GU-Journal 3–2021

GUJournal

INDEPENDENT JOURNAL FOR THE STAFF AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG #3 SUMMER 2021

News

Foreign doctoral students more isolated News

Science presented as an app Focus

Threats to academic freedom

Algae

on the menue MARIA BODIN GROWS FOOD IN THE SEA

Vice-Chancellor

With hopes of a less restrictive autumn HE PANDEMIC IS not over, but the

government has announced a plan to gradually lift restrictions on the condition that the spread of infection continues to decline, the pressure on the healthcare service continues to ease and the vaccination rate is maintained. This means that the university is also planning for a return to normal.

Following consultations with deans and students, the university decided on a joint return schedule. From the start of the autumn term, we will initiate a gradual return to campus-based activities, based on the conditions and plans of our various operations. Our ambition is that the return to campus-based activities will be concluded in October, assuming that the government’s plan to open up society continues. The return will be implemented in an orderly manner and in consideration of the current restrictions and spread of infection, which we must all keep in mind. This means that we must continue to keep our distance and avoid crowding.

Working from home is still recommended for everyone who is able to do so, and not everyone will be able to return at the same time.

But more on-site lectures will mean that more employees will be working on campus this autumn.

The pandemic, which has lasted over a year, has entailed

a very unique journey, both for employees and students. I feel gratitude as well as pride about what our organisation has managed to achieve in the immense transition that was required. It has been tough, but it has also been instructive.

I BELIEVE SOME OF the success factors have

been a stable organisation that showed flexibility, many creative solutions and considerable patience among all our employees and not least our students. For some, working from home and remote teaching have worked very well, and contributed to a better work-life balance. Although others have had a more difficult time.

Now, summer is here, and we can finally see that things are improving. Let us hope that it continues in the right direction, and that our plan to open up the university can be sustained. It makes me happy when I think about this autumn, when we will probably be seeing more of one another in the corridors and on campus.

Until then, I would like to wish you all a pleasant and relaxing summer!

Vice-Chancellor EVA WIBERG

Photo: JOHAN WINGBORG

Editor-in-chief :Allan Eriksson, phone: 031–786 10 21, e-mail: allan.eriksson@gu.se Editor-in-chief: Eva Lundgren, phone:031–786 10 81, e-mail: eva.lundgren@gu.se Photographer: Johan Wingborg, phone: 070–595 38 01, e-post: johan.wingborg@gu.se Layout: Anders Eurén, phone: 031–786 43 81, e-mail: anders.euren@gu.se Address: GU JOURNAL, University of Gothenburg Box 100, 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden E-mail: gu-journal@gu.se Internet: gu-journal.gu.se ISSN: 1402-9626 Translation: Språkservice Sverige AB

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Contents

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s the The app show of a n io ct tru ns reco church Picture: GUNNAR ALMEVIK AND JONATHAN WESTIN

NEWS 04–13 04. Increased stress among female doctoral students.

06. Foreign doctoral students suffer from isolation.

07. GU top 200 among universities.

08. Videos in the service of science.

10. Science presented as an app.

12. EUTOPIA funds postdoctoral researchers.

13. Not all emails will be restored.

PROFILE 14–17 14. Picking food from the sea.

FOCUS 18–21 18. The academy vs, the state.

20. Debate, a fundamental part of academia.

REPORT 22–48 22. Bo Rothstein becomes visiting professor av Harvard.

26. Johannes Lindvall wants us to learn from history.

28. He will study how we work at home.

Masthead

Academic freedom risks becoming empty rhetoric O YOU AGREE that academic freedom is under threat at Swedish universities? That was the question we posed to the GU Journal web panel. Half of the respondents feel that academic freedom is under threat.

Academic freedom is the focus of this issue, but it is also a question that is being increasingly discussed in various media and forums. For example, SULF-GU arranged a panel discussion on May 4 on this theme, and Jonsered Manor held a seminar on June 3 about the threat to freedom of speech in academia.

The government also cares about freedom in research. The latest research and innovation bill proposes the following wording in the Higher Education Act: “A general principle in higher education is to promote and safeguard academic freedom.”

However, as many people have

pointed out, the research bill will in practice mean more control instead of more freedom. If the universities themselves are not able to decide what to invest in, it is really empty rhetoric.

When people speak about freedom, it commonly refers to research. But educational independence must also be protected. Marie Demker points out that the government’s focus on education linked to research is a step in the right direction. It is not only the major universities that must provide high quality education.

The editors would like to wish all our readers a pleasant and relaxing summer, after an unusually stressful year.

