GU Journal no 2-2011

number 2 | april 2011

UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG

Happy jazz Anders Jormin gives his students their own space in music

At the bottom of GU’s salaries

Research evaluated

Political scientists have had enough

RED 10 in operations in 2012

Sven-Eric Liedman calls for a fight

news 4

news 7

essay 9

The battle isn’t lost yet

words from Vice-Chancellor nyheter

A journal for the Universit y of Gothenburg’s employees

april

e d i to r - i n c h i e f & p u b l i s h e r

Allan Eriksson 031 - 786 10 21 allan.eriksson@gu.se e d i to r & d e p u t y p u b l i s h e r

Eva Lundgren 031 - 786 10 81 eva.lundgren@gu.se p h oto g r a p h y & r e p r o d u c t i o n

Johan Wingborg 031 - 786 29 29 johan.wingborg@gu.se g r a p h i c d e s i g n & l ayo u t

Anders Eurén Björn S Eriksson

c o n t r i b u t i n g au t h o r s

Magnus Pettersson, Sven-Eric Liedman, Annika Hansson and Cheryl M. Cordeiro-Nilsson T r a n s l at i o n

Janet Vesterlund proofreader

Robert Ohlson, Välskrivet ­­i ­Göteborg address

GU Journalen, Göteborgs universitet Box 100, 405 30 Göteborg e-mail

gu-journalen@gu.se internet

www.gu-journalen.gu.se printing

Geson Hylte Tryck issue

6 200 copies ISSN

1402-9626 issues

7 issues/year. The next number will come on May 11th.

RED 10 — The basis for stronger research In RED 10 we have for the first time an external examination of all our research. This shows that we are world leaders in several research areas but also that there are areas we need to develop. When it comes to issues that are common to the University as a whole, we’re given credit for a wellfunctioning infrastructure and doctoral students that are satisfied with their circumstances. Recruitment and the degree of cooperation are areas in which we need to improve, however.

The RED 10 report isn’t just exciting and interesting reading. It’s also very valuable information that we now have to address and use in planning our activities on all levels in the University.

It will also be incorporated as a natural part of the basis for the University of Gothenburg’s long-term strategy for the years 2013 to 2020.

While we’re on the topic of research, there must be many people who have reacted to the report of the National Audit Office on the university sector’s unused research funds, which is currently in the order of 13 billion crowns and is described as a large problem.

That view is equally as foolish as calling a good number of orders in a company a problem.

It’s hardly a new phenomenon that the country’s teaching institutions have unused funds at the end of a year. The explanation is simple. The funds are

sought for research that often will be run over a period of several years at the same time that the money is earmarked for specific projects and is thus in reality already in use. It also takes time to put a research project in action, normally six to 18 months. It can take a considerably longer time in the case of large, cross-disciplinary projects.

An imp ortant reason for the rapid increase in unused research funds in recent years is a significant increase in incoming research grants. This is positive, of course, and something that we’re very happy about. At the same time, the Government’s large and fast strategic research efforts have put greater pressure on teaching institutions. With existing researchers already being used in different projects, we would have needed to employ several hundred new researchers in a short time to manage the accumulated amount of research money. We haven’t had the time for this because each professionally carried out recruitment takes time.

The approach is supported by Anders Borg, Finance Minister. At a recent public meeting he expressed an understanding for the comparison with orders in industry and said that it has to take a little time “before universities and research institutes have grown into the resources”. It’s obviously very good at a time when the competition for

government financing is getting harder and harder. It also indicates a desire to create good conditions for the research capital, which is in turn decisive for Sweden’s chances for developing into an attractive research nation.

At the moment I and many others are shocked by the catastrophe that has hit Japan. It shows how rapidly and unexpectedly big changes can take place in our world. As an international university we have both exchange students and employees in Japan. We have a responsibility for these persons and made sure early on that they received all possible information and support in the current situation.

PAM FREDMAN

photo: Hillevi Nagel

Notiser

l a s t dat e f o r t e x t s

April, 21, 2011 m at e r i a l

GU Journal does not take responsibility for unsolicited material. The editorial department is responsible for unsigned material.

You are welcome to quote, but indicate the source. change of address

Inform the editorial department of a change of address in writing. c ov e r pag e

Anders Jormin, musician, com­ poser and teacher. Professor at the Academy of Music and Drama, Göteborg.

Photo: Johan Wingborg

Reg.nr: 3750M

Reg.nr: S-000256

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from the Editorial office Work has earlier been considered to be synonymous with salaried work, with a clear division of time for work and leisure, in hours, minutes and four weeks of undisturbed vacation. The definition of work has been reconsidered along with financial developments and the boundaries between leisure time and private life have become less and less distinct. For many of us who have a more free, creative work it’s becoming increasingly difficult to draw boundaries.

So, finally, the completed report: RED 10, a detailed volume of 653 pages.

It’s the most comprehensive examination of the University’s research that’s

ever been done. It will be exciting to see what happens now and how the report can be used to develop the University of Gothenburg. to the management’s proposal for a new organisation have come in – no less than 89 responses.

We’ve only read a handful of them but it isn’t particularly surprising that the faculties are strongly critical to central parts of the proposal, which shows the difficulties in breaking up the University’s power structure. One common view is that the plans for a reorganisation come in the wrong order.

First the core activities are to be strucMany reac tions

tured, and then comes the support.

Furthermore, RED 10 has come with its report, which must be analysed.

In this number we give attention to salaries among social scientists at GU, which are relatively low in a national comparison. This surely is also true in the humanities. It is startling that there are such large differences between teaching institutions and between scien­tific areas. GU’s low salaries are also mentioned in RED 10.

ALLAN ERIKSSON & EVA LUNDGREN

contents

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9

13 10

7 4

Mass protest against low salaries Political scientists have low salaries in a national comparison and lower than average at their own faculty.

6

Investigation of research Research in the whole university has been evaluated by inter­ national panels. The results were positive in most cases, but GU is poor at mobility.

7 8

Research evaluated RED 10 in operations in 2012.

Everybody has to fit into the same model Sven-Eric Liedman is worried about today’s measure of know­ ledge and productivity.

With a contra-bass in his baggage It isn’t the easiest thing to fly with a contra-bass but Anders Jormin has built his own collapsible instrument.

Marine environment to be a centre All faculties will cooperate on marine research.

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10

13

14

Do I work?

Bo Rothstein can’t find a form in which he can describe what he works with.

Plus, a debate on rankings.

Can unique recipes be patented?

Cheryl M. Cordeiro-Nilsson reveals the best recipe on how to make blueberry muffins.

g u j o u r n a l 2 | 1 1 3

News

Political scientists demand better pay Dissatisfaction is growing at the Department of Political Science.

Almost 60 employees have signed an open letter to the Prefect, Dean, Vice-chancellor and the union organisations. Their demand? Much higher salaries.

