Category: Uncategorized (Page 24 of 34)

(Original Swedish post published 21 November, English version posted 22 November.)

Today we (Eva Åkesson, Anders Malmberg, Katarina Bjelke and Kay Svensson) are in Brussels along with representatives of some twenty other leading research universities in Europe for the opening symposium of a new network, The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities. Our aim is that the network will give Uppsala University a more distinct presence in Brussels, which we hope will increase our opportunities to influence European research and education policies.

Europe faces many challenges and the universities have much to contribute. We see a great need to improve the dialogue between research and politics on important future issues. The refugee crisis, threats to democracy and the freedom of expression, increased social exclusion, antibiotic resistance, energy and sustainable development are some of the issues the network’s universities are working on at local, regional, national and international level. One of the activities will therefore be something that goes under the working name ‘Policy Labs’, and which is envisaged as dialogue between politicians, officials and researchers on these and other topical issues. The Guild’s first symposium was on open science and open innovation.

The network fits in naturally with Uppsala University’s activities. International contacts and exchanges of knowledge are part of our everyday life. Students and researchers collaborate around the globe. This also fits in well with the government’s objective that Sweden should be a leading knowledge nation. EU cooperation has a major part to play in achieving this. EU resources provide a considerable proportion of funding for research projects. The total value of projects in which Uppsala University is participating stands at around EUR 50 million.

This being so, it feels absurd that we – one of the initiators of the network – are not allowed to become a full member yet. Instead, we have to wait for approval from the Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament). This is a consequence of the organisational status of Swedish universities.

Swedish higher education institutions are restricted and obstructed by the Riksdag’s calendar and regulatory complications. As a result, we risk missing out on opportunities to swiftly take our place and act in international connections, and being perceived as difficult to work with. Many issues are settled in the opening stages of a cooperative venture so it’s important to take part from the start. This is just one of the unnecessary obstacles to the increased internationalisation of higher education institutions – there are many others. We have delivered a list to Minister for Higher Education and Research Helene Hellmark Knutsson, specifying problems that must be resolved in the inquiry on internationalisation. Now we expect action to address them. If Sweden is to continue to develop as a nation of research and education, the higher education institutions need more freedom to act. This is in everyone’s interest.

(Original Swedish post published 18 November, English version posted 21 November.)

Today we formally installed 45 new professors at the University. The grand ceremony in the Cathedral was the culmination of a week in which the new professors have been in the spotlight. They have given inaugural lectures in the lecture hall at Museum Gustavianum. The broad range of topics offered the audience a fascinating sample of many aspects of our multifaceted University.

Read about the professors and their research.

An inauguration of professors is always a historic occasion. However, this year it is noteworthy that women were in the majority for the first time since we started holding collective inaugurations of professors in 2000. The ratio was 23 women to 22 men. We are moving in the right direction towards a gender-equal university!

The ceremony in the Cathedral began with music played by the Academic Orchestra. After that, I gave the traditional Vice-Chancellor’s inauguration address, in which I drew attention to some principles that our new professors must bear in mind. I also took up certain problems the government needs to resolve if we are to be the university Sweden so sorely needs.

The inauguration had a full programme. Inaugural lectures were given by:

• Per Andrén: Brain diseases – and new opportunities to understand them
• Charlotte Platzer Björkman: From sunlight to electricity through new materials
• Dag Blanck: Is the United States different?

In addition, we honoured some of our skilful teachers, who received the Distinguished Teaching Award. This year’s recipients were:

• Senior Lecturer Sina Tezel, Department of Linguistics and Philology
• Senior Lecturer Per Engström, Department of Economics
• Lecturer Per Holmfeldt, Department of Medical Cell Biology
• Lecturer Johan Larsson, Department of Physics and Astronomy
• Senior Lecturer David Black-Schaffer, Department of Information Technology

Read the jury citations here.

The University’s innovation prize Hjärnäpplet, awarded to a researcher or research student for an outstanding transfer of academic knowledge that has resulted in an innovation, was also presented. This year it went to Maria Strömme, Professor of Nanotechnology.

I would like to thank everyone who participated and everyone who contributed to making the day a splendid showcase for the University and our activities. You make me feel proud and impressed.

