University strengthens governance structure with advisory bodies

In May 2024, Luleå University of Technology established six different advisory bodies. These serve as strategic-operational platforms to promote the University's overall goals and vision. The Vice-Chancellor’s Councils have an advisory role towards the Vice-Chancellor's function and report directly to the Vice-Chancellor.

The establishment of these Councils changes the management structure of the institution, a structure that has remained intact since the institution was half its size. The change is a way to strengthen the management structure - to speed up various issues. Pro-Vice Chancellor Pär Weihed and Deputy Vice-Chancellors Sara Thorgren and Charlotte Wiberg chair the Vice-Chancellor’s Councils.

"When the University set up these Councils, we based them on the important components that characterise a research-intensive university. The Councils are intentionally advisory in strategic-operational matters and are not at the same level as the Vice-Chancellor’s Strategic Council. All six Councils capture issues that can either be passed on to the Vice-Chancellor's Strategic Council or issues that can be prepared for the Vice-Chancellor's decision. Issues can, of course, affect several Councils and we then coordinate between ourselves to see where the issue is best suited or whether it should be prepared in more than one Council," says Pär Weihed.

For example, the Vice-Chancellor's Research Council includes all Heads of Department and Deans, and is chaired by Charlotte Wiberg, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Collaboration. The Vice-Chancellor's Research Council works, among other things, with improvement to our research support.

We are a technical University, so we want to provide the best conditions for our research by also having a Vice-Chancellors Council for Research Infrastructure.

"We are a research and technology-heavy University that is externally funded. This is based on the fact that we have "top of the line" infrastructure to a large extent. We have consciously begun to position ourselves with the other technology-heavy universities in research infrastructure and are part of URFI, the universities' reference group for research infrastructure. We are also part of the Council of Higher Education Institutions, which includes the ten largest HEIs; we have a special role in relation to the Swedish Research Council and we are part of many strategic collaborations," says Pär Weihed, chairman of the Vice-Chancellor’s Research Infrastructure Council.

Internationalisation is one of six main strategies for the University and there is more to be done here, says Pär Weihed, who chairs the Vice-Chancellor's Internationalisation Council.

"We are not best in class when it comes to internationalisation activities. We need to improve both in terms of education and research. This is part of the University's vision and when we look at strategic work on international collaborations, we can do better. We want to bring more international students here and send more students out into the world. So we have a potential for improvement in that area."

The Vice-Chancellor's Education Council deals with university-wide education issues. Sara Thorgren, Vice-Chancellor for Education and Quality and Chair of the Education Council, explains.

"There was a gap here for cross-university education issues. The Education Council is made up of Vice-Deans, Heads of Education, student representatives and administrative support, who together have a broad base of experience. In the Vice-Chancellor's Education Council, we are currently working on the review of the education management function that exists at each Department. We are looking at how its tasks, responsibilities and powers can be clarified. This is an important issue that is particularly well suited to the Education Council."

Research and education also include collaboration with the surrounding society, and collaboration is one of the University's key words. All of the Councils address issues that involve some form of collaboration. However, there has been an organisational void where strategic issues of collaboration, which were previously the responsibility of the Vice-Chancellor's function, can now be gathered in a Collaboration Council led by Charlotte Wiberg.

"We have many strategic partners and collaborations. This has been steered and led by the management in general, but by setting up this Council, we can focus even more strongly on collaboration and capture issues that are of a more strategic nature. What should partnerships look like and how should they be developed? This is a huge support to the role of the Vice-Chancellor who has collaborations in her portfolio," says Charlotte Wiberg.

Sara Thorgren describes the Vice-Chancellor's Quality Council as a Council with both a broad and a narrow perspective. The Quality Council, which existed before the other Vice-Chancellor’s Councils were established, deals with issues relating to the University's quality system for both education and research. "The Vice-Chancellor's Quality Council produces an annual quality report in which we look at the parts of the system and follow up with certain statistics and make proposals to the Vice-Chancellor for measures. These then go into the business planning for the next year. In between, we deal with various issues related to the quality system."

"Now we have to make the Councils work and build teams, who need to get to know each other and fill the organisational gaps that previously existed in these areas”, concludes Sara Thorgren.