Strategy
Well-being is a prerequisite for excellent research
The Faculty of Science has just launched its strategy for 2021 to 2025. We zoom in on the strategy's three primary focus areas: People and organisation, education - and here research.
– A faculty needs to have a research strategy. This is how it should be, and it applies to all universities, says Rolf Fagerberg, professor at IMADA and chairman of the faculty's Academic Council.
– But this is the first time that I experience a research strategy that also focuses on work environment, well-being and inclusive management, he says.
An aspect he highlights because it makes the faculty's research strategy stand out from the crowd. An aspect he highlights for its significance.
– Well-being is crucial for research. If you thrive in your work as a researcher, you will be filled with more energy when you do your work. It creates motivation and gives momentum that will contribute positively to your results, says Rolf Fagerberg.
Such a focus on well-being requires a solid joint effort. Therefore, according to Dean Marianne Holmer, it is also necessary that management is thought of as a natural theme in the research strategy.
– Leadership on all levels is an important element in all research groups, sections and teams. All the way around, she says.
– It is necessary because we need to shed light on the values that are most important to us at our faculty. Values such as culture and working environment, onboarding of new colleagues and mutual respect - between colleagues, but also between institutes and groups, says Marianne Holmer.
– These are values that have always been at our faculty, but they must become even more visible and be stand clearer so that they can be cultivated and shape us as an organisation.
Structuring and facilitating cross-cutting collaboration
Visibility and articulation of such values is in itself a goal, but the values are at the same time a prerequisite for being able to cultivate the interdisciplinary collaboration, which is a prioritised topic highlighted in the research strategy.
– We are already good at interdisciplinary collaboration at the faculty. And in recent years we have also clearly improved, says Marianne Holmer.
– But there is also no doubt that there is still a large and untapped potential in interdisciplinary collaboration within research, she says.
She points out that the interdisciplinary collaboration must have room to be able to arise organically and naturally, but also needs facilitation and prioritization.
Therefore, the work with and development of interdisciplinary collaboration must also be structured so that the potential can be unfolded where the research collaborations need support in order to emerge.
– There are, of course, areas where we see collaboration arise quite naturally, because the research areas are to some extent related, and the researchers already have a relationship, says Marianne Holmer.
– Elsewhere, we can see potentials that require opportunities to be created before the collaboration can thrive, she says.
In principle, the interdisciplinary collaboration can be cultivated across all the faculty's research areas, but one area is highlighted as an example that has a special priority:
Data-driven research.
– At the faculty, we have the special infrastructure and not least the competencies to unfold the enormous potential that lies hidden in combining AI, machine learning, modelling, statistics and data science with our other research areas, says Marianne Holmer.
At first, the effort must be structured so that the interdisciplinary collaboration is first and foremost strengthened at the departments and the faculty. After this, it must be expanded so that the collaboration with the rest of the university and with external partners can also develop.
The next step
Although the faculty's strategy has already been finally approved and launched, the work is far from over.
– The strategy contains many efforts and covers the next five years. We can not implement it all at once, as there must be time for the tasks in a busy everyday life, says Marianne Holmer.
Therefore, she is embarking on a process in which she, via the Dean's corner at the departments, will involve employees in the work of prioritiwing the various initiatives.
– We have to take the most important things first, but there can be big differences from department to department, as it is different which elements are the most important for the individual department, she says.
According to Rolf Fagerberg, there are therefore also a few things you as a colleague can do to support the continued strategy work.
– One should enter the process with an open mind, be curious and interested, he says and emphasises that the strategy in his eyes strikes a good balance between the strategic priorities and personal freedom for the individual researcher, because there is also a focus on individuals in the strategy.
– And it is important because it is people who are behind the research. We are all different, and therefore it is also necessary that we go into the prioritisation and help shape the implementation of the strategy, says Rolf Fagerberg.
At the same time, he encourages all colleagues to support the strategy by helping put an active focus on well-being.
- Yes, it must be a focus for all of us, and we must show each other that we see and hear each other at the Faculty of Science, agrees Marianne Holmer.