Hopefully, the situation will have improved when we return in the autumn.

Allan Eriksson & Eva Lundgren

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News

Increased stress am Although most doctoral students feel fine and have a good relationship with their supervisor, an increasing number of the female doctoral students experience stress and anxiety. This is a worrying trend, say leading representatives for doctoral students, and suggest more t­ raining for supervisors.

THIS SPRING, the ST survey on the well-being of doctoral students was released, which was a follow-up from 2012. The results show that there are no dramatic differences compared to eight years ago. On the positive side, however, more people today are employed.

– I was not particularly surprised when I read the report. The picture is in line with the surveys we conducted at the University of Gothenburg (in 2015 and 2020), which showed that 10–15 percent of doctoral students are dissatisfied. A worrying development is that female doctoral students seem to feel worse, have sleep problems and feel stressed, says doctoral student ombudsman Lotta Larsson at the University of Gothenburg’s student unions (GUS).

Her colleague Haruna Ohldin thinks it is lamentable that the situation has not improved significantly.

– FOR MOST PEOPLE, it is a fantastic time in their life. You get to devote yourself to something wholeheartedly for four years and get paid to do it – at the same time, it can be a trying and sensitive period. Making sure everyone feels good in a workplace should be an obvious thing to strive towards, she says.

The survey: Hur mår dok-

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toranden? (How do doctoral students feel?) was produced by the trade union ST together with the SFS Doctoral Student Committee, and it confirms the assumption that working conditions for doctoral students are often difficult. Many people work when they are sick, they feel stressed and have sleep problems. Moreover, not that many of us can take four weeks of continuous vacation.

THAT MANY doctoral students find it difficult to stop thinking about work is perhaps not so strange considering that it is an education that is extremely demanding with both highs and lows. In ST’s survey, more than 35 percent of respondents answered that, on a daily basis or several times a week, they have difficulty thinking about anything other than the work related to their doctoral thesis.

This applies especially to women, younger doctoral students and Swedish doctoral students.

– It is very common to take the job home with you and of course it affects family life.

Being a doctoral student is a special form of employment: you are both an employee and a student. You often end up in limbo – to which group do you really belong? Above all, you do not have that much time to

Hur mår doktoranden?

- en rapport från Fackförbundet ST och SFS doktorandkommitté om forskarstuderandes psykosociala arbetsmiljö

complete it, four years effectively, including holidays, says Lotta Larsson.

The start of the education is one of the most important factors for success, she believes.

– Being well taken care of at the department is absolutely crucial, so that doctoral students know what rules apply, who to contact if there are any problems, and who is responsible for their employment conditions and health and safety. Surprisingly, there are a lot of doctoral students who think that their supervisor is their immediate manager.

OF ALL THOSE WHO seek support

SFS The survey How do doctoral students feel? shows that especially women experience a lot of stress.

and help, the most common problem they mention is their supervisor – women are generally more dissatisfied than men.

– If the relationship with your supervisor is not working, it can be traumatic. Even though from a legal perspective, you have the right to change supervisors, it is not that simple. Your individual study plan, ISP, which must be renewed at least once a year, is the most important document. It states whether you have had sufficient time for supervision or not.

Part of the solution is to invest more in the training of supervisors, Lotta Larsson believes.

– If there are repeated short-

FACTS

mong women Photo: VIOLETTA KOVACKA

Lotta Larsson Photo: PRIVATE

Haruna Ohldin

comings with your supervisor, the head of department has an obligation to do something about it. The most successful researchers are not always the best supervisors. Therefore, we propose that a kind of driver’s licence for supervisors be introduced, which must be updated on a regular basis.

Alex Cravcenco, Chairman of the University of Gothenburg’s Doctoral Student Committee and an expert in the ST survey, thinks this is a good idea.

Therefore, we propose that a kind of driver’s licence for supervisors be introduced.

LOTTA LARSSON

– It is important to structure the education into different parts: one part for supervisors, another part about how to write an individual study plan and a third part about how to work with planning doctoral projects.

He also proposes that national guidelines and local policies be established where the doctoral students’ rights and obligations are described.

– Currently, it varies between different universities, and this creates confusion and ambiguity.

Common routines would create the conditions for better mental health.

ANOTHER VULNERABLE group are foreign doctoral students: 40 percent of the younger doctoral students (under 29 years of age) at the University of Gothenburg come from another country. Almost half of the foreign doctoral students work overtime several days a week.

– Many do not know their rights and obligations. It is important that everyone feels welcome at work. Then there is the language barrier, many doctoral students feel left out when Swedish is spoken during coffee breaks, says Lotta Larsson.

