This development, which we share with many other universities, is worrying as it can make the recruitment of students and staff more difficult and in the long run, even affect our success in obtaining external research grants. Therefore, we must increase our international impact to maintain and develop future possibilities.
To this end, over the winter and spring the Vice-Chancellor’s Management Council created several action points based on the platform for strategic work. Brief comments on some of these points are as follows:
Strong research today and for the future
In conjunction with the upgrade of LUCRIS planned next year, we will be working towards a smarter use of LUCRIS. This will hopefully enable individual researchers to increase the visibility of their research, to the benefit of researchers, research teams and the University as a whole.
Another project is focusing on increasing international citations and international reputation through an analysis of why the number of citations is falling, along with suggestions for measures to tackle this. A project focusing on better understanding of the logic of the ranking systems will also run in parallel. Other measures include ensuring visiting professors’ double affiliations are made visible in publications and publishing more in The Conversation.
Education in transition
A new project has started on how to present our national and international course offering in a more unified, understandable, and accurate manner online. We are also about to start an overview of our course offering, which includes lifelong learning, programme design and the reinvigoration of more cultural issues/cultural activities as part of our programmes and courses.
A creative learning and work environment
We are creating a new concept for leadership development and an international perspective and understanding will be important here too. Closely related to the creative learning environment are the issues of innovation and acting more innovatively in everyday life. All of us can – within the regulations that govern us as a public authority – think and act more innovatively! On the pure innovation side, the University is in a good position to step this up further.
Last week, IVA published its top 100 list, in which 13 of our research/innovation projects (which are indeed innovative!) were featured. Innovation work also forms the basis for how the University and other stakeholders are structuring themselves in innovation districts. This connects closely to the issues of campus development in Lund, Helsingborg and Malmö, as well as how culture and creative industries can form a genuine dimension in the University’s work on innovation.
Lund University has unique potential to bring together initiatives to strengthen our international impact – more soon!
/Kristina Eneroth, pro vice-chancellor
Read more: Thirteen Lund projects on prestigious list | Lund University