(Original Swedish post published 13 November, English version posted 15 November.)

Groningen, Göttingen and Zürich are the stops on my itinerary from Friday to Monday. On Friday and Saturday, a delegation of about ten people from Uppsala University was in Groningen for the ninth meeting of university heads in the U4 network. U4 is a relatively small network of universities consisting of Uppsala, Groningen, Ghent and Göttingen. We collaborate in four clusters (lead institution in parentheses):

• Humanities (Ghent)
• Social sciences (Göttingen)
• Medicine and pharmacy (Groningen)
• Science and technology (Uppsala)

Institutional management is a further area of cooperation. Several welcome initiatives are in progress, for example a leadership programme now ending its second round, with a third round due to begin in autumn 2017. We have successfully collaborated in many EU projects, particularly Erasmus mobility projects in Africa and Asia. Topics discussed during the meeting included double/joint degrees for PhD students, summer schools, and other ways of collaborating on doctoral education. Various peer review exercises have been carried out. One of these, on sustainability, was reported on at the meeting. Green Offices is something Uppsala University has been inspired by and would like to try out in future. Two new areas we would like to work on together in future are procedures for post docs and career paths for young academics. In U4 we highlight good practice and learn from one another. Overall I was impressed by all the clusters this time and by the way in which collaboration is now yielding results. It takes a few years to get a network to function and we should remember this now when we are soon to begin working in the Guild, in which all four U4 universities will participate.

On Sunday I took the opportunity to visit Göttingen, where the President, Ulrike Beisiegel, briefed me on their preparations for the German excellence initiative and showed me the campus, including visits to some of their museums. I carried on south by train on Sunday afternoon. And there are delayed and cancelled trains in Germany too. Complaints about poor maintenance were heard when the delayed train came to a standstill halfway and we had to crowd into an already packed train in Frankfurt. Now I’m sitting on my way to Zürich several hours later than planned but hope to reach my destination before midnight. On Monday morning I will attend a conference on “Women and Leadership in Academia” and will try to say something clever in the panel debate I will be participating in.

On Tuesday morning I’ll be back in Uppsala and I look forward to the inauguration of 45 new professors in the cathedral on Friday. Don’t miss their lectures this week!

(Original Swedish post published 11 November, English version posted 15 November.)

On Friday the Swedish Higher Education Authority held a dialogue seminar in Stockholm. The focus was on the Authority’s proposed “Guidance on review of quality assurance at higher education institutions”, which is intended in the first instance to govern the pilot evaluations carried out in 2017, but which of course may guide the new evaluation system in general. The participants from Uppsala were the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (writing here), Åsa Kettis (who drafted some of the material for this blog post) and Maria Wollters from the Division for Quality Enhancement.

The new national quality system is basically good. It gives the higher education institutions (HEIs) greater ownership of quality assurance of individual programmes and encourages an all-round perspective on educational quality, as it encompasses preconditions, processes and outcomes. This improves conditions for quality enhancement and makes it possible to adapt the evaluation to optimally suit each programme. This change gives Sweden a similar system that to the one used in most other countries, such as our neighbours and the UK. Uppsala University has already reacted and is now starting to implement its own model of educational evaluation, in accordance with the Vice-Chancellor’s decision – a model designed with the extensive involvement of the University.

In the new national system, the Swedish Higher Education Authority will check that the HEIs’ quality systems work, and Friday’s meeting focused on the model to be used in this connection. The Authority’s model focuses on four ‘aspect areas’:

• management and organisation
• environment, resources and area
• design, implementation and outcomes
• follow-up, measures and feedback.

These in turn are analysed from three ‘perspectives’:

• undergraduate and doctoral students
• the world of work
• gender equality.

Each aspect area includes several aspects and for each aspect a number of criteria are specified. Even though many of the criteria are reasonable and derive from Swedish legislation and/or European Standards and Guidelines (ESG), the overall picture is complicated. The terminology contributes to this. For most of us, ‘aspects’ and ‘perspectives’ are completely synonymous terms, so it is unclear how they differ from one another.