In the face of this year’s salary negotiations, lecturers Staffan I. Lindberg and Carol Dahlström have made an examination of salaries where they have compared what political scientists in Göteborg earn in relation to social scientists across the country and compared the situation with their colleagues in Lund and Uppsala. The results were somewhat of a shock.

“We could hardly believe it was true. A professor at the Department of Political Science earns on average 5 600 crowns less a month compared with political scientists in other parts of the country. The difference in average salary among lecturers is about 4 600 crowns. The salary level isn’t only low on a national level but also compared with other departments in the faculty,” says Staffan I. Lindberg, who moved here last spring from the University of Florida, where he worked for five years. He salary as lecturer was set without any negotiation at 34 500 crowns.

“Take it or leave it! That’s the way I interpreted the Prefect’s offer. I foolishly believed that salaries were set in a fair way. Then when I started to go around I understood that many salaries, not only mine, were set on the basis of an absolute minimal level that had become a norm. A lot of people are angry and disappointed.”

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Exactly what demands are you making for this year’s salary negotiations?

“We expect that the difference will strongly decrease. If we don’t come up to a level with Lund University, we’re ready to go further and consider other measures. So far we’ve only glanced at our toolbox. We have 100 years of union experience behind us and it’s obvious that there are many capable people at the Department that can act politically.”

The report doesn’t come as a surprise to Prefect Ulf Bjereld.

“It doesn’t disclose any news, but it lifts the differences that exist in a systematic way. The low salary level has its historical roots but the situation was made sharper when the Department went through an economic crisis about six or seven years ago. Its economy has stabilised now.”

He p oints out that during the last two salary negotiations the Depart­ ment’s researchers have gotten the largest wage hikes in the Faculty.

Ulf Bjereld thinks that the low salary level, both in relation to other teaching institutions and other units at the university, is unreasonable.

“The Department of Political Science is described in RED 10 as a flag ship at the Faculty. It’s a matter of general knowledge that our teachers and researchers are at the forefront in Swedish and in some cases international political science.”

Allan Eriksson

photo: Johan Wingborg

Staffan I. Lindberg thinks that it’s strange that the salaries are so low considering that the Department shows a good standing in all evaluations. Many researchers publish frequently in scientific journals and the Department has been very successful at attracting external funds.

“But this collective success isn’t reflected in the salary level,” says Staffan I. Lindberg. “It’s a mystery why we would have a considerably lower salary as compared with other departments in one and the same faculty.”

He sees an obvious risk that it will be difficult to recruit and keep top competence in the future.

“Why should a person stay here

when you can get so much higher pay somewhere else? The labour market is much more flexible today and the time when people took a position without Staffan Lindberg caring about the salary is gone. Let me give an example: If I work as a senior lecturer for 15 years and then as a professor for 15 years I have a loss of income of two million crowns as compared to what I would have gotten in Lund. The basic point is that if we want to be a leading university, we have to be able to pay competitive salaries. That’s the way things are nowadays.”

News

Salaries in the social sciences average salaries/month Lecturer

Professor Researcher/

Research assistant

Dept of Political Science

34 431

46 918

29 403

Social Science Faculty

35 391

49 425

35 800

University of Gothenburg

36 676

51 890

34 593

Nationally

38 990

55 140

35 970

Lund University

38 383

52 829

Uppsala University

38 503

55 397

The salary statistics are from September 2010.

At the Department of Political Science, post-doc positions are included in the category of resear­ cher. The average salary for professors is given, with the exception of one person who raises the average salary by 2 000 crowns. For Uppsala University, only professors employed by UU are given; no professors who were promoted to the position or appointed by the Government are in­

cluded. The national statistics are based on infor­ mation taken from salary statistics of the Swedish Association of University Teachers and apply for social sciences and law/jurisprudential areas. The figures for the University of Gothenburg cover the whole university, not only the social sciences.

The average salary in the social sciences is given for Lund and Uppsala universities.

Extra efforts needed The union supports both the political scientists’ and the psychology professors’ demands for higher pay.

Martin Sel ander, chairman of the central organisation for Sweden’s academicians at GU, thinks that it’s a problem that the salary situation is low throughout the whole humanities-social sciences area compared with the rest of the country.

“It’s important to raise salaries in general, and especially for teachers and researchers, but it’s no easy task. In spite of the fact that we got a very good salary agreement, it can be tough to straighten out everything that’s a little crooked. It isn’t possible in one wage negotiation – it needs extra efforts that to a great extent have to be financed outside of the

Promoted professors have lower salaries Psychologists have also taken up the fight for higher salaries. Seven professors, all of them promoted, wonder why they have considerably lower salaries than professors that have been recruited to the position, despite the fact that they do the same work.

Jan Johansson Hanse has charted the salary situation among the professors at the Department of Psychology and found that it differs by about 8 500 crowns per month between promoted and recruited professors.

According to him, there’s no reason for the difference.

“There aren’t any differences between our work responsibilities any more. We do the same job. The last difference disappeared last fall when we promoted professors were given the right to act as examiners for doctoral theses and the right to participate in the research education council, and we’re in the majority there now.”

At the Department, all promoted professors have a salary below 50 000 crowns while all recruited professors have salaries above 50 000 crowns.

“It’s a difference of 100 000 crowns a year.”

The average sal ary for professors that have been promoted to their positions is about 46 000, which in a national comparison means that they are in the lowest salary category, the

so called 10th percentile.

Jan Johansson Hanse refers to GU’s rules for setting salaries where it’s written that “salaries for equivalent work responsiJan Johansson Hanse bilities shall be set equal” if there is no reason for any other level.

In spite of the fact that the promoted professors have the same work responsibilities they also have considerably more teaching duties than recruited professors.

“We have gotten significantly more responsibility in recent years.

Regardless of how you look at it, we promoted professors in psychology have a low salary compared with other professors at the Department and in a national comparison.”

But Prefect Ander s Biel doesn’t agree that there are unreasonable differences in salary.

“As a department we have to be able to plan our activities and we can’t get an overview of how many will be promoted. It can be very expensive for us if we both take on doctoral students and pay high salaries to professors.

The consequences are that we get fewer doctoral students at the same time that we get more and more professors that have an important respon-

general agreement pot,” says Martin Selander.

The central organisation thinks that the demands that political scientists are raising are reasonable.

“We know about the numbers and it’s frustrating that the differences are so large, both between different teaching institutions and within one and the same faculty.”

Another question in which the union has fought for a long time is evening out differences in salaries between promoted and recruited professors.

“There are teaching institutions that have worked in particular to come to rights with the problem, and GU has a lot to learn there,” says Martin Selander.

Allan Eriksson

He decided against GU

sibility to supervise doctoral students.”

“Also, a promotion is a possibility, not a right, that means that you get a little better pay and a little more time for research.”

People who apply for a position as professor are given a tougher examination than ones who are promoted, according to Anders Biel. He points out that there are also differences in what is included in the work. For example, supervising doctoral students is not a part of the ordinary work tasks of promoted professors but rather something that he or she gets extra hours for.

