Category: Uncategorized (Page 8 of 34)

The CALIE project (Collaboration, Academic Leadership & Innovation in Higher Education) brings together four broad-based research universities in Sweden (Gothenburg, Lund, Stockholm and Uppsala) and three leading American universities (UC Berkeley, Stanford University and the University of Washington). The aim is to learn from one another how we can develop the capacity of our universities to meet challenging changes in society, not least through educational innovation.

At a kick-off meeting last week, the focus was on Berkeley and Stanford. Representatives of Berkeley described the process that had led to their ‘signature initiatives’ – five broad cross-disciplinary initiatives that encompass both research and education. The five themes identified have a familiar ring to us in Uppsala:

• Artificial intelligence – and its impact in the world of work and in science
• Health and ageing
• Environment and climate change
• Threats to democracy
• Unequal opportunities/inequality and its consequences in society

The extensive contract education conducted by UC Berkeley Extension is impressive. A highly interesting discussion also arose about building a platform for more regular researcher exchanges between Berkeley and the Nordic countries/Sweden, based around the five signature initiatives. The US participants expressed a particular interest in studying the – globally speaking, successful – Nordic model for tackling sustainability challenges and climate policy.

All comparisons between Stanford and Swedish universities have to bear in mind the quite staggering differences in operating conditions. Stanford, with 17,000 students (most of whom are Master’s or PhD students), has an annual turnover virtually equal to that of the entire Swedish higher education sector. Another fundamental difference is that Stanford’s ‘business model’ is so clearly about giving students value for all the money they pay for their education, and not least about building strong and lifelong ties of loyalty to guarantee future donations that will finance everything from scholarships to buildings and new research initiatives. What is most impressive is how consistently they strive to ensure quality through tremendously careful recruitment processes, for both academic staff and students.

Berkeley and Stanford share an emphasis on giving all students, including humanities and social sciences students, basic ‘computational literacy’. The future belongs to social scientists who can count, asserted a leading representative of Stanford (with a background in engineering). Another exciting Stanford initiative, Social X-Change, aims to enable social scientists to engage in ‘co-creative research’ aimed at solving specific problems in society.

Uppsala’s project team is led by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and includes representatives of the disciplinary domains, the Division for Quality Enhancement, the Division for Internationalisation and the students’ unions.

This week it was time for the European Parliament to quiz the nominee for the new position of commissioner for innovation and youth, Mariya Gabriel. Her brief is interesting and contains more than the title suggests. For the first time, research, innovation and education (alongside culture, youth and sport) are being combined in a single portfolio. This is a significant change that likely brings both opportunities and risks. On the one hand, it creates potential synergies within the ‘knowledge triangle’, as Gabriel herself underlined during the questioning. However, there is also a risk that the breadth of the portfolio will reduce the focus on research in the future, which would be unfortunate.

While Gabriel’s policies will no doubt be influenced by the Commission’s broader policy agenda, she states that she will defend the research budget, including ERC grants, in upcoming negotiations. This is promising. Top quality basic research with a long-term perspective has often proved to be the way that ultimately leads to solutions to societal challenges.

Gabriel is said to have performed well during questioning. After eight years as an MEP and two years as a member of the European Commission, the proposed Bulgarian commissioner is thoroughly familiar with the language and rituals used in Brussels. We can probably expect her to be approved by the European Parliament on 23 October. The consequences of her mandate for innovation and knowledge development in Europe will then remain to be seen.

SUHF seminar on European Universities

Today the Expert Group on Internationalisation at the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF) organised a seminar for information and discussion on Sweden’s participation in the European Universities initiative. On the whole, Sweden has done well: six Swedish higher education institutions are involved in the total of seventeen alliances that were successful in the first pilot round. Our application with U4 was not among them, but we will be trying again in the next pilot round in a broader constellation. Tine Delva, a policy adviser in Brussels who works on this issue, presented a preliminary evaluation of the pilot and told us about the next application round. Ludovic Thilly from the University of Poitiers, the current chair of the Coimbra network, shared his experience with participants and gave us an overview of how Coimbra supports experience exchanges between its members. The messages that emerged clearly were that being involved in European Universities takes time, involves many people and is both challenging and inspiring. The afternoon ended with a panel discussion in which representatives of higher education institutions, the Swedish Council for Higher Education and the Ministry of Education and Research participated along with the invited speakers. Several EU countries provide support to their universities in the event of successful applications, and one of the speakers warned that the lack of national support could make Swedish institutions less attractive partners in future applications.

