Head of Department Letter May 2025
On government governance
The question of what is the best form of governance for Sweden's universities has been discussed in the research bill, in the research community and in the media. Lund University is a government agency, for better or worse. The advantage is that in well-funded times, the form of government agency ensures stable funding and support, and places demands on maintaining a high standard of research and education. Some of the disadvantages are that the government agency form is in practice more sensitive to political influence and that the requirement to follow all the guidelines for government agencies creates a lot of bureaucracy. In today's society, where funding for universities is being eroded and where there are concrete examples, both nationally and internationally, of politicians wanting to influence universities, the question is whether the advantages really outweigh the disadvantages.
The disadvantage that most often appears in everyday life is increased demands for documentation, control and systematic work. Much of this can be handled by faculty, department and division management and the administration, but we have not succeeded in completely shielding our employees from the flow of demands. Perhaps we shouldn't either, to make it clearer why there is OH. Lund University is also subject to the principle of public access to official records, which means, among other things, that our employees' emails or research applications are not completely private and that really anyone has the right to ask us (or the Swedish Research Council) for a copy of the grant application text.
These increasing demands for transparency and control of compliance are basically about the state wanting to know how the money is used, and basically this is completely reasonable. When we receive funding at Lund University, it is the researchers or a PI who - of course within the rules set by LU and the funder - decide how the funds should best be used to drive research forward. But we must also account for exactly how the money is used; the principle of public access to official records requires us to create as much transparency and insight as we can.
There is much in the guidelines for government agencies that is basically very positive - the requirement for transparency, but also the systematic work to improve the work environment, and so on. But the sum of the requirements means a lot of extra work and thus extra costs for us because, unfortunately, the requirements do not come with extra resources. And that additional cost currently has to be taken from the funds that we would otherwise have thought would go to research and education.
As we are unlikely to cease to be a public authority in the near future, the question is how to make the situation more manageable in everyday life. Extra resources from the government would be good but is hardly likely. Are there more areas than today where we can apply the good-enough principle without harming the organisation? Can we make it easier for those who have to provide information and those who have to create a basis for documentation? Can we reduce the need for control by showing more clearly that we are already doing well? Of course, this presupposes that we actually do a good job, and we usually do. Where there are questions to be answered, both our departmental office and the faculties are there to help us - use them in your administrative and systematic work!
Else Lytken
Head of Department of Physics