I feel greatly honoured to have been entrusted with the position of dean since the start of the year. The challenges are many, but the fundamentals are good – if not excellent!
One major challenge that the Faculty faces is the generation change of personnel, at the same time that we have to educate the baby-boom generation born in the 1990s. To resolve this situation we need to create clear career opportunities for young researchers adapted to our various disciplines: basic research, clinical research, and healthcare science research. Working at the Faculty of Medicine should be an attractive option, where research and teaching should be naturally integrated.
To kick off discussions on career opportunities and regulations, we arranged a meeting with Pro Vice-Chancellor Ingalill Rahm Hallberg and Future Faculty on 25 January. The existing regulations for our research and teaching positions were discussed and Ingalill informed us about the status of the so-called career position (research fellow position, which falls between postdoc and lecturer) now being discussed nationwide. We will continue working on career opportunities during the spring.
Another challenge we now face is how to best utilise our facilities and identifying our infrastructure needs over a five-year horizon, regarding both in vivo and in vitro initiatives. Our activities are currently located primarily in the CRC, BMC and HSC facilities, as well as at Ideon Medicon Village (IMV) beginning in 2012. We must now deal with this expansion and will establish a working group with a special remit for this purpose.
We are also in the midst of a huge trend in our society regarding IT and the Internet, with new communications opportunities that will place very different demands on what we do in the context of both research and education, as well as patient treatment, including everything associated with the concept of individualised medicine.
The quality of our education programmes is extremely high, with many dedicated teachers. We will have to work hard over the next few years to nurture and develop our programmes at all levels in an increasingly tight financial situation. Government funding for our programmes is decreasing, in part as a result of the tuition reform for third-country students and low compensation for increased costs.
Other current challenges include the initiatives transitioning from programme areas to individual projects, where elite initiative is always the motto. At the same time we must ask if only elite initiatives and Nobel prizes are important for research to improve health? I believe it is important to think bigger and broader than that in today's research. We must demand that research benefits society and that the scientific community must promote this objective together. We must do it together because all components, on all levels, are important for this objective. New approaches are necessary for the future, with more interdisciplinary research. We need to further integrate medical research with fields such as technology, as well as with business, the humanities and social sciences. At Lund University we have a great advantage over many other universities because all of the scientific fields are gathered here under a single large umbrella.
We must stay on the cutting edge, while maintaining a broad approach to meet future external challenges. We must also have the opportunity to develop the more daring ideas in our research. The latter is not an easy task because our budget usually applies to such short periods. Nevertheless, the current situation offers advantages; the effects of the financial crisis have not been as severe for us as for countries such as the UK and the United States and some research funding agencies are now also following strategies that incorporate more “daring” thinking.
In order to succeed, we must also focus on innovation, where our ideas can be converted into practical benefits that will both improve life for the individual and establish new companies which will create new jobs. Here the scientific community must become significantly better at expressing what we can accomplish, but we also need help and support, with clearer rules and leadership.
Our healthcare costs are soaring and we read daily in the media about cost cutting. Much of this trend is linked to the fact that we have become better at saving lives. We have developed new therapies, and we live longer, all at a higher cost. Given that we live longer, much of the focus of future research will revolve around aging and how to control these processes. The goal today is perhaps not to further extend our current life expectancy, but to be healthier during normal aging. I have now formed a management team that is well equipped to handle the challenges mentioned above and that will introduce itself in greater detail in future letters from the dean, which we now call the “Management News”.
I would also like to take this opportunity to extend an invitation to meet us at the presentation meetings with the Faculty Management on 17 February. We will introduce ourselves and present our vision for the Faculty and the issues we plan to work on over the coming year, as well as in the longer term. 17 February 9-11 a.m., Belfragesalen, D15, BMC, Lund 17 February 1-3 p.m., Jubileumsaluan, entry 59, SUS Malmö We look forward to seeing you there!
Finally, I would like to thank the outgoing management, headed by Bo Ahrén, and all the staff within the Faculty, for providing us with an excellent position from which we can continue to break new ground for a better life and better health.