As chair of the Expert Group, I had the task of summing up the seminar and the afternoon. The European Universities initiative has led to a remarkable revitalisation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the Bologna Process and has induced a large proportion of Europe’s universities to get involved in ambitious and far-reaching cooperation. I am convinced obstacles will need to be eliminated to give universities increased authority to act and it will be noticeable when more are involved in European Universities and deeper international cooperation.  The Ministry of Education and Research needs to be receptive and willing to address these issues in future. The Expert Group, together with the Swedish Council for Higher Education, will continue to create arenas for experience exchange between higher education institutions. Thank you, everyone who contributed to an interesting and stimulating afternoon on European Universities!

Today, at the first University Board meeting of the autumn, I requested that the University’s current Appointment Regulations* be opened for review and revision. It has been a while since this was last done, and this document governs an area that is absolutely crucial for the University’s future: our ability to recruit, retain and develop the very best researchers and teachers. Investing in conditions and career paths for all our creative and successful staff is unquestionably the best foundation we can lay for maintaining a leading international position at least as long into the future as we have in the past.

These are issues I am deeply committed to and numerous projects are in progress, in different phases, to identify and implement the essential measures in this area.

For some time now, Uppsala University has been signed up to the European Charter & Code, which is intended to promote the development of an attractive, open and sustainable European labour market for researchers. This means we have undertaken to work continuously to improve working conditions and career support for researchers and to follow fair, transparent recruitment procedures. Implementation is in full flow. For example, we are testing online career support for early career researchers and are carrying out a translation project to increase parallel language use. It is satisfying to see that the amount of documents and information in English is increasing. This work needs to continue.

With regard to talent recruitment and retention, we have examined our recruitment procedures in a recently completed internal investigation. This came about in the context of a report from the Swedish Association of University Teachers and Researchers (SULF) that attracted a good deal of attention. The report painted a sombre picture of the situation at higher education institutions, with many fixed-term appointments, short advertisement periods and few applicants for positions. As we looked at different categories of staff in greater detail, it is hard to make direct comparisons, but in general the situation in Uppsala appears somewhat better, particularly regarding numbers of applicants and advertisement periods. Having said that, the patterns are similar in some respects. The situation in the academic departments is complicated. The high ratio of external funding makes for a lack of continuity and makes it difficult to plan finances and teaching resources. There is no doubt that increased direct government funding for universities would be a significant step towards dealing with the problem of fixed-term appointments. However, we universities will do what we can. We found that the proportion of fixed-term appointments was too high for satisfaction, particularly among senior lecturers, and we will therefore analyse the situation further. Facts are important for us to take the right action. And we may need to boost the departments’ confidence that resources can be secured in a slightly longer-term perspective.

Further initiatives in this area will start during the autumn. Professors Staffan Svärd and Margareta Brattström will be reviewing the role of head of department, in light of a recent preliminary study. The aim is to ease the administrative burden on heads of department and clarify their strategic role. Maja Elmgren will be looking at the value attached to experience and achievements in teaching and learning, and the Academic career paths project led by Professor Marika Edoff will aim to create a cohesive strategy for career paths at Uppsala University. Different conditions, challenges and needs for academic expertise in the University’s disciplinary domains will be charted and proposed measures drawn up. This is also very much a gender equality project, as women ‘get stuck’ in research appointments to a greater extent than men. We need to create good arenas and discussion on these issues – to reach agreement on what we need to do across the University and at what level of the organisation.

