Author: Vice-Chancellor’s Blog (Page 21 of 24)

Today we welcomed our new students to Uppsala University with a traditional reception in the university hall. For me as the Vice-Chancellor this is one of the highlights of the semester. I still remember the feeling when I was a new student at the university, the excitement mixed with some uncertainty about how it would be. You have a great time ahead of you!

Hosting today’s reception was meteorologist and climate lecturer Pär Holmgren, a former student and now honorary doctor at Uppsala University. In addition to musical entertainment, the president of Uppsala Student Union, Fredrik Pettersson, and Curator curatorum, Kristina Melin, among others, also welcomed our new students.

The reception was broadcast online, and is available here.

As 2013 winds down, we summarise the year that was and look ahead to 2014.

When we look back, certain events stand out, such as the inauguration of Campus Gotland during Almedal Week. The autonomy discussion prompted by the government’s proposal regarding higher-education foundations being circulated for comment is also one of the year’s key events. We have had many interesting debates; one might say that we freely discussed what is right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rewarding recurrent events include the welcoming of new students at the start of each semester and our issuing of mild warnings ahead of the Frosh Banquet, as well as congratulating those being awarded their doctorates, new professors, and prize-winners at conferment ceremonies and installation festivities. Nor will Walpurgis Eve, with the Running of the Rapids, soon be forgotten!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We can also observe that there is always something to celebrate at our University. The choir Allmänna sången is marking a jubilee, the inspectorate and the Department of Riding are commemorating 350 years, and medical training 400 years. During the year we have also thanked the retiring chair of the University Board, Hans Dalborg, and welcomed Carola Lemne as his successor.

Many prominent guests have visited Uppsala University, which is always stimulating and rewarding. We especially recall the start of the autumn semester with Kofi Annan and Jan Eliasson. The following week our students had the opportunity to hear Margot Wallström deliver the Dag Hammarsköld Lecture. And the visit from the Nobel laureates always brightens up December. It is gratifying to be able to offer activities like these, both to our students and to the general public.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our daily work here at home often consists of meetings, seminars, and conferences with participants from all over the world, but we have also been abroad and gleaned impressions from other seats of learning and corners of the world. During the year the Vice-Chancellor’s Management Council has visited universities in the UK (Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge) and Finland (University of Helsinki and Aalto University) – trips that were both educational and inspiring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An important portion of the University’s activities are carried out at our museums and in the Botanical Garden, which are often venues for meetings and seminars, but also for concerts and spectacular sports events. Uppsala University is an open institution that is pleased to share its operations and its cultural milieus with others. Much of this is made possible by donations that are managed by Uppsala Akademiförvaltning (Academy Management) for the benefit of future generations. In this context the foundation Friends of Uppsala University also plays a key role. The purpose of the foundation is to actively work to ensure that urgent University projects can be realized.

Other forms of donations that make a difference are for instance the Oncolytic Virus Fund. During the year small donations from thousands of individuals, albeit in combination with one major donation, have enabled Professor Magnus Essand and his research team to begin work with the world’s first clinical studies of a virus treatment that specifically targets neuroendocrine tumours.

We have also continued our work with the four strategic focus areas for excellence in teaching and research: quality, infrastructure, internationalisation, and competence and career.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our quality work is constantly moving forward. This autumn’s retreat with the deans took up quality control and quality development. SUHF (the Association of Swedish Higher Education) has proposed a future model in which higher-education institutions themselves could take the responsibility for creating their own quality systems for external assessment, which, following approval by the Swedish Higher Education Authority, could replace the current national system. On the research side we have thus far arranged our own major evaluation projects (Q&R07 and Q&R11). Now the Swedish Research Council is investigating the establishment of a national peer-review-based system. The Meeting of the Deans in November, just like the University Board when the issue was discussed there in December, asserted that Uppsala University must take a major responsibility for our own quality matters.

Concerning infrastructure, during the year Joseph Nordgren has been tasked with taking inventory of our needs, an assignment that is expected to be completed in February.