“Salary is an important driving force but not the only one. There should be a difference in salary between the two groups, but I don’t want to make any statement about whether the difference should be 5 000 crowns a month or 8 000 crowns. I would like salary to be connected with performance – some people do more and others less, and it should be worthwhile to be a good and productive worker.”

Jan Johansson Hanse and his colleagues have sent in a request for salary adjustment, where they argue that they’ve been incorrectly placed in terms of salary.

“The majority of future professors will be promoted, so if we don’t do anything about it now we’ll be in even worse shape in an international comparison,” says Jan Johansson Hanse.

ALLAN ERIKSSON

Professor Mikael Heimann decided against the University of Gothenburg, not only because of the low salary but also because conditions were much worse.

He graduated

in Göteborg with a degree in psychology and did his doctorate at Pennsylvania State University, USA. After having worked at GU during the whole 1990s, he was awarded a professorship at the University of Bergen, where he stayed for five years and then became professor at Linköping University. He applied for a position as lecturer at GU in 2008.

He was offered the job, but things took a turn during negotiations about salary and conditions.

“First I had to go along with a salary reduction of 10 000 crowns and then accept a position with 70 per cent teaching. My impression was that there wasn’t any room for negotiation, not even two millimetres.”

He decided to stay in Linköping.

Today his salary is over 60 000 crowns a month and he has a position in which he does research 80 per cent of his time.

“In my experience, Linköping University is a little more flexible than the University of Gothenburg.

There’s a tradition that old universities don’t need to compete since it’s anyway so popular to go to them, but it means that you take a risk.” g u j o u r n a l 2 | 1 1 5

Why did you start twitter? photo: Johan Wingborg

“I started t wit tering

mostly to learn how it works. Now I know and I see at the same time what an effective channel for communication it is.

You run across everything from students to ministers and you can choose yourself how you

want to use the medium. I keep pretty strictly to watching world events and to things that are related to work,” says chief of administration P-O Rehnquist.

Find his twitter flow at: http://twitter.com/ PeORehnquist

Nominate pedagogics prizes for 2011! the Univer sit y of Gothenburg gives two pedagogics prizes each year, one individual prize and one team prize, to give attention to teachers who have develo­ ped and carried out a course

or educational program in an exemplary way.

Students and employees are asked to give their nominations.

The nomination time ends on the 5th of May. Read more at: www. gf.adm.gu.se/kvalitetsarbete

News

18 panels evaluated GU Too little time for on-site visits With RED 10, the University is 653 pages of research examination richer. Project leader Susanne Holmgren and Gustav Bertilsson Uleberg are satisfied with the work that’s been done.

But the people who made the examinations and the institutions think that the on-site visits should have been given a longer time.

The p oint of RED 10 was to identify strengths and weaknesses in research at GU. Eighteen panels with international experts evaluated and gave marks to equally as many research areas, from “poor” to “outstanding”.

The report shows that the examiners have put emphasis on different aspects – such as productivity, the relevance of the research and the organisational capacity – in different ways depending on the research area and the departments.

“That’s natural. All panels were given the same instructions, verbally and in writing. But certain things shine in some areas while other things are given attention because they aren’t as good. The examination also spans over different areas with different cultures,” says Susanne Holmgren, one of the two project leaders.

For instance, the Depart­ment of Mathematical Sciences wasn’t given a mark as a whole. That has to do with the Department’s head being Chalmers and because the basis that was given was considered not to be sufficient by the panel’s experts.

“We’re still very satisfied with having done this large project according to deadline,” says Susanne Holmgren.

The project leaders will summarise the work with RED 10 in an internal report in April. It will in time

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be available to teachers at GU at the University of Gothenburg’s learning platform. One of the purposes of RED 10 was also for GU to learn something about the actual evaluation process.

The examiners have given criticism for there having been too little time for on-site visits. What do you say?

“It’s a dimensioning of budget, environmental questions and other details. This evaluation is not as detailed as when only one subject area is evaluated. We used the same model that was used in Lund. But I anyway understand that both experts and departments think it would have been good if there had been a longer time,” says Susanne Holmgren.

At the same time, the on-site visits weren’t the most important things but the departments’ written basic data and their own evaluations.

Some institutions haven’t completely followed the guidelines of the project leaders. Have there been problems with information?

“It may have been felt that this is so. But the guidelines for departments and experts were there and we’ve been available for questions the entire time. This is the first time that we’ve made an overall evaluation of the research at GU. Some have been successful and others less successful, at creating bases. It may be a question of how used to it they are,” says Susanne Holmgren.

The 18 panels consisted of different people. It’s only the departments in each of the 18 research areas that were examined by one and the same group of experts. The question is whether it is possible to compare the different departments with one another.

“I think that it can be done if you

The purpose has been to compare the departments with the international level within the area.

Susanne Holmgren and Gustav Bertilsson Uleberg .

say at the same time that this is a starting point for discussion,” says Susanne Holmgren and adds that the amount of money each researcher has available to him or her can be an interesting factor.

At the same time, the purpose was for the experts to compare each department against the background of the international level for the area or the subject:

“Ideally speaking, each panel expression stands as a separate document. The purpose hasn’t been to compare the departments with one another but each department with the international level within the area,” says Gustav Bertilsson Uleberg.

Are there any negative aspects in this kind of research examination?

“One risk is conflict of interests in

Reduction in emissions

different subjects. If you’re a natural scientist, you may automatically think that what natural scientists do is good. That can be the case in all areas and on all levels. It doesn’t mean that you consciously raise your own subject but that you understand it better, and that can of course both lift and sink,” says Susanne Holmgren.

As a complement to the experts’ report, a consulting company made bibliometric analyses based on publication registered in the University of Gothenburg’s publications between 2004 and 2009. The analyses show great differences in international publications between subject areas.

They also show that the proportion of publications written by several authors varies, from very few in music, drama and literature to very many in biology. Susanne Holmgren and Gustav Bertilsson Uleberg emphasise that bibliometrics can’t replace the kind of qualitative studies that were done in RED 10.

MAGNUS PETTERSSON

RED 10 Results in brief The investigators praise GU for: – many excellent research areas – a unique position in life sciences, medicine and in several areas of the humanities – satisfied doctoral students – excellent facilities The investigators recommend GU to: – recruit more researchers outside of GU – increase the flow of post-docs and other researchers early in their career from and to GU – review the structure for departments and faculties and decrease the number of highly specialised and undermanned units – strengthen cross-disciplinary cooperation within GU and with other teaching institutions They also note that research funds sometimes pay for instruction, that the body of researchers is homogeneous with respect to sex, nationality and ethnicity and that salaries are not competitive.

Read the report at: www.vision2020. gu.se/strategiska-projekt/RED10/ rapport/.

decreased by over 6 per cent.

In total, carbon dioxide decreased by 20 per cent. The large decrease has primarily to do with another way of calculated emissions from heating and electricity, which considers the actual emissions. An explanation is that 90 per cent of the University’s buildings

now have agreements on renewable electric energy.

The reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from heating and electricity corresponds to 899 airplane trips from Landvetter to New York and back, or 111 trips around the world with a petroldriven Volvo S40.

RED 10 in operations in 2012 The conclusions made in RED 10 will be used in operations plans for 2012. That’s Vice-chancellor Pam Fredman’s message to GU’s prefects and deans.

GU recruit s too many researchers internally, researcher salaries are not competitive and international publications are very rare in some areas.

The criticisms that GU has to address are many.

Pam Fredman passes on the question of what specific measures can be expected, however.

“The results of RED 10 are going to be managed on all levels of the University. Centrally at GU it has to do with the overall questions. For example, we have to think about how we recruit researchers. What incitement do we give to get them to continue their work? We also have to be better in general at cooperating within and outside the University,” says Pam Fredman.

It isn’t certain however when a recruiting policy will come. RED 10 has to be processed first.

The report says that salaries at GU aren’t competitive. What will you do about that?

“We don’t own the salaries ourselves since it has to do with compensation from the state. Salaries are generally low in the Swedish university world,” says Pam Fredman and adds that, in Sweden, much is included in the general welfare that is costly for the individual in other countries.

Foreign researchers have to be given better information about this.

RED 10 indicates that GU lacks a strategy for finding work for the spouses of researchers recruited outside the country.

“This isn’t just a university issue, since the spouse may not work in a

photo: Carina Elmäng

The Universit y is reaching

the aim of reducing emissions of gases that affect the climate. Last year, the total carbon dioxide emissions from travel, electricity and heating de­ creased by 4.4 per cent. Use of electri­ city increased by 5 per cent compared with 2009 and use of district heating

CO2 per source of emission (kg)

university. It’s a large political question and we’ve also brought it up in other contexts.”

that’s been given a low mark will be shut down, but it can grow together with others,” says Pam Fredman.

“I expect that the results of RED 10 will be reflected in the operations plans at the different levels for 2012.”

The RED 10

Pam Fredman does promise to deal with one thing immediately, however: web pages. The investigators report that the web pages in English often deviate greatly from what’s written on the Swedish pages and recommend better agreement.

“First and foremost it has to be possible to find the pages when you come from outside. And of course the English pages have to agree with the pages in Swedish.”

investigator s

also gave marks to research at the different units, from “poor” as the lowest to “outstanding” as the highest. An important question will be how to handle departments with low marks.

“I want that to be discussed primarily on the department level.

But I said from the beginning that it may mean making new priorities.

It doesn’t have to mean that a unit Pam Fredman

Magnus Pettersson

Research environments of top quality according to RED 10 Outstanding – Department of Computer Science and Engineering – Chemical ecology (Department of Marine Ecology) – Mitochondria and metabolism (Institute of Biomedicine) – Oral biochemistry (Institute of Odontology) Excellent to outstanding – Biomaterials (Institute of Clinical Sciences) – Molecular and clinical medicine (Institute of Medicine) – Endocrine physiology (Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology) – Psychiatry and neurochemistry (Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology) – Child and youth psychiatry (Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology) Excellent – Department of Education, Communication and Learning – Department of Work Science – Department of Marine Ecology

– Department of Chemistry – Swedish NMR Centre – Department of Physics – Department of Political Science – Department of Psychology – Bacteriology and immunology (Institute of Biomedicine) – Glycobiology (Institute of Biomedicine) – Gastrosurgical research and education (Institute of Clinical Sciences) – Symptoms and health (Institute of Health and Care Sciences) – Internal medicine (Institute of Medicine) – Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology – Neurophysiology – Odontologic psychology and public health (Institute of Odontology) – Oral and maxillofacial radiology (Institute of Odontology) – Parodontology (Institute of Odontology) – Gothenburg Research Institute, GRI

g u j o u r n a l 2 | 1 1 7

announcements

News

KI confirms fraud

New centre for marine science

Researcher Suchitra Holgersson, earlier at KI, is guilty of fraudulence in research of a very serious kind, determines KI’s Vice-chancellor, according to KI Bladet, Karolinska Institute’s internal newspaper. u In the fall of 2008 the Swedish Research Council was given the task

by Vice-chancellor Harriet WallbergHenriksson, Karolinska Institute, and Vice-chancellor Pam Fredman, the University of Gothenburg, of making an independent investigation of the charges of fraudulence against Suchitra Holgersson, professor of transplantation biology. The Council’s expert group confirmed in September 2010 that it was cases of serious and very serious scientific fraudulence.

Among the grievances are manipula­ tion of basic material, poor docu­ mentation and information intended for scientific presentations that lack support in actual research results. KI’s lawyers agree that there was fraudu­ lence in research of a very serious kind and that Suchitra Holgersson, as research group leader and supervisor, bears the ultimate responsibility.

Suchitra Holgersson refers the charges of fraudulence to conflicts between herself and her doctoral students and to previous heads at KI. “I’m innocent of what I’ve been charged with and distressed over the partiality in KI’s and the investigators’ actions in this case,” says Suchitra Holgersson to KI Bladet.

Procedure at the University of Gothenburg The University of Gothenburg has not yet made a decision about what will happen in the case of Suchitra Holgersson. But an investigation by an external law office recommends Vice-chancellor Pam Fredman to take the case to the Swedish authority that investigates these types of matters (Statens ansvarsnämnd), which takes a decision concerning dismissal.

The law office agrees with the Swe­ dish Research Council’s expert group’s judgement that Suchitra Holgersson is guilty of fraudulence in research, an act that has disturbed the University of Gothenburg’s trust in her, and that she has seriously neglected her responsibilities in her position.

The Vice-chancellor must now decide whether the matter will go further to Statens ansvarsnämnd.

There is no report of research fraudu­ lence during Holgersson’s time at the University of Gothenburg.

ALLAN ERIKSSON

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The University of Gothenburg is among the leading universities in Europe in marine research.

To further strengthen the area a centre for oceanography is being established in Göteborg.

“We’re in a golden position.

We have to use it in the best way,” explains Director Kerstin Johannesson.

T wo well equipped field stations, two research ships and an outstanding breadth in education and research make the University of Gothenburg the strongest in northern Europe in marine research. But it isn’t only the Faculty of Natural Sciences that’s interested in oceans.

“We have lawyers that do environmental research, economists that study profitable fishing, even historians that can talk about the fishing trade 300 years ago,” says Kerstin Johannesson, professor of marine ecology. The difference is often that social scientists are interested in more general questions, such as what can be done to ensure biodiversity or how conflicts over natural resources should be handled, regardless of whether it has to do with views about wolves or harbour seals. The ocean is a part of their research field. Natural scientists instead concentrate all their research on marine systems. It can be problematic that we formulate our questions in different ways and use different methods, but we can learn from each other and get new insights.

The oceanography centre will be

placed at Göteborg’s environmental science centre, GMV, and Kerstin Johannesson sees several advantages in this.