In combination, these efforts will create a solid foundation for revising our Appointment Regulations so that they support the University’s talent recruitment, retention and development systems so as to guarantee continued success.

* The Appointment Regulations determine, under the Higher Education Ordinance, the teaching positions that may exist at the University and regulate the University’s work on the recruitment and promotion of teachers.

Today the government presented the budget bill in full. It does not involve any significant changes for the University, but of course it is positive that the expansion of higher education is continuing according to plan. This expansion will mean new places, mainly intended for professions in which there are shortages, such as teachers, doctors and engineers. Needless to say, these professions are vital to the functioning of society, though we would like to emphasise the need for even more unspecified places that would leave us free to come up with creative responses to skills needs and offer completely new research-based courses and programmes. We also perceive a lack of commmitment to quality: without higher allocations per place, the quality of higher education will continue to deteriorate – a process of erosion that has now been going on for 25 years.

Otherwise, right now the University is working intensively on its input to a bill that is enormously important to us, to other Swedish higher education institutions and to Sweden as a knowledge nation: the research bill, which is expected in 2020. Here Uppsala University and the Management Council, which is acting as steering committee, have great ambitions. One of the areas we will highlight is precisely this need to reinforce higher education and put a stop to the erosion. This is essential to meet the country’s need for well-qualified labour and constitutes a necessary basis for the continued development of research.

The wording is still under discussion, but we are unanimous in our belief that if Sweden wants to continue to be regarded as a major knowledge nation, we need substantial investments in research and education. What is required are broad, long-term investments in frontier research, challenge-driven research and research infrastructure that pave the way for the creativity that is the hallmark of academia and that we know has led and will continue to lead to new solutions to the challenges facing society. This input is therefore ‘work in progress’.

Many people in the University have already made important contributions to the document and a first broader discussion was held at an open seminar in the University Main Building on Tuesday. Former state secretary Peter Honeth, Frida Gommel, representing the students’ unions and the Doctoral Board, and former dean Elisabeth Nihlfors, who is now a member of the government’s National Research Committee, gave their reflections on the draft document and many people made good points in the discussion.

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It is encouraging that many people who realise how important it is to invest in research seem to agree on the broad lines – that wide-ranging investments are needed and that research infrastructure requires both money and better coordination. The conclusion after the discussion is that we are on the right track, but we have to be clear about what is needed and why. The work continues: the document was referred for three weeks of internal consultations today and we invite everyone to take the opportunity to say what they think. Discussions will also be held in the Academic Senate, at next week’s University Board meeting and at the next deans meeting later in October.

The deadline for our input is 31 October and the finalised bill is expected in April or May.

Now the University is waking up again after the summer break. The new academic year will soon be under way in earnest and before long we will welcome students back to the University and say hello to our new students.

The Management Council began its autumn semester’s work with discussions at a lunch-to-lunch overnight away day.

The purpose of the away day is to build up a shared picture of the issues we will be dealing with in the coming year, and to get to know one another a little better.

This time we began with a session with Petra Brask about how to make our meetings more efficient and better. Shorter meetings with a more clearly defined purpose are more meaningful. We put too little time into preparations and follow-up. We received several useful tips that I am sure will be widely reflected in the organisation.

During the Management Council’s away days, all participants present upcoming and recent developments in their area. The Deputy Vice-Chancellor and I began by looking back on what we have done so far during this term in office and outlining current developments in the national and international arena. We do not yet know what will become of the major government inquiries presented in the spring (the Inquiry on Governance and Resources and the Internationalisation Inquiry). However, we do know that we need to provide input to the research bill in October, so that is an urgent task. Our own work on our new mission, goals and strategies document and new rules of procedure continues. Preparations are under way for the Swedish Higher Education Authority’s evaluation of our quality assurance and quality enhancement work and a libraries inquiry has been launched, to name just a few current activities. 

