A word from the Dean, March 2026

Heads of Department and Collegiality

Spring is here, even though today, as I write these words, the weather is rather grey and a little rainy. With spring comes the task of proposing heads of department for the new term of office, which begins on 1 August. This year, it is not a burdensome task for me as Dean, as it concerns only two of our departments. We are fortunate at the Faculty of Natural Sciences to have many wise and committed teachers and staff, which also helps to make this particular task easier.

It is important for the university to safeguard collegial decision-making, and ultimately this means that we must uphold our way of appointing heads of department, deans and other academic leaders. Essentially, we should take turns in assuming different roles. To ensure that this leadership permeates wider parts of the university, a course on collegial governance for staff is currently being discussed and will hopefully be launched relatively soon. It will also have escaped no one’s notice that this is an election year, which means that a new Board of Science and faculty board will be appointed.

Department visits and quality dialogues

In late spring, the President, Vice-President and the University Director will begin visiting our departments and research centres. Meanwhile, the Faculty’s quality dialogues with our departments and research centres are also ongoing. Last year, eight quality dialogues were held, and many important lessons can be drawn from these discussions. The Faculty has a very strong standing in terms of research, something I believe most of us are aware of. However, not everyone outside the University is. An important question is therefore how we can better communicate the high-quality scientific research conducted at the Faculty, which is something we are actively working on. Our Information Committee (Informationsberedningen), led by Niclas Kolm, has done a fantastic job during this term of office in increasing our communication efforts regarding both research and education, largely with the aim of making ourselves known to prospective students.

The Science academic area also contributes to collaboration with society through research, which has become very clear in the research quality dialogues. It also became evident that it is much more difficult to ‘measure’ effective collaboration initiatives, which makes the research quality dialogues all the more important. For the first time, we are also in the process of producing a quality report on research, similar to the quality report that exists for education and which is discussed with the university leadership. We are now looking forward to the quality dialogue with the university leadership regarding research.

The formation of research centres

Many of you may be aware that a focus assessment of the university’s research centres has now been completed. The purpose of the assessment was not to examine the quality of individual research centres, but rather to provide an overview of them as a phenomenon. Work is currently underway to process the results of the assessment, and we will have reason to return to this matter in the spring. Some changes may well take place, perhaps not all centres fit the same mould? The main principle, however, is that a centre should create added value and be funded largely by external means.

With that, I wish you all a happy Easter, perhaps with some well-deserved vacation time, something I myself intend to take as well.
Lena