Niklas Janz. Photo: Ingmarie Andersson, SU.

Hi!

It is with pleasure and pride that I have now taken over the head of department at BIG from Ann-Kristin Östlund Farrants. Anki has led this department for six years, and during that time successfully navigated us through many challenges, not least the pandemic with all that it meant for teaching. For those who may not know me, when I am not head of BIG, my home is the Department of Zoology, where I have been for a long time and devoted myself to research on butterflies and their host plants.

BIG fulfils an important function in my eyes, as support for teachers and students in biology, and as a link to the faculty. It is a unique organisation at SU, but it has a good reputation, and it is not without other departments sometimes looking with some envy at how we organise the teaching of biology. The division we have means that the staff at BIG can be specialists in administering and organising teaching, while our teachers are allowed to be teachers to a greater extent. Through BIG we have also developed over the years an unusually far-reaching collaboration between the biology departments in terms of teaching, where in fact most of our programmes and also many courses are given as direct collaborations across departmental boundaries.

Another unique feature of BIG that I think is worth mentioning is that its departmental board is made up of representatives from the other departments within the biology section, including the SRC. Even BIG's head of department and deputy head of department come from one of the other biological departments. This means that BIG is a joint endeavour of the Biological Section and its departments. It is we biologists - at DEEP, MBW, SRC and Zootis - who together are BIG, and who decide on its activities.

BIG's policy is to keep a lean organisation so that as much as possible of the area's allocated teaching funds can go towards delivering high quality teaching. The staff at BIG do a fantastic job of offering a lot in relation to what BIG costs, but the lean organisation also means that there are limits to the service we can offer. At the same time, there are sometimes requests from teachers to increase the administrative support that BIG offers. The balance between service level and how much BIG should cost is something we need to consider together and where I welcome a discussion at future departmental boards!