Support services are evolving to keep pace with our changing University. Acting University Director Per Abrahamsson, together with the heads of the three faculty offices, Johan Lundborg, Tony Hansson and Måns Östring, presented current developments in the support organisation. Two years have passed since the University Administration came together in the Segerstedt Building. The cooperation between divisions has grown and new divisions have been established, most recently the Division for Internationalisation on 1 July. University-wide IT will continue to feature prominently during the year to come.

After this, Kay Svensson gave us an in-depth tour of current issues in the area of  internationalisation. This included an overview of the international networks in which the University participates, which the Management Council has been wanting. The Guild, which is a relatively new network, delivered research policy input to the European Commission this summer, ahead of the new framework programme. We also discussed how to go about a new European University Network (EUN) application. A lot has been begun and even more is on the way.

The first day’s discussions concluded with a regular Management Council meeting and an exchange of views on the new action plan for engagement and collaboration that has been circulated for comment within the University this spring. After that we had a chance to continue more informal discussions over dinner.

On the second day, we continued with presentations from the vice-rectors on what’s going on in their disciplinary domains. One cannot help but be impressed by the activities the University conducts and the advances being made in education and research. To conclude this session of presentations, the students described developments in cooperation between the unions after the abolition of compulsory student union membership and the transition from two students’ unions to eight. The focus during the autumn will be on moving cooperation forward.

The day ended with an in-depth discussion of the University’s input to the upcoming government bill on research policy. Daniel Gillberg and Katarina Wrede from the Planning Division guided us through the preparations. This is an issue we will continue to work on all autumn and we will come back to it in many connections. For example, on 17 September we have a vice-chancellors’ seminar. The deadline for our input to the Ministry is 31 October. The bill is expected to be presented in autumn 2020.

After these 24 hours, we feel updated and ready for a busy autumn. It’s obvious the Management Council will not be short of things to do over the next year – quite the contrary. Welcome back!

Guest bloggers: Hillevi Englund and Sara Gredemark

“If the Academy starts to elect women, at what rung on the scale of created beings will it end?” This was one of the arguments raised in 1889 against electing Sonya Kovalevsky to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In its report “The man of science is not a woman” (PDF, in Swedish), the Allbright Foundation observes that arguments to the same effect still abound at Swedish higher education institutions, 130 years later.

Qualifications are women researchers’ best friend, according to Fredrik Bondestam, opening Uppsala University’s seminar in Almedalen on gender inequality in academia on Monday morning. For despite national recruitment targets for professorial posts and the existence of well-qualified women, the statistics are quite clear: progress towards gender equality in higher positions at Swedish higher education institutions remains painfully slow.

Led by Anneli Häyrén, Centre for Gender Research, the seminar discussed the consequences of gender inequality in academia for the quality of university research, education and practical application. The panel participants were Amanda Lundeteg, CEO of Allbright, Johanna Rickne, Professor at Stockholm University, Fredrik Bondestam, Director of the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research, Lars Magnusson, Professor at Uppsala University, and Jonas Åström, Head of Uppsala University Innovation.

The panellists confirmed that “the academic cult of male genius” still persists in academia, and that if professorial appointments had only been a matter of formal qualifications, we would not have had the situation we have today, where over 70 per cent of these positions are occupied by men. So what are the other factors involved? Where are the problems, what do they look like and, above all, how are they connected?

Fredrik Bondestam emphasised the need to take a holistic approach to HR issues, conditions for research, and norms and structures at both individual and organisational level. Targeted initiatives for increased gender equality that disregard the overall picture generally have limited effect and fail to change the fundamental set of interconnected problems. Moreover, they are often counterbalanced by a ‘restore mechanism’ that helps to maintain existing structures.

Is there any hope of change? What can we do in the future to change the gender inequality of academia after 542 years? Some of the panel’s proposals for bringing about change were:

• include external assessment when making appointments to counteract the effect of homogeneous groups of researchers;
• use formal quotas as a tool for increased gender equality;
• take the whole picture into account and review the entire process leading to the rank of professor;
• provide increased education and training in gender equality issues and increased monitoring of operations;
• make the process for appointment to post-doctoral positions more transparent and clearer.