Otherwise, we think the Swedish Higher Education Authority’s proposal gets it wrong primarily on one key point. In the new national system, the HEIs can initiate their own educational evaluations with external review if they consider this appropriate, but the Authority does not actuall expect this of them. This is aiming low, and in practice means that not all education will be subject to external review, which is a step backward compared with the system between 2011 and 2014. Uppsala University and some other HEIs, such as the University of Gothenburg, are now launching ambitious systems in which in principle, over a six-year cycle, all education will undergo a full evaluation based on ESG and including external review. This is the most important, and most substantial, component of Uppsala’s new quality assurance system.

If an HEI chooses to introduce such a system, you might think the Authority’s review of the HEI should primarily focus on ensuring that the educational assessments work and fulfil their purpose. However, the proposed model has no such focus, and this is unfortunate. Local systems involving external educational evaluations are more results-oriented and considerably sharper than other systems, but this is not clearly acknowledged by the Authority. One proposal that came up at the seminar was that HEIs that have their own educational evaluations should be subject to a more focused and less comprehensive assessment than those that do not. This would be more appropriate and would enable the Authority to conduct better-focused HEI reviews at a lower cost. It would undoubtedly be a more rational and efficient arrangement.

At the seminar, the Authority also presented a timetable for its enitre evaluation programme over the six-year period 2017–2022 (link). In the new national system, the Authority will conduct four types of assessments/reviews:

• assessments of degree-awarding powers
• reviews of HEI quality assurance
• educational evaluations
• thematic evaluations.

In 2017 a number of doctoral education subjects at Uppsala University will undergo evaluation by the Authority: computer science, economics, ethics and the history of religions, art history, education, psychology/applied psychology, and history. According to plan, Uppsala will then undergo an HEI review in 2020 (along with Lund, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Linköping). Read more about the timetable here (in Swedish).

(Originally posted in Swedish on 7 November 2016.)

Today the University’s Management Council visited the University of Oslo. It was a stimulating visit. It’s inspiring and useful to hear what other universities do. We can also see that we have more in common than we have differences. Many of the challenges are the same, such as recruitment, career development positions, research infrastructure and internationalisation.

Just like Uppsala, the University of Oslo is a broad, multidisciplinary university. We share the same values of academic freedom and the university’s role in society, and will be partners in the new European network, the Guild. We already engage in extensive cooperation now and have identified further potential areas for cooperation, such as antibiotic resistance and languages.

I would like to say a big thank you to Rector Ole Petter Ottersen for a fine programme. We look forward to continued cooperation and hope to meet again soon. We promise you a warm welcome in Uppsala!

(Originally posted in Swedish on 3 November 2016.)

Over the past two days I participated in “Working Group: New Goals”, a meeting in Stockholm of the working group developing new goals ahead of the next ministerial meeting in the Bologna Process/EHEA, which will take place in Paris in 2018. The theme for the first day was Competencies and the theme for the second day was Digitalisation, when one of the speakers was Alastair Creelman from Linnaeus University, whose topic was “What is the role and impact of digitalisation on higher education? How can it be used to support teaching and learning at institutions, at the same time widening the access to higher education?”

Part of the presentation was “MOOCs – the story so far”. MOOCs obviously come in various forms and have various purposes. Not all of them are massive, and not all of them are open. They may be intended as a teaser for an educational programme or as part of lifelong learning, and various hybrid models are being developed. Uppsala University is currently offering three MOOCs, the first of which, on antibiotic resistance, has just ended. But the second MOOC, Climate Change Leadership, starts on Monday – take the opportunity to try a MOOC if you haven’t done so yet, you can log in now. I can tell you, they’re rather addictive, right now I’m following a MOOC at Glasgow University on “The Right to Education: Breaking Down the Barriers.”

The meeting gave a feeling of déjà vu, particularly when State Secretary Karin Röding opened the meeting and welcomed us. I was most active in the Bologna Process 8 or 10 years ago, as a Bologna promoter, Bologna expert and national academic contact point (NACP) for quality assurance (QA). Karin Röding was a director at the Government Offices at the time and very active in these issues, perhaps most significantly through her work on the government bill “New world – new university”, which tackled three areas:

• Making higher education more international and more attractive.
• A clearer, internationally comparable degree system.
• Fairer, clearer and simpler admission rules.