“GMV is a cooperative effort between the University and Chalmers and we hope to be able to exploit that. We’ll also work roughly in the same way as GMV, that is not employ researchers but instead act as a meeting place and catalyser for new cooperative efforts and projects. We also hope to be able to make efforts in information and to be a portal for all marine research at the University. And an annual conference, gladly in cooperation with the Institute of Marine Environment and the new authority for oceanography and water, could perhaps be one of the most important marine events for researchers and people from the authority.”

Seven pair s of doctoral students will be connected to the centre this coming fall. Each pair, together with their supervisor, will carry out a common research project on the marine environment.

“That means that we create valuable links between different faculties,” explains Kerstin Johannesson. “And it’s in that meeting between researchers from different traditions that new, interesting research ideas com up. I hope not least for a debate between researchers that are oriented more toward so called societal relevance and those who are driven more by curiosity. I don’t think otherwise that these differences are particularly important. All good research is use-

ful, sooner or later.”

As of a couple of years ago, Göteborg has hosted the Swedish Institute for the Marine Environment, which administratively is under the University of Gothenburg. The new authority for oceanography and water, which will start operations on July 1, will also be located here, which means that Göteborg will be Sweden’s marine centre.

“There is a need today for teaching institutions to develop a profile, and Göteborg is located ideally by the ocean. But I still think that many people don’t know how much of a leader we actually are. For example, the greatest competence in research on the Baltic Sea is also in Göteborg, surprisingly enough to many.”

A steering commit tee is now being formed for the Institute for the Marine Environment, and will include lawyer Lena Gipperth, physiologist Joakim Larsson and political scientist Sverker Jager. In time, a reference group with for instance local politicians will be associated with the centre.

“The ocean interests people,” Kerstin Johannesson emphasises.

“Life began in the ocean, most people go to the coast at least some time every year, and we like to eat products from the ocean. It will be useful to many people that the Göteborg region takes responsibility for the ocean.”

EVA LUNDGREN

Read more about the pair doctoral student project in GUJ 7:2010.

Handicraft teachers move to the School of Design and Crafts (HDK) In the summer, the program for design and craft teachers will move to the School of Design and Crafts (HDK).

“After many years in temporary premises and with dashed hopes over moving plans, this feels very positive,” says Peter Hasselskog, in charge of the educational program.

The Universit y of Gothenburg has a unique educational program where crafts and design are seen as one single subject, not divided into textile, wood and metal crafts.

“That’s because, in relation to many

of the goals in the subject of crafts, the important thing isn’t the material,” explains Peter Hasselskog. “We can also use plastic, ceramics, glass and cement – the significant thing is learning a creative approach. Today we talk a lot about entrepreneurship permeating the educational programs, both in compulsory school and high school.

There I think that crafts have much to add. Everyone won’t have their own businesses, but everybody can learn a creative approach and try to see possibilities instead of giving up in the face of difficulties.”

The design and craft teacher program currently belongs to the

Department of Food and Nutrition, and Sport Science at the Faculty of Education. The premises are on Klangfärgsgatan in Västra Frölunda.

The move will be to new premises at Valand and also a change to the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts.

“HDK already has an art teacher program and the Faculty also takes care of the music teacher program.

It’s going to be very exciting for us to move to a new, creative environment.

But I also think that the art programs will benefit by getting a stronger didactic perspective and new possibilities for research cooperation.”

Essay

photo: Ingvar Hjort

Increasing threats to the freedom of research

Sven-Eric Liedman

The universit y is always a part of the melting pot. There’s one reorganisation after the other. Things aren’t different in Göteborg. It’s been suggested that people in private companies should lead what was once free faculties. Why not let a docent in the Greek language step into Leif Johansson’s shoes at Volvo?

But this is too serious to joke about. The remodelling has to do with the entire school system and is going on all over Europe. The code word is adaptation. Everything has to be adapted to what is supposed to be the near future. Everyone has to be included in an e-mail – as much students as their teachers.

Too much pedagogic energy goes today toward adapting students to a society in which they are to be reduced to obedient workers. But a more important task – more important not least for the labour market!

– is to get them to think freely and critically. Questioning is the most necessary resource in both education and research. The desire to ask uncomfortable questions is also important for democracy, particularly in a situation in which politics is becoming a business idea.

But now it has to do instead with standardising products. Under the name of autonomy, everything and everyone have to be subjected to an inner discipline that finally becomes second nature.

The Swedish remodelling is more clever and treacherous than in countries such as Great Britain and France. Authorities in those countries express themselves clearly.

In Sweden, more and more actors play double roles: it’s often teachers, researchers, even students, who themselves function as administrators of the new system. It creates a “we spirit” that spreads a feeling of shared responsibility.

It’s futile to imagine an open uprising against the new order of things.

What would that lead to? Possibly a short period of anarchy – hardly anything more. I rather believe in a less noticeable, almost sneaky disobedience of power and its decrees.

It isn’t necessary to break against

the external form. Instead, you fill in your forms, quickly and with the right touch of nonchalance. You learn what many, under much more difficult conditions, learned in the Soviet Union and its satellite countries. The system imposed becomes roughly like making the sign of the cross by a Catholic that has no religious convictions. You make the sign of the cross, you cite your Brezjnev or Honecker and then move quickly on to the important thing: giving free instruction that helps to give free people and free research that also question what men and women in power say.

It’s worth lingering at the question of what freedom in research and instruction actually means. You can develop nonchalance in the case of forms and meetings, but not in the case of knowledge. There you have to keep to your tasks, roughly like a talented musician keeps to his instrument. The person that becomes a master of his instrument can improvise and thereby maintain freedom. The instruction and research that deviate from the imposed mediocrity have to do that by being better than what the norms prescribe. This may not mean excellence in the narrow, research political sense of the word. Excellent in that sense is a virtuoso that doesn’t open new roads. Excellence is locked up in a set of rules.

One of today’s fashionable words has to do with the autonomy of teaching institutions. Why not take the talk about autonomy seriously and act as though there were truth in that?

Why not make use of the breaking up of the old order? The authorities have pasted up new wallpaper and demand that people in higher education melt into it. But what can the authorities do about the ones who step out of the wallpaper? In spite of all the limitations, the environment at the head of the class, at seminars and in laboratories is still more free than in most other places in society.

The heaviest means of power that authorities can use are economic.

Students are disciplined by a system for study subsidies that forces them to choose the shortest route to their degrees and careers. Teachers have

Under the name of auto­ nomy, everything and every­one have to be subjected to an inner discipline that finally be­comes second nature.

to ensure that their students earn their credits in the prescribed time; otherwise their departments, faculties and teaching institutes are punished. Researchers have to obediently choose the areas pointed out to them as those that are economically most profitable.

The ones for whom it is easiest to slide away from the concept are researchers. They can formally keep to the subject areas imposed and still exploit their freedom.

Finally, teachers are also relatively free with their students. It is most difficult for students to manage the economic pressure. For this reason, teachers and researchers should go in a common protest against a system that makes it more difficult for the young generation to freely seek knowledge. I believe that a protest of that kind, if it is powerful enough, would be able to give results.

