Dear colleagues,
Last week was a week of celebration when the contributions of newly minted doctors, honorary doctors and jubilee doctors were recognized at the doctoral degree conferment ceremony. Next week we continue celebrating the achievements of our students and teachers at the graduation ceremonies for our master’s students. The past semester has been remarkable in many ways. We deliver outstanding education and research and internationally we are consistently ranked as the top Social Science faculty in the country. This would not have been possible without all your hard work and dedication, so I would like to start by thanking you all!
Even if we as a faculty have cause for celebrations, these are also difficult times, as the higher education sector, and education especially, is under great strain financially. As we close for the summer this mixed bag of circumstances is likely to be carrying on into the autumn semester and will affect our faculty in different ways. The economic situation and its fallout are creating understandable anxiety and distress but also underscore the urgency of finding ways of using our resources more efficiently. The organisation project that aims at creating fewer and larger departments is one example of this.
The campus development project and the need to reorganise ourselves to make better use of office spaces across the faculty will also affect us all over the coming years. As part of this the Faculty Office is relocating into Allhelgonaskolan in August. Allhelgonaskolan will contain meeting rooms and lounge facilities that can be used by all departments, which we hope will encourage meeting and socializing across departments. While these projects have been born out of necessity, they can hopefully provide examples of how we can work better together across the faculty and find unexplored areas of collaboration.
Another example of such cooperation to look forward to in the autumn, is the establishment of two new interdisciplinary master program that start in Helsingborg in August – the Master of Science Programme in Innovation and Societal Change and the Master of Science Programme in Comprehensive Defence and Civil Preparedness. In September, Professor Lars Coenen will start as the Director of the Social Science Methods Centre, consolidating and developing the role of the centre as a common resource for research across the faculty.
Before then, I would like to conclude by thanking you again for your contribution to the Faculty this semester and wish you all a really well deserved and relaxing summer break!
Agnes Andersson, Dean