework of the current governance model without imposing new tasks on higher education institutions. One method would be to allow higher education institutions to make some redistributions between education and research, say 10 per cent of their funding. Another way to create flexibility would be to allow higher education institutions to use their agency capital (saved funding) freely, regardless of which branch of activity it derives from.

Another key issue that is barely touched upon is whether reporting should continue to be divided up between education and research. Funding and reporting should go hand in hand, and the proposal in the outline model would therefore presuppose adaptation of the Association of Swedish Higher Education model to yield the intended effect. At the same time, it is well known that external research funding bodies demand separate reporting of research overheads.

Another underdeveloped part of the proposal concerns how to calculate the funding. The inquiry proposes new principles for calculating the funding but it is unclear how these are intended to work. Uppsala University finds it remarkable that the inquiry wants to dismantle the quality-based redistribution of basic funding and replace it with principles that appear to be largely political rather than quality-enhancing.

 

Eva Åkesson, Vice-Chancellor

Anders Malmberg, Deputy Vice-Chancellor

(Original Swedish post)

A university like ours buzzes with activity nearly every day of the year. It can be fun to have a look at our events page now and then to see everything that’s going on – see http:// www.kalendarium.uu.se

On Thursday the University held its annual Open Day – an event designed to inspire upper secondary school pupils and others who are curious about our educational programmes. In the morning, the nearly 950 visitors had a chance to meet researchers, study advisers and students from various degree programmes in the University Main Building. The afternoon continued with visits to departments and student associations. I hope I will be able to welcome some of them to Uppsala University as new students this autumn.

Uppsala University teaches more than 55 language subjects. Language studies also mean students learn about literature, history, society and culture. On Friday we had a visit from the Irish Minister for Culture and the Ambassador of Ireland to Sweden. Every year they present scholarships to students studying Celtic languages at Uppsala University. After the scholarship award ceremony, the meeting continued and included discussions of Ireland’s role after Brexit.

On Saturday the sun shone from a blue sky. The University and the city together welcomed the Swedish bandy finals back to Uppsala. With temperatures a degree or two below zero, the conditions for a bandy festival were perfect. For the second year in a row, Uppsala University had the privilege of working with Mattias ‘Bissen’ Larsson to arrange a Bissen Brainwalk for the benefit of brain research. ‘Bissen’ suffered a stroke in mid-life and received treatment and help at Uppsala University Hospital. As part of his rehabilitation, he started the ‘Bissen Brainwalk’. He has raised more than SEK 5 million through this charitable event. Before we set off on the walk, participants had a chance to put questions to brain researchers from the Department of Neuroscience. There was a great deal of interest. More than 600 people then walked to Studenternas arena, led by Kruthornen student orchestra, to watch the women’s final between Skutskär and AIK. I also watched the men’s final a little later.

This week started with a meeting of the Council of the University of Tartu. Uppsala University and the University of Tartu share a long history together and it feels pleasing to continue this tradition. The Deputy Vice-Chancellor took care of the Management Council meeting back in Uppsala.

Now I look forward to another week full of inspiring meetings. On Wednesday we will meet the Friends of Uppsala University. Together with our researchers we will talk about what’s going on at the University, and then we will give the Friends a guided tour of the Segerstedt Building. On Thursday I have a meeting with the Göran Gustavsson Foundation. They contribute in many ways to the University’s development and I am very pleased that they are coming to visit.

(Original Swedish post)

At least once a year, the Management Council meets on Gotland. Last Monday, it was time again. We left Uppsala early in the morning and arrived in a beautiful, snowy Visby in time for mid-morning coffee.

Before lunch, the Management Council held its ordinary meeting. The main question on the agenda was how to create scope for renewal in education and research. At the moment we have some scope for expansion and want to use it to launch new initiatives. The disciplinary domains have identified desirable new initiatives, which we discussed together with a view to arriving at University-wide priorities. All the disciplinary domains have good proposals and ambitious aims. One question that came up in particular is how to facilitate boundary-crossing courses drawing on the entire breadth of the University. Discussions will continue.

When we are on Gotland, we take the opportunity to meet as many people as possible, to listen and to see as much of the University’s activities as we can. At the same time, it gives us a chance to talk about what’s going on in Uppsala. During lunch, we visited Campus Gotland’s students’ union Rindi (which means ‘ivy’ in the local dialect Gutnish). Rindi has its premises in the old Jugendstil bathhouse right next to Almedalen. The most urgent issue for students at the moment is the availability of student housing year round in Visby. In the summer, Visby’s population expands by more than 300,000, so the pressure on accommodation varies substantially in the course of the year. Another priority issue is how to integrate the increasing numbers of international students coming to Gotland.

The afternoon continued with a strategic discussion on the development of Campus Gotland. This year it is five years since Uppsala University and Gotland University College merged and Campus Gotland was established, so it is natural to look both backwards and forwards. So far it has been a success story. We have accomplished a lot but we want to do more. In December, the University Board adopted a new programme for Campus Gotland. Now we are working on making the visions a reality – more students on campus, increased internationalisation, stronger research environments, more multi- and interdisciplinarity, regional collaboration.

In the longer term, a fifth of the students on Gotland will be international students. The University has two Bachelor’s programmes in English, which are given in Visby, and more will start in the autumn. What sort of demands does this make on teaching, support and service? We also want the number of doctoral students on Campus Gotland to increase. What are the challenges? Gotland is a suitable campus for boundary-crossing cooperation between departments – why is it so difficult to achieve this? Many of the challenges are the same throughout the University. The discussion made it clear that Campus Gotland can help develop solutions that will benefit the entire University.