The university, this old institution that has gone through so many crises and so many metamorphoses, still isn’t lost.

Sven-Eric Liedman Historian of Ide a s

This chronicle comes in reference to the book Hets! En bok om skolan (Agitation! A Book about Schools), which was published in January. g u j o u r n a l 2 | 1 1 9

Anders Jormin has taught at the Academy of Music and Drama for over 30 years. He’s also a world-renowned jazz musician and gets more invitations to play than he has time for.

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Profile |

text: Annika Hansson photo: Johan Wingborg

Tr av el l i n g in t h e co mpa ny

of a double-bass Anders Jormin is a professor of music who gives concerts all over the world and has played together with many of the big names in jazz.

But what he likes best is to sit at home in his house in Bohuslän and compose music. “That’s when I feel best – or at least that’s when time flies fastest.”

We meet for an interview early in the afternoon in February at Artisten, the location of the Academy of Music and Drama. Anders Jormin has just completed his instruction duties for the day but hasn’t yet eaten breakfast or lunch. So he buys yoghurt and a sandwich to take to his workroom, where we make ourselves comfortable. It’s pleasant and cozy.

The book shelves are full of cds and lps and books.

An old black piano stands in one corner, flanked by three double-basses.

“The bass in the middle can be taken apart – I can screw off the neck. So the instrument is half the size of what it otherwise is,” explains Anders Jormin, who travels all over the world. Flying with a double-bass isn’t easy.

“When I say that I’m coming with a double-bass, the airlines usually give me a no. So a number of double-bass players around the world have started using different variations of dismountable instruments. I designed mine together with a repairman in the city. I call it my Ikea-bass,” he says laughing.

“Sometimes I have to be in Paris one day, in Berlin the next and then in Göteborg the third. You can’t just hope to be able to hop on the next plane.”

Anders Jormin has played and toured internationally with artists like Charles Lloyd, Don Cherry, Lee Konitz and Paul Motian. He’s also one third of the jazz pianist Bobo Stenson’s trio. And he has his own group that he recently started that they call Klotter (graffiti). The two vocalists sing all of the group’s texts in Latin, a language that fascinates Anders so much that he writes poetry in Latin.

“It’s a language that has meant, and still means, so much, as a language of power and a conveyor of knowledge. But nobody speaks it.”

Ander s Jormin is now trying to limit his music tours as much as he can. Travel wears you out.

“I’m genuinely tired of airports, especially considering the trouble there is with the instrument. I get a little anxious every time I leave Landvetter.”

Still, he travels somewhere in the world at least a couple of times a month.

“Yes, especially in Europe to cities like Rome, Paris and Berlin. I get to the US about once a year and to Japan about every other year.” If he wanted to, he could do tours full time.

“Yes, every day I get one or two e-mails with offers that I give a grateful no to. You have to have a kind of balance. And I’m a professor – I appreciate that very much and I take it very seriously.”

53-year-old Anders Jornim has taught at the Academy of Music and Drama for over 30 years.

His subjects are double-bass and improvisation. He obviously likes being an instructor.

“It’s being in constant change. You meet new people all the time. It’s very demanding and it’s very rewarding. Since music grips me, I love music, it’s a delight to share it with others. The biggest difference between me and the very talented students I meet is my experience.”

Is it possible to teach improvisation?

“The concept of improvisation covers so much.

There were methods and ideas about how to improvise long before jazz. But for me improvisation also means a personal way of meeting music.”

Anders Jormin explains that, with a so called holistic way of approaching music, the person who makes music is just as central as the composer. It has to do with the musical term “interpretation”.

He emphasises that he works a great deal with developing things that are personal in teaching.

“The way I think is that each student is unique.

There’s a new and different interplay between me and each new student, a new relation.”

The ambition in this educational program is to have a very open attitude toward music, according to Ander Jormin – not to divide music into different styles but to expand the concept.

Since music grips me, I love music, it’s a delight to share it with others.

In terms of jazz music, he thinks that interest just gets bigger among younger people.

“There’s a growing interest in playing jazz.

There’s obviously something that’s attractive in creating music where a person can have a place himself, where there’s room for improvisation. Young people feel that they’re seen there.”

It isn’t easy to financially support oneself in the field of music, but the Academy of Music and Drama tries to prepare its students for the reality they have to face after their academic studies.

“We try of course to help them to mature artistically and gain ground so that they have something essential to offer when they’ve finished school. But we also work with their becoming entrepreneurs.

We have to do things by ourselves. We teach our students that from day one.”

Anders Jormin feels that people who want a future as improvisation musicians have to accept being freelance.

“Students who follow classical educations can do one audition after another in the hope of coming into an orchestra. When they do, they get a job.

Our musicians don’t have those kinds of possibilities. The great majority of our students anyway get to be a foundation stone in the music of our time.

But life is pretty poor for them for a few years in the beginning.”

He’s an instructor in Master’s classes all over the world. He gets many invitations. “There are many distinguished teachers, and musicians, in the world. But there are fewer who are both teachers and musicians. There’s something special about g u j o u r n a l 2 | 1 1 11

I don’t have very much free time. It’s a dilemma – my work is my hobby. It isn’t healthy. And when I do have free time I don’t often listen to music. What I have a lack of is quiet.

those people, and maybe I’m one of them.”

He found his way in music through his family in Jönköping, where he grew up. His father, who died in 2010, was a jazz musician, first professionally and later as an amateur. When Anders was five year old, the two would play together each night, his father on the piano and little Anders with whisks on a shoe box.

“When my little brother Christian started, he took over the shoe box. I had to be the bass. I started by playing the bass strings on the guitar.”

Little brother Christian is also a professional musician now and works from time to time as teacher at the Academy of Music and Drama.

“We’ve both gotten our education in this music in the most natural way. I heard Miles David and John Coltrane before I heard the Beatles. So both I and my brother have gotten a lot of the basics of the aesthetics and formulas of jazz.”

Anders Jormin received a prize last fall that he’s very proud of – the Royal Swedish Academy of Music jazz prize, motivated in the following way: a deeply personal and uncompromising approach to improvisation that has made him a musician with an intense international interest.

“That was fantastic, a true honour.”

He received the prize from Princess Christina in the concert hall of the Academy of Music in Stockholm, Nybrokajen 11.

“I had to rent a dress coat and tails and I really didn’t want to go. I don’t like those kinds of events – it can be so strict. But it actually turned out to be really fun!”

Anders Jormin gave a small solo concert during the prize ceremony – first one of his own compositions, then an Argentinian song and then an improvisation.

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We asked what he listened to when he wasn’t working.

“I don’t have very much free time. It’s a dilemma – my work is my hobby. It isn’t healthy. And when I do have free time I don’t often listen to music. What I have a lack of is quiet.”

But sometimes tones do give him relaxation. He chooses very carefully.

“Most often classical music. I like to listen to Alban Berg – for his way of orchestrating, too. He’s fantastic at that.”