In the focus area of internationalisation, Leif Kirsebom began work as adviser to the Vice-Chancellor for internationalisation last spring. A pan-University group has also been created to address these issues. Internationalisation is an area where we can make further improvements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being an attractive employer is critical to our success, and our work in the area of competence and career continues unabated. For example, we have initiated work to map our limited-term appointments, and we have welcomed hundreds of new co-workers during the year.

To back up strategic work and to provide efficient operational support, University Director Ann Fust initiated quality work within the administration during the autumn. The project aims to facilitate research, education, and collaboration, enhancing quality, reducing costs, and freeing up researches to increase our freedom to act.  The work is being pursued in project form and is starting with human resources, finance, and administration of studies. The first focus is on salary administration, where a decision will soon be made to move in the direction of central salary administration. The work mode is to be characterised by broad participation in the organisation. The main reason for working with workflows is the University’s own driving force to work efficiently and with quality in mind. There is also external pressure following the creation of the State Service Centre, as ratios are now available for comparison regarding certain services in the areas of finance and human resources.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the end of the year approaching, it is time to look forward. We will continue to grow in research – but the way today’s policy looks we will probably be shrinking when it comes to education. Though this will be a challenge for us, it is above all a problem for the young and highly motivated students who will not have the opportunity to create their own future by getting a university education.

One way of looking ahead is to review our Goals and Strategies, a task being led by Göran Magnusson and Coco Norén. Following a period of broad consultations, this work is now entering the drafting phase. The proposal will be circulated for comment in the spring.

The autonomy process is thought to be continuing into 2014. It is important for us to continue the discussion and achieve a broad consensus on what we want our future to look like, in terms of both the University’s relation to the state and our internal modes of operation and governance.

The development of Uppsala University is driven by committed and dedicated associates and students. We want to thank you all for the year gone by and for your fine contributions.

We wish you a truly enjoyable Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

Today, the Nobel laureates in medicine and chemistry visited Uppsala University. The medicine laureates, Thomas Sudhof, Randy Schekman and James Rothman, held well-attended lectures at the Biomedical Centre (BMC), while two of the chemistry laureates, Arieh Warshel and Michael Levitt, lectured in the university auditorium, dressed in red university ties which they received during their previous visit (see picture below). Lars Peter Hansen, one of the receivers of the prize in economic science, was sadly forced to cancel due to illness.

The laureates met Eva before the lectures, and they also had time for a lunch at Uppsala Castle before it was time to go back to Stockholm for the rest of the Nobel programme.

This year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, the organization OPCW, was represented by Attila Zimonyi, head of strategy at the OPCW. He is on a visit to Uppsala due to the Conference Henri Lafontaine, a conference which is organized by Uppsala University and Wallonia Brussels International.
There is a long-standing tradition of inviting Nobel laureates to Uppsala in connection with the Nobel festivities in Stockholm, and it is gratifying that they are able to come here and both meet and inspire our students and researchers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watch the Nobel Lectures on UU Play.

 

 

Today we had the last meeting with the university board. This time the agenda was not full of decisions to make, but we were able to discuss in depth both the work on the revision of goals and strategies and the university’s quality management. We had good discussions on the topics that we previously have discussed internally in the management council, the senate and the dean meeting – quality, autonomy and responsibility. The board underlined the importance for us as a university to take our quality management for the development of world-leading research and first-class education seriously.

An important decision was taken, however, and it was about giving the student union of engineering and science a position as a student union from the 1^st of January. We would like to give credit to the students who through a mutual agreement have solved this issue. It gives us a good climate of cooperation between the various unions and thus a strong student influence, which is so important at our university.

After the meeting the board took a guided tour of the Ångstrom laboratory. It is important that they meet students and researchers in the living environment on campus and get to know the operations that are affected by the decisions. They were impressed by the research and the facilities at Ångstrom and those of us in the management group were obviously proud. The theme this week is excellent research with Science and SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists on Monday, the Nobel festivities in Stockholm yesterday and Nobel lectures here in Uppsala on Friday.