Kind regards
Gunilla Westergren-Thorsson, Dean
Demands are growing to provide clear documentation and long-term storage of research results, which will make it easier to review the data used in publications, as well as to trace intellectual property (IP) rights. One relatively simple and modern solution is electronic lab notebooks. A major advantage is that individual researchers get a simple overview and can easily find and search in their results, even for experiments carried out several years earlier. Another plus is that different researchers in the same group are “linked together”, which means they have access to their various sub-projects and can avoid carrying out the same experiment unnecessarily.
Electronic lab notebooks have been discussed within the Faculty of Medicine for a few years and we would now like the Faculty to implement a policy recommending that all researchers use electronic lab notebooks within those disciplines where appropriate. Good, well-functioning electronic systems that use external servers and web-based solutions are now available. The Faculty’s Library and ICT manager, Colm Doyle, will convene a small work group this spring so we can conduct a rapid procurement process to cover the entire Faculty of Medicine. We want to ensure that the provider we select is stable and will continue to offer a moderate price level in the future. Anyone with opinions on electronic lab notebooks is welcome to send an email to Colm, Colm.Doyle@med.lu.se .
Kind regards,
Kristian Riesbeck, pro-dean
The Government wants to expand the training programmes for doctors and nurses in Sweden. Once expansion is complete, the Government intends to open an additional 250 places for doctors and 700 for nurses. The universities have been asked to report to the Government how many places they can add to their programmes and how they intend to accomplish this expansion, especially regarding clinical education. They must also document how they intend to collaborate with the healthcare authorities.
As part of this effort, we have been in contact with Linnaeus University and Kalmar County Council. A cooperation agreement of this kind would allow us to add 20 places to the medical programme at Lund University and regionalise clinical education. This effort is in its infancy and we have come so far that we have drafted a letter of intent, which we hope will be endorsed by all parties—Region Skåne, Kalmar County Council, Linnaeus University and Lund University. The next step will involve the huge task of developing a high-quality education programme that takes into account the educational and professional requirements of everyone involved, especially our students.
We will probably be able to arrange the expansion in the nursing programme together with our current partners for clinical education. We believe we will be able to add a total of 35 places at full expansion.
Kind regards,
Cecilia Lundberg, vice dean
Health Science Day features popular science lectures by researchers from the Department of Health Sciences at Lund University. This year the focus is on children and adolescents. The venue is the SSSH hall at the Health Sciences Centre, Baravägen 3, Lund. 28 March 2008 2-5 p.m.
The Faculty's next Excellence Seminar with Mario Capecchi, Nobel laureate in medicine 2007, will be held on 12 April at 4:00 pm in the auditorium at SUS Lund.
Title: Gene Targeting into the 21st Century: Mouse Models of Human Disease from Cancer to Neuropsychiatric Disorders.
Madeline Durbeej-Hjalt, Heiko Herwald, Angela Cenci Nilsson and William Agace are responsible for the Faculty’s Excellence Seminar.
Håkan Olsson, Department of Clinical Sciences in Lund, who is the recipient of the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant, which entails support for epidemiology research of a maximum of SEK 11 million over a five-year period.
Andreas Sörensen, Department of Clinical Sciences in Lund, who is the recipient of a stipend of SEK 280,000 from the Swedish Brain Foundation for his epilepsy research.
Johan Flygare, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Lund, who is the recipient of the Ingvar Carlsson Award from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. The prize includes a research grant of SEK 2.95 million and the opportunity to participate in a leadership development program.
Lars Hansson, Department of Health Sciences and the Centre for Evidence-Based Psychosocial Interventions, who is the recipient of SEK 8 million from the Government for research on psychosocial interventions for people with serious mental illness.
New professorships:
Sigvard Mölstad New professor of family medicine, associated with employment as a family doctor, Department of Clinical Sciences in Malmö, beginning 1 March 2012.
Malin Malmsjö New professor of medical research with a focus on clinical ophthalmology, associated with employment as a specialist, Department of Clinical Sciences in Lund, beginning 1 January 2012.
Arne Egesten Visiting Professor of experimental pulmonary medicine and allergy, Department of Clinical Sciences in Lund.
The Antidiabetic Food Centre held a seminar that drew considerable attention on food that prevents diabetes at the beginning of last week. The research findings generated considerable media buzz. Speakers included Eva Degerman and Cecilia Holm from our Faculty, who carried out research on rose hips and rye.
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Last modified: 2012-04-11