Another result of the survey is that almost a third of doctoral students at the University of Gothenburg do not feel comfortable expressing criticism. Lotta Larsson thinks this is deeply problematic.

– Dreadfully unfortunate. It should be an open forum and you should be free to discuss different opinions at a university.

But sometimes it can be difficult to be critical of your supervisor because the doctoral student is in a position of dependence.

The trade union ST and the SFS Doctoral Student Committee have, with the help of Statistics Sweden, carried out a comprehensive survey of almost 1,000 doctoral students (2,000 questionnaires were sent out). Hur mår doktoranden? is a survey produced by the trade union ST in collaboration with SFS during the autumn of 2020.

Here are some of the most important results: – The majority of doctoral students have doctoral employment and the vast majority have a good relationship with their supervisor.

– A fifth have difficulty sleeping as a result of their work a couple of days a week.

– A quarter have to work overtime several days a week, especially foreign doctoral students.

– Just over a fifth stated that they have not been able to take holidays.

– About 30 percent do not think that the individual study plan (IPS) is meaningful.

During the pandemic at the University of Gothenburg: Last year, sick leave increased for doctoral students, especially women. The Faculty of Humanities had the highest rate of sick leave with an average of 7.8 percent. Sick leave for women is highest, almost 10 percent, at the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Faculty of Science and the School of Business, Economics and Law. On the other hand, it is better at Sahlgrenska Academy, which has the highest number of doctoral students (approximately 940), where only 3 percent were on sick leave in 2020.

In 2019, Nature published a major international study which showed that 36 percent of 6,300 doctoral students sought help for anxiety and depression connected to their studies.

Allan Eriksson

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News

The pandemic has hit foreign doctoral students hard The doctoral students whose studies have been hit hard by the pandemic should be entitled to extended employment. Clearer guidelines are needed regarding how and what applies when applying, and the question is who should pay. This is what the University of Gothenburg’s Doctoral Student Committee (GUDK) has stated in a recent report.

THERE IS NOT a single doctoral

student who has not been affected by the pandemic. But those hit hardest should be entitled to an extension. This is a sensitive issue because it involves a lot of money. Who will ultimately pay if the department cannot afford it? asks Alex Cravcenco, Chairman of GUDK, who recently released a report on how the pandemic has affected the doctoral students.

The result does not surprise Alex Cravcenco, who is a doctoral student at the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology.

– Initially, many people were quite happy to sit at home and work all the time. But as the pandemic dragged on, many people started to grow tired and miss conferences and the postgraduate environment: the physical

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contact with supervisors and other colleagues, but also the coffee breaks and the conversations at the coffee maker. Many people feel cut off from the academic environment.

Some of the most important results are: About 60 percent responded that their thesis work has been affected quite a lot or very much by the pandemic. A total of 55 percent of respondents believe that they are entitled to an extension, of the foreign doctoral students, 45 percent believe that their application will not be granted. The same figure for Swedish doctoral students is 32 percent.

OF ALL THE problems mentioned, data collection and fieldwork have been the biggest challenges. The average delay is estimated to be 3.2 months.

About half of the doctoral students state that the pandemic has had an adverse effect on their mental health.

One group that has been hit harder than others is international doctoral students.

– They are even more isolated because they are new to Sweden.

I also think they feel even greater pressure to perform at a high level to secure a career after graduation. For many of them, their studies have been delayed and they feel frustrated and worried

about not being able to finish on time, which of course affects their mental state.

But as the pandemic dragged on, many people started to grow tired and miss conferences and the postgraduate environment.

ALEX CRAVCENCO

THE RESULT DIFFERS somewhat between the faculties. Doctoral students at Sahlgrenska Academy reported that they were not affected by the pandemic to the same extent. On the other hand, more people are experiencing problems in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Furthermore, many projects in the artistic field have been severely delayed.

According to the survey, about 30 doctoral students have been granted an extension so far. Efforts have been made, the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, for example, has put together an expert group to evaluate applications in a transparent way. The School of Public Administration has already given all doctoral students an extra month to compensate for having to work from home.

– OUR SURVEY SHOWS that there are just over 250 doctoral students who want to apply for an average extension period of 2-3 months. Currently, it depends entirely on the department. Some can afford it, others cannot, and that leads to unfair treatment. Therefore, we demand more specific and

Photo: PRIVATE

University of Gothenburg ranked top 200 by QS The University of Gothenburg is advancing 22 places this year and qualifies for the top 200 list in the new QS ranking which was presented yesterday.