 

Yesterday I (Eva) met the winner and finalists of the international competition Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists. They visited Uppsala and the Rudbeck Laboratory during the day and took part in a scientific programme of lectures before they went on to the awards ceremony at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is SciLifeLab which together with the scientific journal Science for the first time is organizing the competition, which aims to reach young researchers worldwide who are at the beginning of their career. The winner receives 25,000 USD and a publication in Science.

This year’s winner, Daniel G. Streicker from the U.S., receives the award for his research on viral infections in bats that show how infectious diseases can jump between different species.

Runners up in 2013 is Gabriel Victora, USA, Weizhe Hong, China, and Dominic Schmidt, Germany.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is important that we highlight young successful scientists and their work in order to inspire and encourage researchers worldwide to further results.

SANORD – Southern African – Nordic Centre, is a university network founded in 2007. The members include universities in Scandinavia and South Africa. Uppsala University was one of the eight universities that formed the network, and now the number of member universities has risen to slightly above 40, indicating the attractiveness and viability of the network. The goal of the network is to promote cooperation between universities in the Nordic region and Southern Africa, and assist member universities to address global and local needs. SANORD has a joint meeting (Council) once a year, which alternates between meeting locations in the north and in the south every other year. During the meeting, a conference or a symposium takes place, and I (Eva) have since last year a place on the board of SANORD. This year the conference was hosted by the University of Malawi, and the theme of the conference was: “Contributions of universities towards attaining the millennium development goals”. I was invited to give a keynote during the first day titled: “Strategic Management and Higher Education Financing”.

The second day, Maria Teresa Bejarano , Peter Sundin and Sten Hagberg gave presentations on the topic “Does Uppsala University make the world a better place?”. After their brilliant presentations – “Antibiotic Resistance – React”, “International science program” and “Forum for Africa studies” the unanimous answer was: Yes!

When we are travelling, we try to use the time as well as possible by discussing agreements, cooperation and other issues. We often arrange some type of alumni event. Here in Malawi we organized a popular reception for our African partners on Monday evening together with Lund University. Thanks to Ulrica Ouline and Erika Dabhilkar from our International Office who arranged and coordinated the event for Uppsala University.

SANORD gives us opportunities for new partnerships and strengthens existing ones with universities in Southern Africa. The next SANORD meeting will be in June next year, and the place is a little closer to home – in Karlstad. The theme of the symposium will be “The impact of globalization on the Southern Africa region and the Nordic region in a period of 10 years from now”.

In 2015 the meeting will be held in Namibia, and in 2016 we have the pleasure of welcoming our SANORD friends to Uppsala University.

I’m now on my way home from Malawi, full of impressions and strengthened in my conviction that our international cooperation helps us contribute to a better world.

Peter Sundin, Stefan Swartling Peterson and Ulrika Ouline from Uppsala are with me (Eva) in Uganda, where we have had a busy and interesting day in Kampala. A few hours after arriving yesterday we attended a reception organized by the Swedish Embassy, on the occasion of Göran Hägglund’s visit with the Swedish Health Care delegation. Stefan Swartling Peterson gave a lecture earlier in the day on the non-communicable disease epidemic and health systems.

Today we visited Makerere University in Kampala. Vice-Chancellor Ddumpa Ssentamu came to Uppsala in December 2012, and now we could return the visit. A delegation from the College of Health Sciences at Makerere University also visited us in September this year.

