Pär-Erik Martinsson new as Vice-Chancellor’s Advisor in Collaboration

Developing collaborations, manage strategic partnerships and securing EU funding. These are some of the tasks for Pär-Erik Martinsson in his new role as the Vice-Chancellor’s Advisor in Collaboration.

The position of Vice-Chancellor's adviser on collaboration is new and was advertised internally in the spring. It is now decided that Pär-Erik Martinsson, Managing director of Process IT Innovations, will be the new advisor.

“I look forward to working with Pär-Erik and together strengthening our strategic collaborations. He has extensive experience of both industrial collaboration and EU funding and will now have the opportunity to use this knowledge to further strengthen our collaborations with both industry and the public sector,” says Birgitta Bergvall-Kåreborn, Vice-Chancellor at Luleå University of Technology.

Experienced in collaboration

Pär-Erik Martinsson has over two decades of experience in collaboration. Process IT Innovations is a Centre of Excellence that runs a large number of projects entirely on external funding and has around 200 different partners. Pär-Erik Martinsson was involved when the Centre of Excellence was set up in 2004. After a few years working with collaboration at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science and Sandbacka Science park, he returned and is now Managing director of Process IT Innovations, a role he will retain in parallel with the new assignment.

“I’m glad and honoured to get this new assignment. Luleå University of Technology is already prominent in collaboration, we are one of the universities with the highest level of external funding, but I think we can do even better,” says Pär-Erik Martinsson.

One of the goals is for Luleå University of Technology to be an obvious partner to turn to, another is to influence and position the university.

“There is no simple recipe for how. But it involves a lot of networking, getting the right words in the right places. You must dare to think big, work long-term and strategically. If others come to us, we will have succeeded, and in some respects, we are already there,” says Pär-Erik Martinsson.

Attract EU funding

Strengthening the ability to attract and secure EU funding is another part of the assignment. The government's research bill identifies EU funding as an indicator for resource allocation to higher education institutions.

“This makes it even more important to receive EU funding. Relative to our size, Luleå University of Technology is already getting a lot of EU funding, we need to maintain that position and strengthen it. It's a lot of work but it's important. There is already an idea on how we can work with this, now it needs to be implemented,” says Pär-Erik Martinsson.

Broad concept and assignement

Collaboration is a broad concept, and the mission is about both existing strategic partnerships and new collaborations in both research and education. The university's collaboration partners include large and small players in many different sectors. Pär-Erik Martinsson has worked extensively with industrial collaboration with large companies, but in his new role will include the entire spectrum of collaboration.

“I hope we can create a joint vision of what we want from our collaboration, work as a team and help each other. I'm used to working a bit in the background, it's our research and education subjects that should be in focus. We who work with collaborative support must be humble and highlight the successes of others. It's important to understand what individual researchers and subjects want, as they are the ones who build the organisation,” says Pär-Erik Martinsson.