News from the management

Last changed: 20 November 2024
Photo of dean Christina Lunner Kolstrup

Autumn has arrived, December is approaching and the festive period and some time off are just around the corner after an incredibly intense autumn semester.

There’s still a lot we need to do in terms of allocating funding, budgeting, project reports and finishing up courses before we enter 2025. But first – an update on what’s going on at the faculty right now.

Faculty board elections are over

Every three years, SLU holds faculty board elections, and at the start of November, the board’s composition for the 2025–2027 term of office was established:

  • dean/chair: the undersigned
  • deputy dean/deputy chair: Aakash Chawade
  • members: Caroline Dahl, Karl Lövrie, Daniel Valentini, Åsa Lankinen and Laura Grenville-Briggs Didymus
  • and their deputies: Samar Khalil and György Ängelkott Bocz.

I would like to thank you all for the great trust you placed in me and the faculty board during the election period, and I am looking forward to another exciting three years with the board and our faculty.

The faculty board will convene for the last time in 2024 on 11 December. This will be a chance for us to thank the departing members and welcome the new. We will also reflect on this term of office – ‘what have the board worked with and achieved between 2022 and 2024?’

You will be able to access this retrospective in December 2024 faculty board meeting minutes.

Continuing focus on our core activities

Over the coming term of office, we will continue to place full focus on our core activities of research, education and environmental monitoring and assessment. We will boost and promote our research, commit to increasing the degree of successful research applications and invest in efforts to access major national and international research funding.

We will continue the strategic work with our research and teaching infrastructure to increase its use and develop the area in the best way possible given our financial circumstances.

There will also be a focus on continual improvement of our programmes, particularly student recruitment to increase student numbers.

We mustn’t forget that our core activities involve comprehensive collaboration and co-creation with trade, industry and public authorities, making us rather unique at SLU, especially as our faculty has a unit for collaboration and development.

Our campus development is highly prioritised, both in terms of indoor and outdoor environments. First up is the train station and western node that we hope will have been completed by 2027/2028.

Processes ticking along

In terms of the status of the subject field review, the status is as follows: the departments are working intensively together with professional process leaders to implement the faculty board’s decision from 3 April 2024 (the principles for defining a subject field, the appropriate size of a subject field to foster strong research environments, the role and function of heads of subject and principles for the allocation of funding) (the decisions are, in Swedish only, in Public 360).

The departments are at various stages in their processes and we expect that the faculty board will be able to approve the faculty’s new subject fields in October/November 2025, ready to enter into force on 1 January 2026.

The faculty board is eagerly following the departmental processes and is looking forward to all creative, innovative and exciting new subject fields at our faculty.

The faculty’s research infrastructure

The research and teaching infrastructure at the faculty is expansive and significant, and deserves a cohesive, transparent and tactical development plan.

And so, in September 2023 the faculty board approved strategic efforts for our research infrastructure by appointing a vice dean for research infrastructure.

A lot has happened in this area since then. We created the Guidelines for LTV Faculty’s research infrastructure prioritisation and financing (the decisions are, in Swedish only, in Public 360), revised the fees for basic maintenance in the horticulture lab, held several workshops to increase awareness of the further development of our infrastructure, and access contributions.

The workshops were a success and we will be offering similar activities again in the spring and beyond.

During the autumn, we launched a call for smaller research and teaching equipment. It was clear that interest and the need for such efforts was great, and we received 18 excellent applications. On November 19, I decided to grant funding to 6 applications based on recommendations from the assessment panel (the decision in Swedish) (dean, deputy dean, vice dean for research infrastructure and research officer).

Centrally, SLU the focus has been on research infrastructure and in October 2024, the vice-chancellor issued the decision on Designating infrastructures of particular importance and Revision of the research infrastructure policy (the decisions are, in Swedish only, in Public 360).

Very gratifying!

Things are moving full speed ahead for the faculty's activities, and it is such a joy to be part of this! Without naming names, but highlighting some of the latest big news, on October 23, we and Sparbanken Skåne launched the SEK 50 million initiative for our new knowledge center for sustainable primary production in Alnarp. This focus on primary production will be a fantastic boost for the entire industry and our faculty.

Another highlight was the presentation of the SLU Alnarp and Sparbanken Skåne Innovation Awards 2024 to outstanding researchers and students. But the excitement doesn’t stop there - on November 19, the faculty had even more reason to celebrate as we secured two of SLU's centrally funded associate senior lecturer initiatives.

CONGRATULATIONS to all of you and to all of us at LTV!

Finally, I want to thank you all for your dedicated efforts during the autumn, your fantastic enthusiasm and hard work that I know you have given your all. I hope you all have a wonderful December and enjoy the festive period when the time comes!

Warm regards,

Christina

 

 


Contact

Christina Lunner Kolstrup
Dean at the faculty of Landscape Architecture, Horticulture and Crop Production Science

Telephone: +4640415030, +46730881634
E-mail: christina.kolstrup@slu.se