– IT IS EXTREMELY gratifying that we have improved

clear guidelines regarding what applies at each faculty. If the department cannot afford it, the heads of department should be able to apply for money from higher up in the organisation.

He believes that extra support is a reasonable request given that many other sectors of society have received money to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

– The money we have received in the education sector is not sufficient. Even if an extension of doctoral student employment is not cheap, you can never overinvest in education.

ALEX CRAVCENCO thinks that

this knowledge should be used after the pandemic to improve postgraduate education.

– The continued discussion is important and we will take advantage of the lessons we have learned from this experience to focus more on the individual study plan (ISP) and improve the training for supervisors.

But minor things have also been lost.

– Normally, we have an open-­ door policy where you can just knock on your supervisor’s door and ask a few questions. Something that has been very much appre­ ciated. Now you have to book a Zoom meeting for everything.

Alex Cravcenco

FACTS The survey One year into the pandemic. A review and outlook on PhD education at the University of Gothenburg during covid-19, to which 569 doctoral students responded (out of a total of 1,200), was conducted by the University of Gothenburg’s Doctoral Student Committee (GUDK) in the spring of 2021. The report is available at: https://gus.gu.se/verksamhet/ rapporter.

our placement, says Vice-chancellor Eva Wiberg, who hopes that it is a proof of the university’s successful international work.

For the first time since 2012, the University of Gothenburg ranks among the top 200 universities in the QS World University Rankings. The fact that GU is rising 22 places this year is mainly due to the two indicators of the proportion of international students and employees, where GU has improved its position.

– It is positive because it increases our visibility in the range up to 200, which probably makes it easier to recruit international students, says Magnus MacHale-Gunnarsson who analyzed the results.

Another explanation is that the University of Gothenburg has also risen in the indicator Employer Reputation (from 15.8 points to 21.6). But according to Magnus MacHale-Gunnarsson, it is a shaky indicator based on dubious reputational surveys.

– All Swedish higher education institutions are rising in this indicator, which is why we can assume that more Swedish employers answered the survey this year than before.

Also in the citation indicator, which measures citations per researcher, the University of Gothenburg increases from 31.4 points to 37.2.

– Most likely this is due to a method change, as all Swedish universities, except Umeå and Uppsala, clearly rise in this indicator, says Magnus MacHale-Gunnarsson who is still critical of the QS list methodology.

– THERE ARE MANY objections. Surveys are not re-

GUS

Göteborgs universitets studentkårer

A survey-based report by University of Gothenburg Docotral Commitee (GUDK)

One year into the pandemic A review and outlook on PhD education at the University of Gothenburg during covid-19

presentative, reputation surveys are given unreasonable importance and the rough field standardization creates a skew in the citation indicator.

In addition to the University of Gothenburg, five other Swedish universities are rising on the list.

According to the ranking, two are among the 100 best in the world: Lund University (87) and KTH (89). Chalmers has also advanced many placements and this year lies ahead of Uppsala University and is in 121st place in the world.

But the very best universities are to the west: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in first place and the British University of Oxford in second place. Among the Nordic higher education institutions, the University of Copenhagen has the highest ranking.

Allan Eriksson Allan Eriksson GUJOURNAL SUMMER 2021

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News

Videos in the service of science JoVE is a journal that publishes scientific videos, particularly about how experiments are conducted in actual practice. It is an example of how the moving image has increasingly become part of scientific publications.

– In a moving image you can show things that would be very difficult to explain in a piece of text. Nevertheless, I believe that the position of the written word in scientific publishing will continue to be dominant, explains Anders Blomberg, Professor of Functional Genomics.

IT WAS IN THE AUTUMN It was in the autumn of 2018 that Anders Blomberg’s research group came into contact with JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments.

– The editorial staff at JoVE had been informed via our previous publications that we were cultivating barnacles, at a unique cultivation facility at Tjärnö Marine Laboratory.

They contacted us to ask if this year-round cultivation would be suitable for their video journal. And we thought that was a good idea.

Publication in JoVE initially works in the same way as publication in other scientific journals: the research group submits an article that undergoes careful review by external experts. If the article is accepted, however, a different process is initiated. A screenwriter

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at the journal rewrites the text to create a film script and after the research group’s approval, work commences on the video itself.

– JOVE HAS CONTACT with

film makers all over the world. One of them, who is responsible for Scandinavia, came to Tjärnö and spent a whole day filming and directing us: raise your right hand, stand over there on the left, now you can move forward. I had to say a few well-chosen words, as I was the main person in charge, but otherwise a narrator’s voice and some explanatory text were used.