On a Friday evening he can sit and compose instead of relaxing.

“I try to make myself watch TV sometimes. And I read a lot of course when I travel. I also try to be a bird expert but I’m not very good at it. I’m good at seeing what kind of bird it is but I can’t recognize their sounds. People I know think that’s strange.

They ask me, “You’re so musical – can’t you hear that that’s a blue tit?”

He’s going to make a recording in the fall of an oratorium that he’s composed. It was played for the first time in Jönköping. “It’s the biggest thing I’ve every done, I mean that has the most people. I was given a commission by Jönköping a few years ago to compose an oratorium. I gave it a lot of time and effort.”

As he says himself, Anders Jormin has “always composed”, and he does more and more of it. He gets commissions from ensembles and choirs. He can compose in any circumstances but he likes best to do it in his house on the island of Lyr, toward the land side of Mollösund.

“It’s quieter and darker than anywhere else. You don’t hear waves, there are no streetlights or neon signs. I’m happiest there.”

Anders Jormin

In the news: Winner of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music jazz prize 2010.

Work: Musician, composer and teacher. Professor at the Academy of Music and Drama, Göteborg.

Age: 53 years old.

Family: Two adult children and live-in.

Background: Degree in pedagogy, many years of freelancing, honorary doctor at the Sibelius Academy in Helsingfors.

Interests: Music, cooking and birds.

Strength: Listening.

Weakness: Chocolate.

Fear: “I can’t think of anything. I’m 53 years old and met up with most things in life. You don’t even have to be afraid of the most dangerous things. But the worst thing that could happen, being allergic, is to be locked up in a little room with a cat.”

Favourite food: Spaghetti Vongole (pasta with small, light-coloured shells). “I always order it the first day I’m in Italy.”

Most recently read book: Sofi Oksanen’s Utrensning (Purge). “It’s very good.”

Most recently seen film: Almost never goes to the movies. “But I like to watch old action films from the 1960s over and over. My favourite is The Odessa File. I watch it a couple of times every year.”

Essay

It’s frustrating, time consuming and infuriating to not be able to get all details on cooking or baking, from the ingredients and their quantities, to specific know-how such as that the eggs should be at room temperature before you try to whisk them together with some butter to get the right consistency.

After settling for one recipe that comes from a small favourite Swedish cookbook of mine entitled Sju sorters kakor (Seven Kinds of Cakes) that was first published in Sweden in 1945, I marveled at the fact that the speed of technology development has outpaced, if one could make a comparison at all, the developments in cultural beliefs on knowledge sharing. The Internet and social media, for example, allow for much greater information sharing and access than what some people are comfortable with. In today’s social media culture, we are also perhaps coerced by social pressure to share our private lives, ending up feeling obliged to ‘share’ information about ourselves – the very point of Sherry Turkle’s latest book entitled “Alone Together” (2011). The dilemma arises then of what and how much to share and, what’s more, how much authentic information should we share?

I have asked someone for a recipe and have been The number of times

declined is innumerable, everything from a hawker’s fare of prawn noodle soup to American pumpkin pie.

While this is hardly surprising, Cheryl M. Cordeiro-Nilsson given the Asian (?) belief that if you shared your exact recipe you would lose your Midas Touch in cooking that particular dish, I can’t help but think that this behaviour stems from the general conflation of the concepts of information, knowledge and tacit knowledge, coupled with a sense of fear of losing one’s identity or ability to be a good cook by sharing recipes.

In fact, what makes a good cook, ironically, is not having the ability to follow recipes but to wing it. Winging it requires tacit knowledge – a type of knowledge that going by Polanyi and Nonaka’s definition is the most difficult of all types of knowledge to access and cannot for example even be willfully or explicitly conveyed in the form of information. In my view, cooking definitely belongs to the realm of tacit knowledge activities.

It’s like knowing how to ride a bike or understanding the nuances of a particular language in use that is culture specific – you can only know it by doing, by experiencing, over a period of time. And that’s where the difficulty arises for those who ask for recipes, where original / unique recipes can even be patented or considered an intellectual property (IP) with laws to protect their integrity. Still, having a patented recipe and understanding how to bring that recipe to its full potential and make use of it are two different things. You can give a person the most brilliant recipe to follow but the resulting product still varies, with often outright failures on the first try.

Why? Tacit knowledge.

Intellectual propert y connects to this Sunday’s endeavor in a practical way – it seemed I could not find an authentic recipe for a muffin. In its broadest sense, IP refers to intangible assets and creations of the mind, the use of which are protected by law.

The more common types of IP include

In one bowl, whisk 300 grams of not runny but soft – room temperature – butter with 300 ml of sugar, until fluffy and light yellow in colour.

Photo: Cheryl M. Cordeiro-Nilsson

I’m leafing through at least two cookbooks and several leaflets of muffin recipes that my mother had handed over to me over the years, in search of consistencies between the recipes. I could of course try the Internet too, but that would most likely compound the problem of coming up with a trustworthy recipe for something as simple as a muffin since, depending on culture and beliefs about information sharing, authentic recipes over the Internet are rare finds.

In this day of social media where technology lends overwhelming support to the creation and sustenance of the knowledge economy, a lot of people are managing their IPs to their cooking by just not wanting to tell how they do it, thus leading to any number of nonsense recipes on the Internet being just plain wrong.

Sunday af ternoon,

photo: Johan Wingborg

Blueberry Muffins Intellectual Property Stir in 4 eggs one by one until thoroughly mixed.

In a second bowl, mix 600 ml softly sifted medium to low protein (bread) wheat flour, with 2 tsp baking soda.

Combine these two bowls by stirring until thoroughly mixed but don’t overdo the stirring. Just mix it properly.

The batter should be pretty stiff and not runny at all.

Place paper cups on a baking tin. Fill about half of each cup with one dollop of batter.

Into each dollop, add one spoon of deep frozen blueberries stirred with some sugar.

Bake until done (about 15–20 minutes) in mid to low part of the oven at 200° centigrade.

copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design and trade secrets etc. that can be found in the fields of medicine and technology to literature, music and art.

All this knowledge belongs to IP that you can choose to keep to yourself or give away. I can understand if you want to keep your cookie recipe secret, if your family earns their living by making and selling them. But you can actually promote and keep our common heritage alive by actually sharing them, freely, with anyone who cares to listen. And, don’t forget, tacit knowledge gets in the way of an absolute duplication.

So, with this latter option in mind, of promoting a common heritage, I will now share how anyone can whip together some blueberry muffins, that I like a lot myself, for Sunday coffee, with no other reward in mind than that you might want to do the same with something else you know, some other day, on your own blog or Facebook page, just for the fun of it.

Now, here is exactly how to make these muffins

Chef’s tip: The paper cups cannot be filled to more than half with batter or the batter will spill over. You might need to use two spoons to do this.

The berry filling needs to be sunk into the middle of the batter, or it will dribble out and mess up the cups.

Using two spoons here too helps.