The purpose of our meeting was to explore opportunities for more and deeper partnerships, and to support ongoing collaborations with a memorandum of understanding and exchange agreements. Stefan Swartling Peterson has several exciting collaborations with, and has also worked at, Makerere University. Uppsala University’s International Science Programme (ISP) has been active here for many years and I am impressed by their amazing work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A large assembly of the Vice Chancellor, members of management and College Principals met us and many interesting opportunities for cooperation were identified. We talked about already existing contacts and cooperation with Uppsala University, and it was striking to hear how many people that have an education from Sweden and other Nordic countries. In the afternoon we visited, among other things, the Department of Chemistry. A seminar with a short presentation of the research had been arranged for us, with a subsequent visit to the chemistry lab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day ended with an Uppsala University reception, with invited guests and alumni. It’s been a day full of impressions and ideas, and I am impressed with the work that has been done. Tomorrow we visit ANoCC, the African/Asian Network of Caregivers, and then we’re off to the airport for the next stop – Malawi and the SANORD -conference.

Once per semester a retreat is arranged for the deans, which in reality is Uppsala University’s big management meeting. Besides the deans of the nine faculties, which explains the name of the meeting, the proceedings are attended by the University Management, the advisers to the Vice-chancellor, and everyone involved in the academic leadership structure at the domain and faculty levels (vice-rectors and their deputies, deputy deans, division deans), and a few more associates.

The foci for the autumn meeting were autonomy and quality work – two issues that turned out to be intertwined in more than one way.

Autonomy

The theme for Tuesday afternoon was autonomy. Under the leadership of moderator Kerstin Jacobsson we heard contributions from Shirin Ahlbäck Öberg, Sverker Sörlin and Sten Heckscher. They discussed the preconditions for autonomy and its possible forms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The autonomy discussion is primarily about universities’ relation to the state, but it is also about the forms of internal work, governance, and management at higher-education institutions. These forms, in turn, involve some existential questions for the academy: What is a university? How can the integrity of universities and intellectual freedom be guaranteed in a time when society has ever greater – and indeed largely justified – expectations regarding what the sector is supposed to “deliver”?

The point of departure for the autonomy discussion was this autumn’s work with and the debate surrounding the proposal concerning higher-education foundations. Even though that proposal now seems to be moribund following comprehensive criticism it received when it was circulated for comment, it’s important to continue this discussion. There was great agreement about some points. In the continued autonomy process, we as higher-education institutions should take a more active part, and we should more clearly think through and formulate what kind of autonomy we want to have, rather than passively waiting for the government’s ‘next offer’. But it is also a matter of placing autonomy in relation to other challenges facing the sector.

Some of the questions taken up: What criteria for success do universities have for excellent research or high-quality education, for example? What organisational form is most conducive to these criteria? With 90 % state funding, what justified requirements can the state impose? How can we fulfil society’s demands that we supply Sweden with the competence it will need? What problems do we aim to resolve with a new organisational form? What can we achieve within the existing structure as a public authority?

Sverker Sörlin maintained that autonomy would probably benefit the advancement of academic excellence, but that the connection is less clear when it comes to the quality and dimensioning of education – which after all ultimately aims to secure the Swedish supply of competence – and when it comes to the social utility and relevance of universities more generally.

Sten Heckscher reminded us that while autonomy is important it is not the only important issue. Also central are the quality of first-cycle education, recruitment issues, internationalisation, the tendency that higher-education institutions are turning into “project hotels for researchers who apply themselves out of the community and teaching” or the effects of “overly simplistic evaluation and resource allocation systems”.

Heckscher claimed that many of today’s hurdles could be overcome in principle within the framework of the public authority form “if only we have the will”. He reminded us about the importance of money. Whoever provides the funding always has a legitimate demand to have a say in how resources are used. Sörlin shared this view, and he indulged in “dreaming” a scenario where the state, in its wisdom, would set aside a very large resource, preferably SEK 100 or 200 billion, as basic capital for a number of independent higher-education institutions.

Quality work

Ann Fust moderated Wednesday afternoon, when the focus was on quality work. The starting point was the “quality paradox” that prevails today in both education and research. Besides the Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Åsa Kettis, Per Andersson and Joseph Nordgren provided introductory remarks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In terms of education, we are now largely in the jaws of the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ), whereas the Association of Swedish Higher Education (SUHF) has proposed a model in which higher-education institutions themselves would take the responsibility for developing quality systems that, following approval from UKÄ, ought to be able to replace the national system.

