Head of Department Letter December 2024

My first year

I will soon have been Head of the Department of Physics for a full year and it has been an exciting year! Both for the department and for myself in my new role.  Reading my first Head of Department letter from the beginning of the year, I realise that at the time I naively thought I would know what the job of Head of Department was like after a year. I've been through the annual cycle once, but I've also learned that things always happen that cannot be predicted. Now I think that there are probably no normal years for us. 

I always say that I'm happy if people get paid and the house stays standing. The issue of pay was in doubt at the beginning of the year, when we were all reminded that cyber attacks are part of our reality. The issue of IT security has come up repeatedly during the year and work is ongoing at the departmental level and centrally at the university to reduce the vulnerability of our systems. 

Not much has happened to the building. We've had a few incidents and a few renovations, and we've had some new decorations on the walls, but nothing major. Instead, there have been a lot of conversations at different levels about what the next building should look like, and those conversations will continue next year.

Our research remains very strong in 2024 and we are ranked 44th in the international Shanghai ranking, which also demonstrates our ability to turn ideas into innovations. Several of our researchers have been awarded prizes and honours, and there are also many new research grants from the Swedish Research Council, the Wallenberg Foundations, and the ERC. These are important grants that support both our research and our finances. Our CFO is also receiving an award this year, after a year focused on finance. 

I think we can do even better at also recognising our actual research results, so I encourage everyone to share their best publications. Please get in touch with our Communications Officer, who helps to disseminate our research results to the outside world and within our research community.

Our education organisation is undergoing many internal changes during the year, which will hopefully lead to an increased focus on the needs of the courses and our pedagogical challenges.

I would like to hope and believe that our working environment in the department has improved over the past year. The new research departments are now established and the reorganisation of the office into new service hubs is in place and fully operational. On a more personal level, I wish I had had more time to talk to and listen to more of the Department's staff over the past year. I hope that there will be more room for dialogue in the coming year. In the spring, we will all be asked to respond to an OSA survey, which will help us keep track of our workload and the prevalence of stress and anxiety in our daily lives. I and the departmental management will come back to the OSA survey when there is time to answer it - but don't wait until then, talk to your manager right away if your work situation feels untenable

Overall, I am relatively satisfied with the past year. I am also fully convinced that there will be plenty left to tackle in the new year as well!

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Head of the Department of Physics