Building strong research environments

Building research environments and sustainable financing for them are issues often discussed at the University, at our various faculties and of course at departmental level. At the latest Faculty Board of the Faculty of Social Sciences in mid-September, we discussed the practical aspects of how we can build economically sustainable research environments. The circumstances under which our faculties operate vary, and within the faculties the departments have different tasks. This also creates divergent conditions for research. Various examples were highlighted, both from central and departmental level, showing possible ways of working with long-term strategies for both recruitment and research financing. One example that came from several departments was to hold application seminars, where both senior and junior researchers contribute collegially by reading and commenting on draft applications to various funders in order to achieve the best quality.

Co-financing is a constantly relevant issue, especially as the funders do not provide ‘full cost coverage’. This means that the overhead – a department’s administrative costs – is not fully covered, which is considered a burden. However, the University would prefer that priority still be given to important contributors that do not provide full cost coverage, such as the Wallenberg Foundations, the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation), the European Research Council (ERC) and others. Most of these funders allow financing for an overhead cost of about 20–25 per cent, and over the past decade the University’s central overhead has been around 20 per cent. Other local indirect departmental overhead still exists, such as the cost for heads of department and administrative managers, and each externally awarded project can be seen as an increase of research financing rather than a burden. Accepting external projects from the major funders mentioned above, and which are subsequently awarded, must be considered a sign that the research conducted at the department and the faculty is strong and should continue to be strengthened.

This text is written by Yvonne Svanström, Deputy Vice President. It appears in the section ”Words from the University’s senior management team”, where the management take turns to write about topical issues. The section appears in News for staff.