During Almedalen Week, guest bloggers will write for the Vice-Chancellor’s Blog.

Guest blogger: Margaretha Andersson

Today a debate was held on “How to bring world-leading Swedish research infrastructures into the future”. The seminar involved a large number of institutions – the universities of Lund, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Umeå, Uppsala and Linköping, Karolinska Institutet, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Chalmers University of Technology. Eva Åkesson, Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University, was the moderator.

Sweden invests heavily in research infrastructure. This was reflected in the great interest. The seminar was full. The discussion focused on how we can move forward and prepare for the future by investing in powerful research platforms. Development is rapid and regular new investments are needed to stay at the forefront. This requires national coordination and a strategy based on the needs of many different disciplines.

Representatives of the largest ventures – ESS, MAX IV, SciLifeLab and SNIC – were united in emphasising the necessity of common priorities and a national strategy. At the same time, expectations exist throughout the country, with the business sector and health/medical care sector, for example, showing a desire to participate and gain access to the results emerging from major infrastructures. Digitisation is leading to new possibilities and offers novel tools to disciplines that have not traditionally been users of experimental infrastructure. Along with the exciting opportunities now arising to ask completely new questions, ethical issues are gaining in importance, including the processing of sensitive personal data, for example.

The Swedish Research Council has a coordinating role and a central role in funding and in international participation in important cooperative projects. This role needs to be reinforced, as the system faces challenges in the form of the current weakness of the Swedish krona, strategy issues, the division of roles and priorities. Funding bodies, higher education institutions, the business sector and decision-makers need to coordinate to ensure the investments made have a long-term perspective.

There was great unanimity on now taking responsibility together, nationally. The universities, the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions, the Swedish Research Council and industry. Resources will be widely available throughout the country and Sweden’s competitiveness as a knowledge nation must be upheld by:

1. Resources for the Swedish Research Council to safeguard investments that have already been made;
2. A regulatory framework that allows Swedish researchers to participate fully in international cooperation and initiatives;
3. Index-linked resources for higher education, since education and infrastructure are interconnected;
4. Enhanced national coordination with resources for initiatives in digitisation, data-driven research and Open Science;
5. A long-term and comprehensive vision to strengthen knowledge society value chains throughout the country.  Free research is an indispensable factor for renewal. Increased dialogue, coordination and prioritisation are required!

Like other higher education institutions and authorities in the higher education sector, we have now submitted our consultation response to the final report of the Government Inquiry on Governance and Resources, “Long-term, coordinated and dialogue-based governance of higher education” (Swedish Government Official Reports, SOU 2019:6). Read the consultation response here (PDF, in Swedish).

Throughout the period of the inquiry, we have discussed its remit and its proposals within the University, within the sector and directly with those conducting the inquiry.

So what do we say? We like the emphasis on the autonomy of higher education institutions, the need for a long-term vision, core academic values, a closer link between education and research, and the trust-based model of governance in the higher education sector.

At a time when the freedom of research is facing restrictions and the importance of independent universities is being called into question in various parts of the world, it is essential to review our national legislation and to be alert to proposals that may be well-intended but in practice lead in the wrong direction. Uppsala University considers that greater autonomy and increased freedom of action are crucial to maintaining and enhancing the quality of education and research in the long term.

So what will happen now? What do we hope for? What are we concerned about? Naturally one can only speculate about which of the inquiry’s proposals may be implemented in practice.

We hope that we will somehow be given the opportunity of greater flexibility in the use of resources between education and research.

We also hope, in the long term, for increased basic government funding for research, though we do not want this to be achieved by moving funds from the Swedish Research Council.

We think the proposed four-year agreements are a bad idea. This would lead to increased bureaucracy at the expense of education and research and bring a risk of increased micromanagement.

We do not like the proposed model for funding education. We hope instead that the current model of funding ceilings will be reviewed and not least that the price tags will be reformed and restored to the 1993 level. Resources for education need to increase. The number of contact hours is low in Sweden compared with other European countries. This can affect the quality of education and Sweden’s long-term competitiveness.