When the film was finished, the researchers watched it, commented and suggested some changes, and finally we gave our approval.

The film was about 10

minutes long, says Anders Blomberg.

– Of course, you can’t include everything, but it is important to choose the most essential aspects or elements that are difficult to explain in a piece of text. We thought it would be very expensive considering all the work. But publishing a video, along with our article, did not cost much more than a regular article.

However, we chose a slightly more expensive version that is open access.

JOVE IS A UNIQUE journal that focuses on videos. But also other more established journals, such as Nature, PNAS and BMC Biology, often publish additional material for their articles, which can include videos.

– Videos have many scien-

tific advantages. Of course, it is easier to understand how a method is actually performed if you see a person doing certain elements, and not just read about it. Furthermore, videos can of course be used in teaching and often work better than a demonstration in real life in a laboratory, where it can be difficult for all the students to really see all the steps. But videos can also save a lot of time and unnecessary travel. For example, if one of my doctoral students wants to learn a method used by a

A picture from the published video about the cultivation of barnacles, which shows Martin Ogemark at Tjärnö marine laboratory putting panels of barnacles down into the cultivation troughs.

However, videos and other digital solutions can be a good complement to demonstrate a process or a method, or to visualize something that can be difficult to accurately describe in words.

colleague in the United States, I may not need to send her across the globe. Instead, I can ask her to watch an explanatory video and, based on that, she can ask my colleague questions via Zoom, for example.

HOWEVER, Anders Blomberg does not believe that videos and other digital possibilities will replace text-based articles.

– There is a reason why researchers write articles.

They are rational, economi-

cal, easily accessible and work well for deeper analyses and reasoning. So written articles will probably be the main way to communicate research for the foreseeable future.

However, videos and other digital solutions can be a good complement to demonstrate a process or a method, or to visualize something that can be difficult to accurately describe in words.

FACTS JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, is a journal that primarily publishes experiments and methods using videos. Many traditional journals today also have additional material in the form of videos.

Eva Lundgren

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News

Unique app for research

THE GATE TO the medieval stave

church in Hemse on Gotland is 3.5 metres high but only 85 centimetres wide. When we have stepped over the church’s high threshold, we are in a dark interior where the flickering candle creates shadows on the walls.

Suddenly we notice the baptismal font further into the church and the decorated tapestry that runs along the top of the walls.

However, we are not in a real church, but in a digital reconstruction, experienced from a computer screen. More specifically, it is an app that focuses on the sensual experience; the visitor should be able to stand in the sunlight outside, open the creaking door, walk around the dark corners of the interior and click on different objects to find out more. The app also contains an introduction to the research questions, a 3D presentation of the archive material and a so-called anastylosis where the remains have been set up and arranged as a reconstruction.

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Photo: JOHAN WINGBORG

At a conference in early May, two University of Gothenburg researchers­ participated with a presentation, scientifically reviewed just like any other research, but still unusual: the presentation was in the form of an app with material in virtual reality.

- The app is, as far as we know, the first of its kind.

But it is also an example of a larger international trend where researchers are using new technologies and media to publish their r­ esults, explained the app’s creators, Gunnar Almevik and Jonathan Westin.

Through a simple command in the app, the visitor can produce a digital lens to see the authentic source material behind the interpretation.

Gunnar Almevik has, together with Jonathan Westin, made a unique app for research within craft sciences.

GUNNAR ALMEVIK, Professor

of Conservation, and Jonathan Westin, Associate Professor in Conservation and Research Coordinator at the Centre for Digital Humanities, are the researchers who created the app. It was presented on the fourth of May at the digital conference the Biennial International Conference for the Craft Sciences, a conference that focuses on alternative ways of publishing research.

– It is called NTRO, Non-Traditional Research Outputs, and, so far, it is most common in the artistic field, Gunnar Almevik explains. Instead of mainly publishing text-based articles, they try to find alternatives that better suit the research, such as documented exhibitions and demonstrations based on films, 3D models or animations.

ALTERNATIVE WAYS of communicating research have of course long been used in various public contexts to increase public interest. But this is not what NTRO is primarily about, instead it involves scientific publications that are as carefully reviewed as traditional articles, but where the main medium is something other than text.

And there are many benefits to visual publishing, says Jonathan Westin.

– In a piece of text, a laboratory can be described in words, but in a video you can show exactly what you do in each step, which also makes it easier for anyone who wants to repeat the experiment. In particular within craft sciences, it is important to be able to show, for example, what an object looked like, how a certain tool was used or how different artifacts interacted.

– IN OUR APP, we combine a

In our app, we combine a number of different media such as film, text, 3D models and interactive scenes.