It was in 2007 that Swedish higher education was given a three-level structure: first, second and third cycle. New degree descriptions were also introduced, specifying goals/expected learning outcomes, specialisation requirements defined in numbers of credits and qualitative requirements, and the exact number of credits required for degrees. I’m sure many of you remember how we had to define the level of all courses unambiguously in terms of goals/expected learning outcomes. All the syllabuses, everywhere in Sweden, were rewritten, masses of Master programmes were created and I talked about ‘Master mania’. The term ‘poäng’ (credit) was replaced by ‘högskolepoäng’ (higher education credit) and a standard academic year was defined as 60 higher education credits. I still feel grateful for the conversion table we were given that helped us to convert 1 credit to 1.5 higher education credits, 5 credits to 7.5 higher education credits – we’d never have managed without that table.

Perhaps I should write a few lines about the Bologna Process in general while I’m at it, it’s easy to take it for granted that everyone was there and remembers all about it. The Bologna Process is a European initiative launched by the Bologna Declaration, which was signed by 29 ministers in 1999. The overall goal was to make Europe more attractive, and to promote mobility and employability – a much debated concept. The operational goals were the adoption of a system of easily readable and comparable degrees, the introduction of a system consisting principally of three educational levels (cycles) and a system of credits, and the promotion of mobility, European cooperation in quality assurance and the European dimension in higher education. Other areas were gradually added, such as lifelong learning, the social dimension.

Today, 48 countries participate, ministerial meetings are held at longer intervals and the Bologna Process doesn’t have the intensity and tempo that it did ten years ago. Nonetheless, it’s a tool that we can use for working on higher education issues in Europe, we have a common arena and we have a language that enables us to pursue development together – and this mustn’t be underestimated.

Today’s Anders Wall Lectures attracted a full house at Uppsala Konsert & Kongress. This was the thirteenth annual event and this year too we had the pleasure of hearing inspiring speakers talking about their entrepreneurship. Their stories varied widely, even if they had certain things in common. What strikes me is the enthusiasm, the energy and the courage of these people who have all, in different ways, dared to do or stand up for something they believe in. Thank you for sharing your experience with us all so generously! And many thanks to everyone who helped to make this afternoon a success!

This year’s Anders Wall lecturers were:

• Anders Johnson, economist, author, speaker, panelist, business operator and former editor-in-chief of Dagens Nyheter.
• Camille Sucasas Gottfridson, student and founder of the company Macacos – Brazilian Superfruits.
• Pär Svärdson, entrepreneur behind the successful companies Adlibris, Apotea and Babyland.
• Siavosh Derakhti, social entrepreneur and founder of the network Youth against anti-Semitism and Xenophobia (UMAF).
• Hannah Widell and Amanda Schulman, authors and founders of Perfect Day Media.

The annual Uppsala Student of the Year award has been awarded for the seventeenth time. It is awarded to a student who has distinguished themselves through their good, creative efforts at Uppsala University, actively participated in student union and/or student nation activities, made special efforts in support of other students, or engaged in entrepreneurship in connection with their studies.  This year’s Uppsala Student of the Year is Allen Ali Mohammadi.

The prize citation is as follows:

Allen Ali Mohammadi is taking the Master Programme in Energy Technology. Allen is a visionary, an entrepreneur and an inventor who inspires other students. He started his first company when he was just 12 years old. Alongside good grades at Uppsala University, he has developed a prize-winning tool for early diagnosis of heart diseases, called ‘Heartstrings’. The tool integrates data from blood tests, electrocardiograms and demographic information and matches them against statistical comparisons of characteristic symptoms of the illness. The tool, which has been tested and validated on 500 patients, can save time and resources for doctors, hospitals, care providers, insurance companies and other similar actors in society. Allen is a good ambassador for Uppsala University and Sweden, and has won several national and international awards. He is a true enthusiast, changing society with his ambition and capacity for innovation.

Today our enlarged Management Council received a visit from two people from the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research at the University of Gothenburg, which has been commissioned to support higher education institutions in their work on gender mainstreaming. This was included in the University’s appropriation directions for 2016. The government singles out certain areas as particular priorities: unequal academic career opportunities, the need to counter gender-related study choices and the need to improve student completion rates for women and men.