On the research side, the situation is rather the opposite. Here we have thus far relied on our own major evaluation projects (Q&R07 and Q&R11), but now there is a proposal that these could be replaced to some extent by national systems that the Swedish Research Council is now investigating, as directed by the government.

The opinion of the Meeting of the Deans was rather unequivocally in favour of having Uppsala University signal that we want to take charge of our own quality matters. This, too, is an autonomy issue.

Arenas for broad discussion

It is highly rewarding for us in University Management to be in a position to initiate a discussion of these issues. And it’s important to point out that the Meeting of the Deans is just the beginning. Both autonomy and quality systems involve long-term processes. It’s essential that we create arenas to continue a broad discussion, both within Uppsala University and together with institutions that we collaborate with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One key arena is work with revising our goals and strategies. Göran Magnusson and Coco Norén, who are directing this work, rounded off the Meeting of the Deans with their conclusions from the discussions. They pointed out that the two days complemented each other. The quality issue is about autonomy and collegiality, and how we make use of the freedom we have. They summarised the two discussions in a few keywords: responsibility, quality, trust – and collaboration among the various parts of this broad University.

Many thanks to all of those who contributed to an inspiring, rewarding, laborious but extremely enjoyable day!

The Vice-Chancellor’s dialogue with our senators was held under the heading of Autonomy 2.0. Now that the University’s comments regarding higher-education foundations has been submitted, it’s important for us not to allow the discussion to end. We need to keep it going. In an opinion piece in UNT, together with the vice-chancellors of the Karolinska institutet, Stockholm University, the Royal Institute of Technology and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, we demanded that the issue should be thoroughly revisited, with:

•  several well-considered alternatives presented, along with impact analyses for each

• the country’s higher-education institution taking an active part in the process

• the ultimate proposal enjoying broad political backing.

We feel that it is important to discuss greater autonomy, revitalised collegiality, strengthened academic leadership and expanded participation. The issues we wanted to highlight in the dialogue with the senators were:

• “Constitutionally protected” charter: what would it contain, how “inefficient” would it be?

• Division of power, mandates, division of labour

• Safeguards for the idea of the university and the creation of potential to move forward

• Who will ultimately represent “the university”?

The discussion shifted to a conversation with the work group handling the revision of Goals and Strategies. Several voices were heard to advocate more distinct, sharper and more challenging goals for the future.

The solicited comments on higher education and the autonomy issue also came up when Eva met with the county’s parliamentary representatives in Stockholm earlier in the week. Discussions also touched on the dimensioning of first-cycle courses and programmes, rules for visas and migration, research funding and quality assessment – all essential issues that we will continue to discuss in various forums; for example, at the retreat with the deans next week autonomy and quality will dominate the agenda and conversations.

And have you seen our new web? Check out www.uu.se!

 

The annual meeting of vice-chancellors in the U4 on Sunday-Monday represents an excellent opportunity to consolidate contacts among the vice-chancellors in this now five-year-old network. Sibrand Poppema (vice-chancellor at Groningen) is now the veteran of the group; Ulrike Beisiegel (Göttingen) and I (Eva) have been part of this for two years, while Anne De Paepe (Ghent) acceded to the post of vice-chancellor this autumn and attended for the first time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The meetings of the vice-chancellors coincides with a larger U4 conference involving most individuals who are active in joint activities, so the aggregate Uppsala delegation consisted of some ten people, including our three vice-rectors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We received reports from the various subject clusters, where not least the humanities and medicine have managed to launch substantial joint activities. The so-called horizontal activities also presented reports. The joint leadership programme has been a great success; this is the picture we have gleaned from Uppsala participants, and it has been corroborated by the other universities. The recurrent courses in teaching in the international classroom have also worked out well.

There is potential for collaboration in several areas. Besides the opportunities presented by Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020, there is scope for collaboration on alumni events and other international activities.