On 24 September, the SLU Board adopted the university’s new strategy for 2021–2025. This followed a process where students and employees were invited to give input on the strategy through a concept paper. The input from students and employees were discussed within the vice-chancellor’s management group and the SLU Board. The vice-chancellor’s management group is now discussing what prioritised measures and tasks will implement the strategy in practice. The prioritised measures and tasks will be elements in SLU’s operational plan, which is revised once a year.
Primarily, the strategy should meet internal needs and requirements and be known throughout the organisation. The strategy must relate to the governmental budget and governing process, as well as consider other governing and planning processes at SLU.
The faculty strategies will be appendices to the university strategy. There are no separate strategic direction documents relating to education, environmental monitoring and assessment, external collaboration or internationalisation. All of this is included in the university strategy. Another difference from the 2017–2020 strategy is that prioritised measures and tasks will be placed in a separate document that can be revised: i.e. SLU’s operational plan. Accordingly, follow-up regarding how the strategy has been implemented as well as measure revision will become elements of the customary annual operational planning and allocation of direct government funding cycle.
A concept paper with focus area proposals for the strategy was distributed among all students and employees and in late 2019. The concept paper also contained proposals for a new SLU vision and mission statement. Heads of department, managers and student union chairmen were responsible for giving all employees and students the opportunity to contribute their viewpoints and compiling them in a web- survey. During spring 2020 comments from this referral were taken care of in discussions within the vice-chancellor’s management group and the SLU Board.
Supporting documents to the concept paper were the SLU Board’s and management’s strategy discussions, discussions from the heads of department meeting as well as strategic documents such as the Quality and Impact results and analyses from the student doubling project. Other important contributions were the viewpoints collected from employees, students, external stakeholders and SLU’s new International Advisory Board.
The employees’ viewpoints were discussed during the vice-chancellor’s meeting with the heads of department. Before the meeting, the heads of department had been tasked with discussing which operation-wide areas SLU should prioritise, using supporting documentation. They were also given the opportunity to add further areas they considered important.
Student viewpoints were channeled through Sluss, which received the same supporting documentation for discussion as the heads of department. Sluss was encouraged to carry out the same discussion exercise with its member unions.
In order to receive viewpoints from external stakeholders, SLU held a workshop for invited participants. The aim was to take part in the societal and future analyses that acts as the basis for the strategy. SLU’s new International Advisory Board also discussed the strategy in November 2019 and August 2020.
Before the SLU Board adopted the strategy in September 2020, it was discussed at several board meetings. The strategy was also recurrently discussed in the vice-chancellor’s management group, in which the faculty deans have the opportunity to speak on behalf of the faculties.
Faculties and departments begun their strategy work in autumn 2019 and work in accordance with a schedule adapted to their own operation plans. The faculty strategies were submitted as preliminary drafts to the SLU Board in September 2020, and are approved by the faculty boards before the end of the year.
Department strategy work is part of the operational and skills provision plans, which must be built on strategic societal analysis as well as operational needs, and are used when governing department activities.