As part of this work we have studied gender equality measures at the University that were decided at a central level and implemented between 2004 and 2015. Gender equality efforts have often been conducted in project form. In the course of these projects, problem areas have been identified and measures carried out. The list makes impressive reading. My conclusion is that Uppsala University has worked intensively for a long time to promote gender equality and equal treatment. In general, Uppsala University has met the government’s targets for the percentage of women among newly appointed professors (in the latest period, 2012–2015, this was 36%). I am convinced that the initiatives carried out by the University, such as our ‘Kraftpaket för jämställdhet’ (‘Package for gender equality’), have contributed to this, as does the fact that the management at various levels emphasises the importance of continuous and systematic work on gender equality and equal treatment. The next stage is a catalogue of problems, which will soon be completed.

The University is required to produce an action plan for gender mainstreaming, and I have appointed a working group and a reference group for this purpose. The working group includes Anna T. Höglund, Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor on Equal Treatment, Ann-Sofie Wigg Bodin, equal treatment specialist at the Human Resources Division, and Tom Petersson, analyst at the Planning Division. The student unions have also nominated a member of the working group. Anna T. Höglund has been appointed chair and Tom Petersson secretary of the working group. The Equal Treatment Council serves as a reference group for the working group, which makes regular progress reports to the Vice-Chancellor’s Management Council. The action plan is scheduled to be circulated for comments in early January 2017 and to be finalised and submitted to the Ministry by 25 May 2017. It is important to bear in mind the advice we received – it is better to select a few areas and do them well than to make extensive plans that come to nothing. If you have any opinions or suggestions, please contact the working group or a representative of the Equal Treatment Council.

Here are a few pictures from the day’s proceedings in the enlarged Management Council:

What is gender mainstreaming?
(from the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research Guidelines for Gender Mainstreaming Academia)

Gender mainstreaming is Sweden’s principal strategy for achieving the national gender equality objectives. According to the Council of Europe, gender mainstreaming:

“is the (re)organisation, improvement, development and evaluation of policy processes, so that a gender equality perspective is incorporated in all policies at all levels and at all stages, by the actors normally involved in policy-making.”

Concretely, gender mainstreaming can involve development of management systems and core activities so that they promote gender equality and a fair distribution of resources; routines and processes that do not discriminate any person based on sex/gender; and educational opportunities that are equally available to everybody regardless of sex/gender and other power regimes.

Every term the University Board has an extended meeting away from Uppsala to provide an opportunity for a more in-depth discussion of strategic issues for the future. This time we travelled to Lund and yesterday we completed the more formal part of the meeting. As usual, I kicked off the meeting with the Vice-Chancellor’s report (in Swedish) on what’s happened since our last meeting and what’s going on at the University.

In recent weeks the procedure for appointing a Vice-Chancellor at Uppsala University has been discussed intensively both inside and outside the University. The issue has generated a lot of interest. While the debate has been about the procedure, it also impinges on the issue of the University’s autonomy and has become a matter of principle. I am impressed by the responsibility staff and students have shown by engaging with the issue.

After adjustment, the proposed procedure will be circulated in the University for comments – it will be sent out on Monday 31 October. I think it’s good that staff and students have a proper chance to express their opinions before the University Board takes a decision in December. Ahead of the meeting today, I asked the Board for a clarification in the proposal regarding the matter of extending the mandate of the Vice-Chancellor in office, and also informed the Board that I would be happy to continue as Vice-Chancellor for another three years – if this is what the University wants. The proposal is now available here (in Swedish).

At today’s meeting, Uppsala University Research Strategies was adopted. This document provides a picture of the current situation and a strategic direction for the future. With its breadth and multiple areas of strength, Uppsala University stands well equipped to face the future. We have the capability and the desire to conduct research that proceeds from both the challenges facing society and issues intrinsic to scholarly enquiry.