In the afternoon we also had time for a well-attended staff meeting. The Vice-Chancellor, vice-rectors and University Director had a chance to talk about current issues in their area and to focus in particular on all that is going on at Campus Gotland.

We concluded the day by meeting politicians and officials from the local authority Region Gotland. It was pleasing to be able to show them figures illustrating the positive developments at Campus Gotland – all the trends really do point in the right direction. We have doubled our direct government funding for research, student numbers are up, more degree programmes are offered, more teachers are in place. Visby is now a real university town, and feels it. The presence of more students makes a difference to Visby in many ways, all year round. We had a chance to take up the need for housing, as well as the question of ways to support accompanying family members when recruiting more teachers, researchers and doctoral students. There is a lot of willingness from all actors on Gotland and the climate of cooperation is good. It was also fascinating to hear about developments on Gotland, low unemployment, high business start-up rates, the strategic position with a growing military presence, the growth of tourism and hospitality, etc. The challenges include skills shortages and the demographic trend. There is a great potential for cooperation and our partnership agreement provides a solid basis for collaboration.

After a really good day, we headed back to Uppsala. Campus Gotland is a meeting place for knowledge, culture and critical dialogue, just like Uppsala University as a whole, but in its own special way. It is a unique place, and an academic environment that provides unique opportunities for Gotland, and for all of Uppsala University.

(Original Swedish post)

The Humanities Theatre is one of the University’s new meeting places for boundary-crossing dialogue and discussion. It was also the venue for the spring semester’s deans meeting. This is an occasion that brings together the University management, all the deans, vice-deans, student representatives and senior officers for mutual exchange of information and strategic discussions about the future. We – the Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor – started proceedings by presenting results for 2017 from the annual report and the budget documentation for 2019–2021, as well as current national inquiries on higher education. We also reminded those present of our general strategic priorities: quality, career and professional development, internationalisation and infrastructure.

The morning’s programme continued with Eva Tiensuu Jansson, who talked about EIT Health. This is a major European collaboration project ranging from education and training to collaboration and innovation, linked to the societal challenge of health for an ageing population. The activities so far are impressive. We saw film clips from the student EIT Health projects Innovation Day and Innovation Game on Gotland. We’re sure this opened the eyes of many in the auditorium to new possibilities for cooperation.

One of the most urgent issues facing all universities globally is confidence in research and how to tackle and prevent research misconduct. The chair of our own Board for Investigation of Misconduct in Research, Erik Lempert, described how we currently deal with alleged misconduct at the University. Our new Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor on Good Research Practice, Stefan Eriksson, presented current research in the area. These days it is possible to buy co-authorship and citations – an alarming development. The academic environment can be both competitive and stressful, which can lead to a temptation to take shortcuts. How can we prevent this? Many questions came up and the discussion will continue in various ways, among the deans and at departments, as well as in the seminar series on this topic that will start in the autumn.

Our three vice-rectors told us what’s in the pipeline in their disciplinary domains. It’s pleasing to see how everyone is processing the results from Q&R17 and hear about exciting development projects and new ventures in education, collaboration and innovation. It’s good for everyone to know what’s going on, even in areas other than their own. After that it was the students’ turn to raise their focus issues for this semester. Some of the important issues for our students’ unions are housing dialogues with the municipality, an analysis of how course reports are used, and preparations for student participation in upcoming educational evaluations.

After lunch, we heard about the work on Development Plan 2050, which is being led by Vice-Rector Johan Tysk, assisted by Annika Sundås-Larsson from the Buildings Division. They were accompanied by representatives from Uppsala Municipality and Akademiska Hus. We divided into groups to discuss student housing, safety and security, the physical environment, artificial intelligence, regional collaboration and much more besides.

It is almost five years since Campus Gotland was established through the merger with Gotland University College. Therese Iverby Gardell and Olle Jansson summed up what has happened and took the opportunity to dismiss a few myths. They looked both backwards and forwards. We have achieved a great deal, we have more students, stability in terms of resources and quality assurance, and there’s a feeling of confidence. Much remains to be done, however, and the full potential has not yet been realised. Just as the Q&R panel observed, the point of Campus Gotland is not to be a miniature version of Uppsala University, but to be a place for renewal, multi- and interdisciplinarity, internationalisation and regional collaboration.

Some of the new research initiatives at Campus Gotland concern the changeover to new energy sources, cultural heritage, sustainable marine development and water supplies, children’s health, digitalisation, and tourism and hospitality. Many of these involve collaboration with the region.

The programme for the day concluded with a presentation by Mats Larhed on the University’s work on Charter & Code. This is important to ensure that Uppsala University continues to be an attractive work environment and to facilitate international recruitment. In the future, it could become a requirement for EU funding. Eighteen of nineteen universities in The Guild are certified – all except Uppsala University. Certification leads to the ‘HR Excellence in Research’ award, and to achieve this we have to comply with 40 principles. We already comply with many of them, but some work remains to be done.

As the day came to a close, we agreed we had had a really good day. A packed programme with good discussions and dialogue, on matters that are important in the immediate future as well as in the really long term. We have a fantastic university full of people with constructive ideas who are eager to participate in discussions on the future of our university both in Uppsala and on Gotland.