At the end of January, the President and I conducted the annual quality dialogues on education with the respective academic areas, which has been very fruitful. The dialogues, now in their fourth year, also involve the senior management team from the academic areas, programme directors from the faculty offices, the Office of the President as well as students. The foundation of the dialogues is the quality reports drawn up by the academic areas each year, which present the previous year’s academic work to ensure and develop the quality of the study programmes. The focus of the dialogues is the concrete development and quality work carried out by the academic areas, faculties and departments. The reports and associated dialogues are extremely valuable because they provide direct insight into the practical quality assurance procedures and an understanding of what it takes for our programmes to be of such high quality, as well as the challenges that exist. And one cannot help but be impressed by the hard work and deep commitment to provide students with the best possible education that is found at all levels of the university.
However, the President’s quality dialogues for education are not an isolated process. They are a central part of the university’s quality system for both education and research. Formalised quality dialogues also take place between academic areas/faculties and departments, for example in the context of programme reviews and to follow up on the research indicator reports produced each year. These, in turn, are produced and discussed with the managers of the activities. The content of dialogues and reviews is thus channelled from where the activity takes place, in research environments and teaching teams, to the management of faculties and academic areas as well as the university’s senior management team. Naturally, an organisation as large as Stockholm University has a multi-layered management and decision-making structure, but the dissemination of knowledge that takes place internally, not least through the quality dialogues, is invaluable for us as guidance in creating an understanding of the conditions of the activities, which in turn is a prerequisite for making wise decisions about the university’s development.
This text is written by Clas Hättestrand, Vice President. It appears in the section ”Words from the University’s senior management team”, where different members of the management team take turns to write about topical issues. The section appears in every edition of News for staff which is distributed to the entirety of the University staff.