Beyond this lighthearted take on the intellectual property rights of blueberry muffins, the management of IP and knowledge is big business today, the intangible weight of which can now be tangibly measured in terms of contributing to effective growth in national economies.

In fact, these very topics will be up for debate and discussion at the upcoming CIP Forum 2011 from 29 May to 1 June in Göteborg, Sweden.

The main theme this year is “The New Wealth of Nations” (www.cipforum. org) and focuses on how IP in a globalized knowledge economy contributes to and affects a nation’s wealth.

Those working in IP and its related fields could also be interested in “The Business of Intellectual Property” program that will run in September and October 2011, with CIP-PS and The School of Executive Education AB, the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Dr. Cheryl M. Cordeiro-Nilsson The School of Executive Education AB, Universit y of gothenburg g u j o u r n a l 2 | 1 1 13

opinion

Write to the editor of GU Journal at: gu-journalen@gu.se

Work that doesn’t exist Sometimes thing s pop up in a kind of intricate way that reveals how an organisation, in this case the University of Gothenburg, ”thinks”. Most recently it was a form that I, like all other employees, have to fill in about how our work in different work tasks will be distributed in the future. What work tasks for teachers who do research like I do exist according to the University of Gothenburg? The following: research and development work, researcher supervision, education and pedagogical projects, competence development, contacts and cooperation with the surrounding society, and administration.

When I have to fill in this form to the best of my ability I find that a large part, probably about a third, of the work I actually do doesn’t count as work by the University. For example, a large part of my work has to do with leading projects, including for-

mulating new project applications to bring in money for the Department’s research, and I don’t find any heading for this. Pedagogical projects, interestingly enough, have a heading of their own but not research projects, a remarkable system in light of the attempts to strengthening the position of research at GU. An almost equally large part of my work deals with what can be called scientific quality control. It has to do with statements to university publishers, to scientific journals, to Swedish and foreign research councils as regards project applications, and to Swedish and now particularly foreign universities for employment and promotion matters. To this can be added being a member of grades committees for doctoral theses at Swedish and foreign universities. Neither did I

Ranking lists should inspire GU’s work on quality In number 7:2010,

I criticised Sverker Lindblad, chairman of GU’s ranking group, for saying (in number 6:2010): “The worst that can happen is that you start to use bad lists in your strategic work by buying Nobel prize winners and highly cited researchers to raise your placement on the lists. That’s a completely wrong way to go.”

I thought the opposite, that it would be completely fantastic if we succeeded in recruiting international star researchers of Nobel prize class to GU, regardless of the reason. I further suggested that GU’s quality council should analyse how GU could act to dramatically increase the proportion of external recruitments in general, and international recruitments in particular, and to recruit top international researchers to GU. No reaction (possibly in part because the article was given the meaningless title “A Strange Formulation”).

So, in the most recent number of GU Journal, Magnus Gunnarsson from the Division of Analysis and Evaluation of ranking lists was interviewed about what GU can do to advance in these lists. He mentions some apparently obvious strategies such as “recruit frequently cited researchers, encourage researchers to

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publish more in Nature and Science and publish more articles together with foreign researchers.”

Precisely – these are some of all the things that have to be done to raise GU’s research quality and thus get GU to advance in the lists – right? But in the next sentence we find that these are measures that Gunnarsson doesn’t recommend at all. Instead he says: “I think that all eventual adaptations to the ranking lists should be limited to smaller, cosmetic changes that don’t disturb internal quality work.”

Yes, that’s what he said. With an analogy to soccer, this would be like saying that Swedish soccer clubs’ lack of international success shouldn’t cause any changes, other than perhaps cosmetic ones, as long as these changes aren’t named in the clubs’ internal plans for quality development.

My opinion is that the concrete measures that Gunnarsson names above are excellent, regardless of what is or isn’t written in the internal control documentation for GU’s quality work. GU’s consistently low placement in international ranking lists (or in any event lower than what most of us think we should achieve) should inspire us to more sweeping reconsiderations, including the direction of work on quality at GU. OLOF JOHANSSON-STENMAN Professor of politic al economics

find a heading suited to this work.

A third kind of work I do is being a member of different scientific councils, e.g. journals, special book series issued by scientific publishers, international research institutes, in scientific prize committees and in larger research projects.

It feels strange that these kinds of work tasks, which I myself consider important for both maintaining the “academic republic”, for the Department’s and for the University’s good reputation, aren’t counted at all at the University of Gothenburg. The only time they were asked for was when the so called RED 10 investigation requested this kind of information to be able to evaluate research at GU, as it obviously is considered to be important. If what the University wants is for me to stop carrying out these types of activities it would be

good to get a clear message about this from the University management. I can’t under any circumstances let the work be listed under the heading of “administration” since it would be gravely misleading and could be used to assert that most of what occupies me is bureaucratic duties.

This is obviously a form that is not suited to the type of work I do and perhaps that reflects that there’s no understanding at the University of the conditions under which some researchers work. It feels a bit woeful, I have to admit, to be at a university that “thinks away” the existence of people like me, and a large part of the work we actually do.

Rejoinder

Final rejoinder

It is obvious that we should employ frequently cited researchers, introduce incitements for international co-publication and encourage researchers to publish in Nature and Science – if we believe that it makes us a better university. The subordinate clause on conditions puts the finger on the core of my report. We have to decide ourselves what a good university is and what kind of good university we want to be. We can’t let us be fooled into following the indicators in the ranking lists, since these are to a high extent wretched, both in terms of validity and reliability. If we continue to use Johansson-Stenman’s lame analogy to soccer, we can say that university rankings correspond to a ranking of soccer teams that measures the number of soccer shoes purchased (based on sport stores’ sales in the teams’ home towns) and the players’ incomes (based on a questionnaire investigation to readers of the magazine “Baseball Today”).

What could IFK Göteborg learn from a ranking of that kind that it doesn’t already know?

Scientific qualit y and relevance are of course difficult to measure, and many ranking are problematic in different ways. But believing that in an increasingly globalised world we can be an internationally prominent university without recruiting leading researchers that are internationally known, without doing research together with other like researchers, and without trying to publish in leading (and most read, spread and cited) journals, would be to fool ourselves, which is emphasised in the recommendations given in RED 10 that was presented as this was written.

But a development of this kind is of course not in everyone’s interest. For a dominant professor with obvious authority at his department and in GU, it could probably be fairly difficult if doctoral students start to care about international publication, if they discover that the professor isn’t cited at all outside of Sweden, if the methods he (as it’s most often a “he”) uses are strongly questioned internationally, if the doctoral students for that reason don’t want to use them in their own theses and, not least, if researchers from other countries arrive at the department who take up a lot of space, act in a strange way and, on top of it all, are completely unfamiliar with the professor and his work.

MAGNUS GUNNARSSON at the Universit y’s unit for analysis and evaluation

OLOF JOHANSSON-STENMAN

BO ROTHSTEIN PROFESSOR OF POLITIC AL SCIENCE

The GU management has declined to comment.