JONATHAN WESTIN

number of different media such as film, text, 3D models and interactive scenes. We also use a narrator’s voice, as we believe the reviewer needs some guidance. The fact that the app also contains source material in 3D gives researchers the opportunity to find out more about the remains we investigated and form their own opinion on the interpretation, something that does not work in a traditional text-based article.

The point of NTRO, however, is

sometimes too informative. In a piece of text, the researcher is forced to delimit and focus on what is important, but in a video of a complex research process, it can be more difficult to know what to focus on.

At the same time, it would be strange if researchers, who should be one step ahead when it comes to development, do not use the multifaceted technology that exists today for communication, Gunnar Almevik points out.

– However, a visual presentation requires discipline in order to achieve scientific quality. For example, there must be a limit to how long a video can be, how elements from different sources are referenced and how the peer review should take place.

Since alternative media do not yet have a scientific tradition to fall back on, all this is still quite unclear, but of course accuracy, i.e. scientific accuracy, is just as important regardless of the form of publication. The peer review system, which the entire scientific community relies on, refers to the quality of the content regardless of the medium.

Publications that require technical expertise will of course place new demands on researchers, Jonathan Westin points out.

– WITHIN SCIENTIFIC research,

not to replace scientific text with more exciting and startling media.

– Researchers will always need to write text, which of course also has many advantages: it is easy to share and does not require advanced technology.

Furthermore, there are developed conventions for different genres of text and how to cite, reference and critique. And even written material can of course have visual elements, such as drawings, diagrams and photos.

Of course, it is also an advantage to be able to discuss something on a general level; the visuals often become very specific and

The pictures are made

by Gunnar Almevik and Jonathan Westin.

the technical experts are often part of the research team and in a similar way, it may also need to be the case in the humanities and social sciences. The management of higher education institutions also need to pay more attention to the fact that publications today can involve much more than articles and books. Not even us researchers at the Centre for Digital Humanities get points for digital publications, even though that is what we mainly do, but it is articles that count.

Participants at the conference the Biennal International Conference for the Craft Sciences were not only researchers in crafts, but also artists, archaeologists, educators and representatives of restaurant schools, says Gunnar Almevik.

– The University of Gothenburg could do more to make it easier for researchers, in a large number of disciplines, who are interested in alternative ways of publishing. We would need the appropriate infrastructure for the scientific publication of 3D models, and also interfaces for interactive programmes. Our app must be downloaded and installed as a programme on a single computer. One example is GU Play, which is currently a channel for information and popular science communication. With a little bit of work, it could become an important platform in science publishing as well.

Eva Lundgren

FACTS NTRO (Non-Traditional Research Outputs) is a collective term for non-traditional ways of publishing scientific research. It is common in the artistic field, and can involve documented exhibitions, performances or demonstrations and portfolios of documented works.

The use of video and 3D models as integrated elements in publications is also becoming more common in more traditional science and has been made easier through on-line publications. JAR is an artistic journal where different media are arranged in a digital showroom.

The conference, the Biennal International Conference for the Craft Sciences on 4–6 May, is an example of a conference for alternative ways of presenting research.

During the conference, the app created by Gunnar Almevik and Jonathan Westin, Crafting research communication in building history, presented a digital reconstruction of a medieval church on Gotland. The app has also been published in the journal FormAkademisk Journal.

In addition, it will be part of Vikingarnas värld (The World of the Vikings), the world’s largest exhibition about Vikings, which opens on June 24 at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm.

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News

EUTOPIA fully funds new postdoctoral pos – Initially, I applied to the University of Gothenburg to become part of Morten Grøtli’s prominent research group. But the collaboration with Astra Zeneca, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, was also attractive, of course, says Antonios Drakopoulos. In the autumn, his two-year postdoctoral position at the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology will commence.

The funding comes from the EUTOPIA-SIF programme.

THIS INVOLVES A TOTAL OF 76

postdoctoral positions within the EUTOPIA network, which will be filled in four advertisements over the course of four years. The first advertisement for positions closed in January, and in April the names of the 20 applicants who had been awarded the positions were announced.

– Many applicants had specified the University of Gothenburg as their first choice and even more applicants had specified it as their second choice, says Research Advisor Henrik Lindskog, team lead for research support at the Grants and Innovation Office (FIK). The interest in the University of Gothenburg is considerable, despite the fact that the university only finances 5 of the 76 positions.

EUTOPIA-SIF is a so-called COFUND project and part of the EU’s MSCA initiative

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(Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions) where individual MSCA grants, fully funded by the EU, are another aspect.