Now the government will compile all the consultation responses and then we will see what the outcome is. However, the discussion will continue, in the first instance during Almedalen Week.

Midsummer will be here in a few days and holidays lie ahead. Much has happened since the semester kicked off with the freshers’ reception and winter conferment ceremony. It seems a long time since we celebrated our new doctoral graduates, honorary doctors and prizewinners to the sound of cannon salutes fired by Jämtlands fältartilleri in a snowy Uppsala. 

It was also in January that Sweden – finally – had a new government. In February, the Government Inquiry on Governance and Resources delivered its report. We are not entirely happy with it. We are concerned that the inquiry’s proposals – despite many good intentions – in practice pave the way for more micromanagement. These concerns are voiced in the consultation response approved by the University Board last week. 

Towards the end of the winter, the principles of academic publishing came to the fore as never before in a debate fuelled by the transition to Open Access and more specifically ‘Plan S’. The question of accessibility and opportunities for everyone to access scholarly publications is vital and complex. Our position is that we should think before we leap and ensure that the transition to Open Access is made while respecting academic freedom and the quality assurance promoted by high quality journals. The debate continues. 

Around the same time, we delivered our response to the Internationalisation Inquiry, in which we argue that the universities need greater freedom of action. Our practical experience in this area shows that micromanagement by the government makes us slow and ineffective. 

Throughout the spring we have been working on a European University Alliance proposal with our friends in the U4 network, enlarged by the University of Tartu to become U4Society. A decision is due at the end of June. If our proposal is approved, we will become an even stronger hub in the development of the European university arena. 

We celebrated the last day of April, Walpurgis Eve (Valborg), in style, with Orphei Drängar male-voice choir singing beneath the balcony of the University Library and traditional celebrations in the evening at the Gunilla Bell Tower, with Allmänna sången choir and Curator Curatorum’s speech. 

Just after Valborg, Carolina Rediviva reopened after renovation and rapidly became a favourite refuge for students cramming for exams. A week later, on 8 May, the Centre for Integrated Research on Culture and Society (CIRCUS) opened. CIRCUS will provide another important forum where research challenges will be identified and tackled from exciting new angles. 

On 24 May it was time for the beautiful and solemn spring conferment ceremony – a worthy conclusion to many doctoral students’ intensive studies. It is pleasing to be able to celebrate these academic ceremonies together, across faculty lines, and gain a tangible picture of the breadth and global reach of our University.

This midsummer week we have enjoyed several major research successes. Vinnova (Sweden’s innovation agency) has awarded funding to eight national competence centres, of which no fewer than three are based in Uppsala. Warm congratulations to Christel Bergström (drug delivery), Kristina Edström (batteries) and Cecilia Persson (additive manufacturing for life sciences) and all your talented team members and external partners! The same day, it was announced that the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences had won funding for a major programme in the area of environmental communication from Mistra (the Swedish foundation for strategic environmental research). We are significantly involved through SWEDESD (the Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development). 

Environmental and sustainability issues are increasingly prominent, not least the threat of climate change. The best way we can contribute is by educating students and through research that, at our comprehensive university, covers every aspect of these issues. The new research ventures that have won major support are concrete examples of how our research can contribute in practical ways to more sustainable development. 

A sustainable future is also the theme of this year’s Almedalen Week – the final event of the spring semester for our part. 

We look forward to an exciting autumn, when we will give our input to the new research bill and finalise Uppsala University’s new mission, goals and strategies document. But now we would like to thank all of you who have engaged in research, taught or studied at Uppsala University or have collaborated with us. We share your pleasure in success and endeavour to create conditions that will provide scope for your creativity to grow at Uppsala University. Our thanks also to everyone who makes demands on and supports the University in one way or another. Together we make the University a better place, semester by semester. 

Have a good summer!