During the day, the University Board also had scope to discuss one of the issues I feel most strongly about – strategic skills provision. We want to be able to attract the very best researchers and teachers. That being so, it’s important that we can offer creative, stimulating research environments and good conditions. This autumn’s dialogues with the disciplinary domains will focus on this issue. We also found time to begin a discussion on the provision of premises in a longer-term perspective. These are important issues that we will come back to in various forums.

Today the Board will continue with discussions on infrastructure – an important future issue for our University. We will visit two facilities that are important for us – Max IV and ESS. Uppsala University is the largest user of Max IV. The Freia hall at Ångström is a test facility for ESS and Kristina Edström leads the international research school at ESS. Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor Joseph Nordgren will introduce today’s programme and give an overview of infrastructure at national level and our own internal work on this issue.

(Original Swedish post published 25 October, English version published 8 November.)

Today I took a decision adopting Uppsala University’s model for educational evaluation, guidelines and financing. Many people have paved the way for this decision over a period of several years. For instance, the CrED panel, which proposed it back in 2012, and the working group I appointed on 14 March 2015 with instructions to present proposals on a model for systematic educational evaluation at Uppsala University. The working group, led by Vice-Rector Torsten Svensson, submitted its proposals to the Vice-Chancellor on 1 March 2016. These proposals were then circulated for comment to disciplinary domain boards/faculty boards, student unions, the University Library and the University Administration, which all contributed constructive proposals on improvements.

The Quality Council, led by Deputy Vice-Chancellor Anders Malmberg, has shepherded the proposal through to today’s decision, with Åsa Kettis and Maria Wolters giving expert guidance all along the way. One of the reasons we are now taking this step is that the Swedish Higher Education Authority has changed its evaluations and in future will examine quality assurance work at higher education institutions rather than evaluating programmes as it used to do. To facilitate implementation, I have also decided that close to SEK 12 million will be set aside to finance the work of the disciplinary domains on the model for educational evaluation. Initially, in 2017, the disciplinary domains will start out with pilot projects and within a period of six years all programmes are planned to have undergone systematic quality assurance and quality enhancement.

You’ll have to excuse me, I simply have to present the whole decision.

Today I, as Vice-Chancellor, decided:

To establish guidelines for Uppsala University’s model for educational evaluation.

That domain/faculty boards are to:

– develop modes and routines for systematic quality assurance and quality enhancement of the domain’s or the faculty’s education from an all-round perspective, including annual follow-up and educational evaluation;

– conduct and report on at least one educational evaluation pilot project per disciplinary domain in 2017 (see the decision Pilot round of educational evaluations 2017);

– evaluate all education in the domain/faculty over a six-year cycle (2017–2022);

– actively contribute to experience and knowledge exchange on quality assurance and enhancement across faculty and domain boundaries (contribute evaluators to other faculties/domains and to organised and informal experience exchange);

– submit to the Vice-Chancellor by 16 June 2017 a provisional plan for all educational evaluations in the six-year cycle 2017–2022;

– report to the Vice-Chancellor by 28 February 2018 the domain’s or faculty’s modes and routines for educational evaluation and annual follow-up;

– submit to the Vice-Chancellor by 20 February 2018 a detailed description of the domain’s or faculty’s modes and routines for quality assurance and quality enhancement in education. These descriptions will be incorporated in the quality assurance and enhancement programme when it is revised;

– conduct, during the first half of 2020, a simplified evaluation of (i) quality assurance and enhancement efforts in the domain/faculty, with a focus on modes and routines for annual follow-up and educational evaluation, and (ii) university-wide support, so that routines and methods can be improved even in the course of the current six-year cycle. The evaluation is to cover the perspectives of all concerned (domain/faculty board, other persons responsible for education, teachers and other staff involved in education, and students). Results and proposed measures are to be presented in brief to the Vice-Chancellor by 30 June 2020.

That the above evaluation within domains/faculties is to be followed by revision of the university-wide guidelines if necessary.

That central university support will be evaluated by at least two external colleagues and at least one internal colleague from each disciplinary domain within the framework of the six-year cycle.

That the University Director is to ensure appropriate central university support, including: knowledge support in the design of evaluations and follow-up (including written recommendations); implementation of student barometer surveys and an annual conference; compilation of a quality report; and development of key indicators as a basis for educational follow-up.