The establishment of activities in Science Village is now taking shape

It started with a small area between MAX IV and ESS, a place where over the next few decades Lund University will educate students, pose inquisitive questions and contribute to sustainable solutions in sectors such as medicine, electronics, food, community building and materials development.

The analysis of the University’s establishment of activities in Science Village has been in progress for several years. Recently, the Science Village group presented a report that was very positively received by the University Board. The board tasked the vice-chancellor, Erik Renström, in dialogue with the faculties and LU Estates, with designing and realising the continued work on establishment in Science Village. Lund University will therefore set up a university-wide campus office which will work towards a holistic approach in various construction projects.

Against the background of Science Village being such an important investment in this holistic plan – and to contribute to Science Village becoming a site for knowledge, creativity, innovation and answers to future questions – the Faculty of Science and LTH are also taking an important step forward:

We are now working together on the creation of a project office for campus development in Science Village, and are jointly entering an active development phase.

In order to realise a living and creative environment for research, education and innovation, the faculties’ new office for campus development, together with LU and other actors, will in a first stage contribute to firming up how the environments in Science Village are to be created. Professor Eva Åkesson, former vice-chancellor of Uppsala University has been asked to lead the activities.  

The project office will have a coordinating role in the establishment of activities and will answer questions relating to what and how, and provide documentation for the faculty managements’ decisions. Continuous communication with the organisations will therefore be an important task and the plan is to open the office by midyear.

The developments in Science Village offer opportunities for the entire University in the long term. We welcome all the faculties to get involved, participate in the dialogue on the shaping of Science Village and identify possibilities that will open up in all campus areas.

Opportunities arise when new constellations take shape and activities move. It is, for example, a chance to remodel obsolete teaching facilities and create new meeting places for collaborations or student activities. The premises at Fysicum, for instance, will soon be transformed – but into what and for whom?

We would also like to urge you, our staff and students, to think at this point about all the opportunities that will be created, both at Science Village and Sölvegatan. Our new joint project office will invite you to get involved in various ways and create opportunities for input.

The management teams of the Faculty of Science and LTH will initially – and soon with the new office for campus development and with LU as a whole – work mainly on the first two stages of the establishment plan for Science Village.

The first stage is the construction of NanoLab Science Village, with an aim to have a procurement decision made before the summer, construction start 2022–2023 and moving in 2025–2026.

In the planning of the second stage of the University’s establishment plan, the aim is to arrive at a decision on how the new establishment and colocation of activities, mainly in physics and chemistry, can be implemented in the best way possible.

The faculty management teams want to take into consideration and jointly achieve the following:

• The intertwining of research and first and second cycle education to create better study programmes and study environments
• Collaboration opportunities and new research constellations along the entire Knowledge Highway
• Interaction between faculty managements, students’ unions, staff and University management

Within the faculty managements, we want to listen to people’s needs and concerns about the complex issue of the Science Village establishment. It is clear that we will get established, but what is the best way for us to do that?

If we show courage and a willingness for renewal, linking the breadth of our knowledge to the environments around the major research facilities, we can be even more successful as a world-class university that understands, explains and improves.

Sven Lidin, Dean of the Faculty of Science  

Annika Olsson, Dean of LTH