It quickly turned into late summer – again. I hope that all of you have had the chance to enjoy a pleasant and relaxing summer break after an intensive spring semester with the launch of courses, research projects, new committees and councils, and more. Now we look forward to a fine autumn, hopefully with more new students and colleagues on our campuses, as well as exciting developments in our core activities in Alnarp, Ultuna, and Skara.
The process of developing our new subject areas is now in an exciting final phase, and all of you have worked constructively on this for several years. The heads of department will submit a preliminary draft to the faculty for an initial discussion in the Faculty Board (FN) on October 1. A final decision on our new subject areas for 2026 will be made in the Faculty Board on November 5, 2025. The new subject areas and subject area responsibles will then start from January 1, 2026.
The spring was intense with the process of appointing heads of department for the upcoming term of office (2025-07-01 to 2028-06-30), and we are now gradually settling in. At three of our departments, the current heads and deputy heads will continue: Mats Gyllin and Sara Spendrup (IMS), Stina Powell and Emma Butler (SoL-La), and Ingrid Sarlöv-Herlin and Kristin Wegren (LAPF). Congratulations on your continued mandate and the positive evaluations from both me and your colleagues.
At our three other departments (BT, VF, and VSB), we have been working on recruiting new heads. At VF, the new head and deputy head, Dennis Eriksson and Ramesh Vetukuri, have been in place since July 1. At BT, the new head of department, Lise Lykke Steffensen (former CEO of NordGen), will take office on October 1. Until then, Hanna Sassner and Lars Mogren will continue as head and deputy head. At VSB, the appointment process is still ongoing. Kristina Karlsson Green has been appointed acting head of department until December 31, 2025, and the appointment of a deputy head is underway.
I am personally very pleased that we have appointed our new heads of department, and I look forward to rewarding and exciting collaborations in the coming years with both our “new and continuing” heads.
This autumn, the faculty will place strong emphasis on deciding on our new subject areas, as well as on the upcoming updated strategy for SLU 2026–2030, which will be decided by SLU’s Board in December 2025. A new feature compared to the previous strategy is that we will now have one single strategy applying to all faculties, departments, and operations. Instead of creating separate strategies at the faculty and department level, we will develop strategic operational plans. This work will begin with the heads of department during the autumn semester.
For the faculty leadership and the Faculty Board (FN), there are also other important areas of focus this autumn, such as the allocation of government funding to the faculty’s activities, the work on our strategic competence supply plans (which will be based in part on the new subject areas), continued recruitment for senior positions, discussions on the development of horticultural research, and ongoing efforts within the faculty’s Research Strategy Council regarding how we can further enhance and strengthen the quality and success rate of our research applications.
There are many exciting developments both within the faculty and at SLU more broadly. For the Alnarp campus, the campus plan is nearly finalised (currently out on referral)), and plans for the construction project in the Western Node is progressing steadily.
The SLU and Sparbanken Skåne initiative for the Centre for Sustainable Primary Production is now up and running, and an Assistant Professor position in technology within technological development for a sustainable primary production is planned to be announced in September.
SLU’s major initiative to announce 11 Assistant Professorships under the SLU Futures program is now published online, and we are pleased to see a large number of qualified applicants. During the spring, four SLU units (Movium, EPOK, Field Research on organic production, and the Centre for Biological Control, which previously but no longer have assignments through the government directive) were evaluated. Ahead of the distribution of funding, discussions are ongoing in the Vice-Chancellor’s Management Group regarding the direction and scope of these activities.
On October 2–4, the annual Doctoral Award Ceremony 2025 will take place at Campus Ultuna and Uppsala Castle. At the ceremony, new doctors, jubilee doctors, honorary doctors and recognition of those who have made valuable contributions to our university in various ways will be celebrated We are delighted that our faculty this year, in addition to welcoming several new doctors, has also nominated three honorary doctors: Professor Maggie Roe, agronomist Per Modig, and economist and agricultural entrepreneur Erik O.R. Bengtsson.
As you can see, we have a very exciting autumn ahead of us. And when work feels overwhelming … don’t forget to take a break and enjoy the late summer and the beautiful outdoor environments we have at our various campuses.
Late summer greetings
Christina Lunner Kolstrup
As usual, these are busy days leading up to the start of the semester, and we are very much looking forward to welcoming all our students to our campuses in Alnarp and Ultuna.
The marketing of our study programs has continued during the summer, which has resulted in improved admission figures for several of our programs.
We continue to highlight the important work of student recruitment, and PN-LT will, in dialogue with those concerned, develop an action plan during the autumn for the coming years. From September 1, we will also have a marketing officer from the Communications Department in place, Malin Lundström, who will be an additional partner in this work.
The appointments of program directors of studies for our various programs have now been finalized, and we are continuing to establish structure and working methods for the collaboration between PN-LT, the program directors, and the deputy heads of department responsible for undergraduate education. We will soon be able to share more about this.
Best regards,
Caroline Dahl
Christina Lunner Kolstrup
Dean at the faculty of Landscape Architecture, Horticulture and Crop Production Science
Telephone: +4640415030, +46730881634
E-mail: christina.kolstrup@slu.se
Caroline Dahl
Vicedean of First and Second cycle Education at LTV Faculty,
Senior Lecturer at the Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management
caroline.dahl@slu.se, +4672-213 15 30