An important societal stakeholder – to attract the best in the world

Why did you want to be Dean – or Deputy Dean – of LTH? And what issues are you particularly looking forward to working on? The questions were posed to Annika Olsson, professor of packaging logistics at LTH and currently also Dean of Campus Helsingborg, and Heiner Linke, professor of solid state physics.

Annika Olsson, who will take up her position as new Dean of LTH on 1 January, replies:

“It is both exciting and fun to have been elected. The reason I wanted to be Dean is that I like LTH as an outstanding faculty and I see LTH as an important societal stakeholder just like the University. I would therefore like to contribute to the faculty’s continued development.”

Interdisciplinarity and meetings across programme boundaries

A subject area that Annika Olsson is passionate about and wants to work on is interdisciplinarity.

“I want us to get even better at using the breadth at LTH by linking different disciplines together for new research successes and innovations, and by allowing students from different degree programmes to meet so that they can solve problems and learn from each other. In addition, we can reap benefits from being part of Lund University, with good opportunities for collaborations between disciplines.”

Annika Olsson also wants to create long-term strategic relationships with business and industry, the public sector and financing bodies, to solve complex societal challenges:

“I believe we can become even more proactive with regard to our contributions to solving societal challenges, and a little better at attracting funding in major calls for applications.”

“Workplace of the future”

As Dean, she considers it natural to work for LTH to become a “workplace of the future” in which everyone is treated with respect, and diversity, gender equality and equal opportunities are valued.

“I also want to continue working on LTH’s vision: together we explore and create to benefit the world. This chimes well with our focus on solving complex societal challenges and achieving the global goals.”

Work for new and even stronger research environments

Heiner Linke is currently the director of NanoLund, and he has recently had a leading role in the work on LTH’s vision for Science Village. Specifically, it addresses how the University and LTH are to establish research and education close to ESS and MAX IV in Brunnshög, while the existing campus areas get a “makeover”.

The reason why Heiner Linke wants to become Deputy Dean of LTH is that he wants to be in a position to work on a few different issues.

“I want to help LTH to further reinforce its research. I hope that we will be able to reinforce existing environments and stimulate the emergence of new ones, that we will create the best possible conditions for our researchers to get external grants and also introduce more collaborations with industry.”

Another task that Heiner Linke sees ahead of him is to develop the culture around the recruitment of teaching staff.

“Recruitments are major, important investments that need to be done with a long-term and strategic perspective. In this area, I think we can improve diversity, gender equality and internationalisation, and that our focus should be to find the best in the world while steering LTH towards the future.”

"The opportunity to boost the whole of LTH"

Heiner Linke looks forward to finding more and new ways to work together with the students.

“I would like us to find ways to make the most of their engagement and creativity to an even greater extent, not least as we develop LTH’s campus areas.”

Last but not least, for Heiner Linke it is all about developing, gaining support for and realising LTH’s vision for Science Village in Brunnshög, together with other faculties.

“We need to generate participation and confidence in the process of developing Science Village and the existing campus areas within the whole of LTH. Lund University has a window of opportunity with the three major research infrastructures ESS, MAX IV and NanoLab Science Village. This gives us a unique opportunity to find decisiveness, energy and funding which could give the whole of LTH a boost.”