Eva Åkesson, Vice-Chancellor

Anders Malmberg, Deputy Vice-Chancellor

It’s the time of year for end-of-term celebrations at school, graduation ceremonies and also the University Board’s last meeting of the semester. As usual, I started the meeting with the Vice-Chancellor’s report (PDF, in Swedish).

At this meeting, we had a visit from the Swedish National Audit Office, which has audited the University’s annual report for 2018. The report received an unqualified opinion. For several years, Margareta Edman Bojeus has audited our activities. She is now retiring and we expressed our thanks to her for many constructive discussions over the years. The new auditor will be Jenny Hedman, who presented the audit plan for 2019. Next year, the audit will pay special attention to the IT environment, holding activities, funding from fees, investments and improprieties. The University’s Internal Audit function presented two reports, one on internal management and control and one on secondary occupations. Our ambition is that it should be easy to do the right thing, and this applies to both areas audited. We need to clarify and simplify reporting and dealing with secondary occupations, and the HR Division and Legal Affairs Division have already started to tackle this.

One of the year’s most important decisions is taken at the June meeting – the adoption of the operational plan for the next three years. As the government decides on resource allocation on a year-by-year basis, the allocation of resources can only apply to 2020, but the operational plan provides clear planning frameworks for 2021–2022 as well. Wide-ranging consultation lies behind the plan. We have had dialogues with each disciplinary domain and discussed the operational plan together in the Vice-Chancellor’s Management Council on several occasions this spring. The plan is inspired by the University’s Mission and Core Values statement and the ambition to strengthen our position as a world-leading research university. The strategic priorities will be familiar: we continue to focus on quality, internationalisation, infrastructure, talent attraction and retention, sustainability and strategic renewal. Direct government funding for research will increase slightly. We will continue our commitment to career-development positions for young researchers and visiting professors. We will also commit resources to enable more researchers to spend time at a foreign university. Co-financing of research infrastructure represents an increasingly large item of expenditure. University-wide investments will be made in artificial intelligence, research in educational sciences and subject didactics.

Turning to education, we will continue to expand our healthcare and teaching programmes, though somewhat more slowly due to changes in instructions from the government. A redistribution of existing places between disciplinary domains will enable us to launch new programmes, for example a social work programme and a new Master’s level engineering programme in industrial economics. The expansion of educational programmes at Campus Gotland continues and the target remains 1,500 full-time equivalent students. The number of international students is increasing and the University will continue its commitment to Swedish language education and the Language Workshop. The students’ unions will receive additional funding to reinforce student liaison services for international students. The Student Health Service will also receive additional funding to meet international students’ needs. A new financing model for the University Library will apply from 2020 onwards. The 55 pages of the operational plan contain much more besides and the whole document will be published on the University’s website and on the intranet (Medarbetarportalen). The framework has been set – now it is up to the disciplinary domains, faculties and departments to translate it into education and research.

The meeting continued with discussion and adoption of the University’s consultation response to the Government Inquiry on Governance and Resources. We will publish the response here in the blog in a week or so. It has to be submitted to the government by 24 June.

The University Board decided to start the process of recruiting a vice-chancellor and deputy vice-chancellor for the period 2021–2026. I have made it known that I am not available for a further period. It is important that we have a good process that complies with the new rules of procedure, which clarify how the process should run at Uppsala University.

The Vice-Chancellor has a mandate from the University Board to revise the Mission and Core Values. This has been a major undertaking, led by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor as project manager. The draft will now be circulated for internal consultation and hopefully the University Board will be able to adopt the new mission statement in December.

University Board meetings include a presentation of research at the University. On this occasion, Professor Solveig Jülich from the Department of History of Science and Ideas presented her research in medical humanities and social sciences. I look forward to the film about the project, which is due for release this autumn.

Student influence at all levels plays a crucial role at Uppsala University. At this meeting, it was time to express our appreciation to some of the departing student representatives on the University Board. Mathias, Fredrik and Therese – thank you for your commitment. Your views have made an important contribution.

We concluded with lunch at Carolina Rediviva. This gave the University Board a chance to see our splendid University Library after renovation.