The programme is aimed at international applicants who cannot have worked in the host country for more than 12 months in the past three years, says Henrik Lindskog.

– RESEARCHERS IN ALL dis-

ciplines are welcome to apply with their projects, and they are completely free to decide what their area of focus should be. However, the projects must be linked to one of the initiative’s five key areas: materials engineering, data and intelligence, health, sustainability or welfare and inclusion.

Morten Grøtli, Professor in Medicinal Chemistry is Antonios Drakopoulos’s supervisor.

– The positions are very generously funded and involve full financing of salary, travel, living expenses and university

infrastructure. The funding also covers at least part of the running of the project itself.

Obtaining a fully funded postdoctoral position is obviously very beneficial for a young researcher at the beginning of their career. However, Morten Grøtli believes that the research group receiving the postdoctoral researcher, as well as the university in general, also have everything to gain from the investment.

– THE POSTDOCTORAL posi-

tion also involves working at a participating university for two to six months, as well as collaboration with another party, in Antonio’s case Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and Astra Zeneca.

Of course, this collaboration provides new contacts and networks, not only for the postdoctoral researcher, but for the entire research group.

For the group that wants to accept a postdoctoral resear-

I look forward to having access to state-of-the-art facilities.

ANTONIOS DRAKOPOULOS

cher, there is a lot of support at the University of Gothenburg, explains Maria Enge, Research Advisor at FIK. – At FIK, we help with applications, and Welcome Services provide support when it comes to welcoming

Not all email restored

sitions course, I hope to make new friends in Sweden, a country that is truly outstanding, not only in research, but also in terms of working and living conditions, public health and social security systems.

Eva Lundgren

FACTS

foreign researchers. But the lion’s share of the work is done in the departments.

Anyone who wants to increase their chances of getting a postdoctoral position can apply for both EUTOPIA-SIF and individual MSCA (MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships), Maria Enge explains.

– Both forms of funding involve promoting mobility across different borders and are a significant step in a young researcher’s career.

Antonios Drakopoulos is currently working at the University of Würzburg. He hopes that his time at the University of Gothenburg will lead to fruitful research collaborations, a lot of networking and good opportunities to develop in terms of research.

– I look forward to having access to state-of-the-art facilities, further educational training and joint ventures within the EUTOPIA-SIF programme. In addition, of

The EUTOPIA Science and Innovation Fellowship Program (EUTOPIA-SIF) funds 76 two-year postdoctoral positions over four years, of which the University of Gothenburg contributes to 5. The first of four advertisements has closed, the second will open this autumn. The advertisement is funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme, which contributes 5.6 million euro, and by the participating universities, which contribute 4.6 million euros.

The advertisements are part of the EU MSCA (Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions) initiative. In addition to this so-called MSCA COFUND, there are also individual MSCA, as well as grants for staff exchanges and for networks in education.

The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship has a preliminary deadline in October. Feel free to contact Maria Enge at FIK for a writing guide, administrative help and individual feedback on your application.

The EUTOPIA network includes the University of Gothenburg, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, CY Cergy Paris Université, University of Ljubljana, Pompeu Fabra University and the University of Warwick.

Three quarters of the more than 5,000 employees who were affected by the email crash have got back all or part of their email history. The remaining employees, whose data was on the damaged servers, will not get it back.

IT WAS THE INTERNATIONAL ­

IT specialist company IBAS that, for several months, tried to save the data on the damaged servers.

– We hired a world-leading company in the field and they have done everything that was technically possible to retrieve the maximum amount of data.

Now we have received the final delivery and cannot do any more, says section manager Zeljko Ergic at the IT unit.

The quality of the data has varied. Many employees have got back their entire email history, others some, and a smaller proportion nothing at all. After the company delivered the data, a special group at the IT unit went through everything to ensure that the right information went to the right person. The email history has then been loaded into each employee’s mailbox. Those who have not received any email history were notified by email at the end of April.

ACCORDING TO Zeljko Ergic, there have been surprisingly few reactions since then.

– Of course there are people who are disappointed. Among other things, one researcher has asked questions about financial compensation for lost international contacts, but he is not entitled to that, according to our lawyers. Some people have not felt it neces-

sary to get their email history back. My assessment is that we have had good dialogue with the users and that most people understand that we have done everything we could in an extraordinary situation At the same time, intensive work has been underway to try to recover the email history that was saved on each hard drive. The IT unit has called each user to try to solve the problems. It often involves about a year’s history on PCs, on Macs usually much more.

