A word from the Dean
Dear all
On Monday this week, we were 34 participants in a Zoom meeting to discuss the upcoming strategy for research at the faculty. The meeting was skilfully facilitated by Gitte Toftgaard, Tina Ellehuus and Harald Hasler-Sheetal from the faculty secretariat.
I myself was very skeptical as we are probably all experiencing Corona fatigue. I was strongly in doubt as to whether the format would be engaging and whether it was possible to get some good discussions started. I think it went well, and through breakout rooms it was possible to get a lot of input for the points that the research committee had made about the strategy before the meeting.
It has taken some time to prepare for the meeting - probably longer than we usually spend on preparing meetings at the secretariat at the faculty. There are also some challenges along the way, as it is not so easy to adjust the meeting due to the technical limitations, but conversely, the format allows to engage more people to participate in discussions in small groups.
Gatherings can be made more dynamic by switching between chat and speech and the meetings become very efficient - perhaps because a lot of discussions are lost. However, several have reported that they thought the discussions were constructive and that we made good progress in formulating a strategy for the faculty.
The most difficult thing in the strategy is to find a common vision that everyone can have ownership of, and we are not there just yet. In contrast, it was easier to identify a series of missions for the faculty. Some commented that these were very broad and without edge, while others found that they were fine marks for the faculty.
We are now working on the comments to get missions adapted to the discussion. Finally, it was discussed departmentally how the faculty's strategy should play together with department strategies and SDU's strategy.
Here it became very concrete what the individual departments want from a common strategy. To name a few examples, there is a desire to get to know each other better in order to find synergies in research collaborations, and there is a desire to ensure a modern and well-functioning infrastructure that is utilized to a greater extent across departments.
All that and much more must now be unfolded into a strategy, which will be consulted at the institutes at the end of the year. I would like to thank all participants for a great commitment, critical and constructive comments and many exciting ideas for strategic focus areas and efforts.
This bodes well for a strong Faculty of Science in the coming years.
Marianne Holmer, Dean