The audience area in Scene HumSam was fully packed when Rector Ragnhild Hennum held her second meeting with UiO employees – this time both physically and via streaming. After a short round in the panel about how the first few months under the new rectorate have been, Hennum and Pro-Rector Jamtveit were asked about the most important issues they are working on right now.
The state budget and not much leeway
– The state budget has not been approved by Parliament yet. The entire sector is getting a cut, but fortunately it does not seem to be as big as we feared. The most important thing for UiO is to get rent compensation for the Life Sciences Building, such as the government laid out in its budget proposal, said Hennum.
Jamtveit highlighted the state budget's investments in quantum and future technologies.
– The basic grant has decreased over time, while the proportion of external financing has increased. In addition, external funding is increasingly directed towards various types of centres and initiatives that the authorities believe are important for solving societal challenges. But this tension between weakened basic funding, external funding and less internal room for manoeuvring is a challenge for us, he said and continued:
– When funds come through the state budget, it means that they are given via the basic grant. We received study places in quantum, in nuclear science, and we have substantial funds related to future technologies. Because this stems from the basic funding, it gives us a completely different room to manoeuvre and to plan and act according to what we believe are our strengths.
Anne Julie Semb, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, confirmed that the government-led shift in funding towards MedNat is being felt at faculty level.
– That makes it all the more important to use the internal room for manoeuvring that we actually have. It is not that big – because most of the funds we receive from the state budget are used on two things: salaries and buildings. As such, we have to maintain a high awareness of how the remaining money is transferred and spent, to make sure that we strengthen what we want to strengthen. I want us to strengthen that which leads to great academic results, regardless of which faculty such academic environments belong to, she said.
Excellent results in humanities and social sciences
Semb continued by saying that the Faculty of Social Sciences gets less research and education out of the basic grant now than ten years ago. They have focused on maintaining and expanding the level of activity with the help of external funding.
– It makes us vulnerable. At the same time, it has made us more focused and enabled us to make traction in competitive arenas, and this has strengthened our academic communities. As such, I am not negative when it comes to us having to compete for some of these funds. But when the basic grant decreases a lot, and our application activity is perhaps lower than we would like, the level of activity has to decrease. And that is painful.
She pointed in particular to the large number of narrow subjects with smaller academic environments dotted around the country and concluded that the sector probably needs to take a look at whether it is possible to collaborate and share efforts, both nationally and between the Nordic countries.
Hennum, for her part, highlighted that UiO's humanities and social sciences environments are doing very well in international rankings and in obtaining prestigious funds from, among others, the EU.
– Often when you talk about the importance of grassroots sports, it is about having a lot of people who can produce some really good people at the top. For UiO, it is different. We are a comprehensive university, with strong disciplines. That is our superpower, and we must safeguard it, she said and elaborated:
– We must ensure that the funds we have at our own disposal are not allocated to the same purposes as the external funds. I do not think that the authorities will want that either. When we talk to them, they clearly express that they expect us to maintain high quality within the fields of humanities and social sciences, she said, and highlighted the two AI centres that UiO has received as examples of interdisciplinary environments that benefit from our comprehensive profile.
Question and answer session
The floor was also opened for questions from the audience. The first question addressed the Nordic division of labour, and how to build cross-disciplinary scientific communities when so much funding is diverted towards the natural sciences.
Jamtveit:
– When it comes to the Nordics, we have a recent example from the quantum initiative. Here, we are competing against the USA, China and other large nations. In order to become a strong actor in the field, we must cooperate within a Nordic context. That is why we have now looked at possible financing solutions in the Nordics. Many of these technology areas also have security-related consequences – a Nordic cooperation seems natural here as well.
Hennum:
– We also have a recent example of how to facilitate interdisciplinary cooperation. The fairly recently established Center for Global Sustainability is intended to be such a meeting place, where researchers from different fields can meet and collaborate. Eventually, the center will also move into the old Pharmacy building here at Blindern.
The second question from the audience focused on responsibility in international cooperation, and in particular how the export control regulations affect research collaboration in different ways. Many people experience uncertainty related to who they can invite from abroad, employ or have other collaborations with. Has anyone looked more closely at the consequences of this for the university and the individual researcher affected by the regulations?
Hennum:
– First of all, I must state that we cannot avoid dealing with the Security Act, the Sanctions Act and the Export Control Regulations. We have to make the individual assessments that the legislation imposes on us. Central management at the university will work with the university?s units and facilitate so that this becomes as simple as possible, she said and added:
– In some specific instances, these assessments can seem unreasonable, especially for people who have lived and worked for years in this country, but who unfortunately have another citizenship that is affected by the legislation.
Question three from the audience was about the fact that in the future there will be an emphasis on two things, namely obtaining external funding through projects and increasing the number of study credits. How can we also safeguard and strengthen the "normal", everyday research that takes place at the basic level? That is where other research ideas come from.
Semb:
– Fortunately, much of the research at UiO is done on the basic grant – and some with quite small funds. But it is utopian to believe that we will be able to strengthen this type of research in the future, because we will not have a large enough basic grant to do so. So if we are to be just as comprehensive and have the same level of activity in the future as today, we are dependent on higher income via external funding or study credits. That is the reality. And it means that in the long term we may have to reduce the level of activity somewhat. We are working a lot on that at the Faculty of Social Sciences just now.
Jamtveit:
– We need to gain more control over expenses in relation to income if we are to have the leeway needed in order to safeguard exciting and important things that happen outside of what is externally financed. We need that room to manoeuvre, because we never know where new talents will appear.
There was enough time for a fourth and final question related to the fact that talents are primarily recruited locally and at a young age. How do we get more young people into UiO as students of a wide range of subjects?
Hennum:
– We have been working for a long time to recruit young people, especially within the broad range of natural sciences and mathematical subjects. But the demographics in Norway are going in the wrong direction, the number of students is decreasing. And even though Oslo benefits from being the capital, UiO will probably also feel the consequences. So we have to constantly work on our profile to attract applicants.
Jamtveit:
– Young people are looking for areas that seem exciting and where they think they can get a job. For our new study places in nuclear subjects, we received many more applicants than we thought, the same goes for the courses in machine learning at the Department of Informatics. Now we also have 50 places in quantum that we want to fill, and it will be exciting to see what happens. Maybe UiO will become more visible in relation to these technologies now that they are appearing here to a greater extent.
Tips for Christmas
Toward the end of the meeting – as Christmas is approaching – Hennum, Jamtveit and Semb were able to give their own tips for good Christmas preparations.
Hennum strongly recommended not cutting your fingertips on a mandolin when making sauerkraut.
– But besides that, I'm very good at making Norwegian pork meat balls. Send me an e-mail and you'll get the recipe!
In his family, Jamtveit is responsible for ensuring crispy skin on the traditional Norwegian Christmas pork ribs. He actually advocated that one should give up on the whole idea of the skin and instead concentrate on making the meat itself taste as good as possible (but was asked by a concerned Hennum to consult some of UiO's chemists on that).
Semb warned against making a nut roast that involves several hours of preparation with chopping, pre-frying, mixing and frying again.
? The next meeting with the rector will be announced through a news article on the For employees pages and a calendar invitation to all employees.
? Feedback can be sent to: bente.bakken@admin.uio.no