"In the committees, our employees are given the opportunity to contribute their skills to take care of the interests of the entire faculty" says Mikael Elofsson, dean. "This means that it is important to be able to look beyond one's daily activities at one's own department and work to ensure that the faculty as a whole develops in a positive direction."
Four committees
In addition to the Faculty Board, which is the Faculty of Science and Technology's highest decision-making body, there are four other committees. These are the Committee for Doctoral Studies, the Education Committee, the Employment Committee and the Research Committee. The committees' main task is to prepare matters that are ultimately decided on by the Faculty Board - or in some cases at an overall university level. The committees consist of faculty employees, student representatives and in some cases external members.
The Employment Committee deals with all teaching appointments, ie all announcements about associate senior lecturers, senior lecturers, professors and researchers. The committee is also responsible for promotion matters to senior lecturers and professors. The faculty's employment matters have increased in number due to special initiatives and retirements. For example, this winter's call for associate senior lecturers received 527 applications (!), which required new solutions and routines in the selection process, which the employment committee worked intensively on.
Read more about the Employment Committee's work in recruiting new employees (article in Swedish)
Ensures high-quality doctoral education
For the Committee for Doctoral Studies, the most important issues are about creating rules and routines that, as far as possible, ensure a high-quality postgraduate education. The committee also arranges regular doctoral student and supervisor days, which give the faculty's doctoral students and supervisors the opportunity to meet across subject boundaries to discuss issues concerning doctoral education.
"In the committee, teacher and doctoral student representatives together try to ensure that our doctoral education is getting better without introducing unnecessarily strict, one-sided or restrictive rules" says Frank Drewes, committee chair. "An important prerequisite is that the members' subject background reflects the faculty's breadth and its different traditions, and that we are open to each other's perspectives in order to achieve a good synthesis."
Support to the faculty's researchers
The Research Committee handles research-related issues, such as the distribution of faculty-funded research time (FFT) and funding for medium-cost equipment. In addition, the committee reviews and ranks applications for national programmes and processes applications for admission as docent at our faculty. Over the past year, an important issue for the committee has been the work of developing a quality system for research.
"The work of the research committee aims to support the faculty's researchers and give them the best possible conditions to be able to conduct high-quality research" says Ove Axner, chair of the Research Committee. "In addition to handling announcements of our research support programs (mainly FFT and medium-cost equipment), the work in the near future will include further developing the faculty's quality system for research and providing input to, and preparing a proposal for, the faculty's future research strategy."
Develops the faculty's education
The Education Committee works with issues to increase the quality of the faculty's educations. In recent years, the committee has either decided, or prepared a decision for the Faculty Board, on funding for equipment for education, amanuensis, teacher training and various development projects at the departments. The committee also appoints working groups that investigate major issues, such as course evaluations, strategies for educational communication, the tasks of program managers and programme councils, and the importance of master's programmes. The UK decides on the appointment of new program managers, program councils and training plans. Right now, the committee has an important task to be included in the discussions about current and future educational offerings at the faculty.
"It feels very rewarding to work with the faculty's educational issues. In the education committee, we are given the opportunity to contribute to the development of our educations, create good learning environments and conduct strategic discussions about teaching and learning" says Karolina Broman, chair of the Education Committee.