Zeljko Ergic has no information about how much money the email crash has cost in the form of overtime and costs for recreating email histories.

– OUR WORK HAS been focu-

sed on rectifying the situation. Money was not a limiting factor, but the technical possibilities were, and ultimately they have been exhausted.

During the email crash, questions were raised about how secure the University of Gothenburg’s IT environment was. An investigation carried out by the internal audit showed that the security requirements that had been set were sufficient. Now that the entire University of Gothenburg has switched to Microsoft’s cloud service, there are no further risks.

– There is no safer solution than the one we have today, but if something unexpected were to happen with the Microsoft solution, we have an extra backup locally. Then we have a quick way to restore data.

Zeljko Ergic feels he can breathe a sigh of relief – It feels good that it’s over.

We can conclude the final chapter of the email crash.

We have done everything possible, and we can now move on and put our drive and energy into everything else that the business needs.

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Profile

Text: Eva Lundgren Photo: Johan Wingborg

From two beams on a jetty, ropes hang down into the water.

When Maria Bodin pulls them up, one is full of algae, the other is covered with mussels, sea squirts and sea urchins.

The organisms did not end up there by chance. Rather, it is a kind of allotment in the sea, which is now being tested in a pilot project at Tjärnö Marine Laboratory.

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It is a sunny day in May on Tjärnö when we visit to find out more about the marine allotments that Maria Bodin is working with. We walk down to a jetty, and Maria Bodin kneels to examine a cultivation strip with mussels. It is also covered with a lot of other interesting things.

– Look here, do you see the barnacles? They are small crustaceans that sit with their posteriors up and catch food. Invasive Pacific oysters are also on the strip and are recognizable because their shells are wavier and much sharper than their European relatives; they form reefs instead of staying on the sea floor. There is also grass kelp, a green algae that is only one single cell thick and which is also called the truffle of the sea, as well as sea squirts, a sack-like animal. As larvae, they have a spinal cord, a kind of precursor to the spine, which is a sign that they are more closely related to us humans than you might think.

Mussels and sea squirts willingly attach themselves to the strip, but algae require a little more work.

– Fertile plants of sugar kelp are brought into a lab where they can reproduce, and the algal shoots then settle on a spool of thread. The thread is wrapped around a rope, which is then put out into the water in September.

We harvest in April, so it is the opposite of the cultivation period on land. In addition to cultivation ropes, we have also hung baskets from the jetty for the storage of oysters, snails and crabs.

Marine allotments do not just provide new edible species for us humans. They are also good for nature, if you do it in the right way and only grow species that occur naturally in the environment, points out Maria Bodin.

– Well-managed aquaculture helps to build healthy ecosystems that bind carbon dioxide and increase biodiversity. Furthermore, neither watering nor fertilization is needed because there is enough nitrogen and phosphorus in the sea already.

The pilot trial is part of the project Marint gränsforum Skagerrak (Marine Border Forum Skagerrak), which is a collaboration between Sweden and Norway. But the idea of cultivation in the sea comes from Denmark.

– They have had marine allotments for about 10 years, which have become almost like a popular movement. In Denmark, you can obtain a hobby permit for small-scale aquaculture, which does not involve much red tape.

There is also less bureaucracy in Norway. In Sweden, on the other hand, there is no coordination between different authorities, which makes it very difficult to obtain the requisite permits. The purpose of all the rules is good, it is about protecting animals, nature and people’s access to beaches, but for growers the system should be simplified.

There is a great deal of interest in marine allotments, says Maria Bodin – Restaurants in particular get in touch. They want to grow mussels, algae and other interesting things, in much the same way as they often have their own herb garden.

Some products will probably not be accepted by the public any time soon, but others are easier to introduce, such as chips of sugar kelp, fried grass kelp or sea lettuce, which can be eaten as it is.

Despite the fact that oceans cover 70 percent of the

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Profile

earth’s surface, only about 5 percent of the world’s food production comes from the sea. Sweden, which has the EU’s longest coastline, contributes only about 1 percent to the EU’s total seafood production, says Maria Bodin.

– Scary Seafood is another project that I lead where we encourage restaurants and entrepreneurs in the tourism industry to try different ingredients from the sea, such as jellyfish. We have conducted two workshops, one where we cooked things we found on the beach when kayaking, and another where the newspaper GP’s food panel had to try to find words for new exciting flavours. Another four workshops are underway, including alternative cuts of fish. Today we only eat the fillet, which makes up about 17 percent of the fish, but we could very well eat other parts as well.

How about, for example, fish ribs?

Tjärnö Marine Laboratory is like a microcosm of the world, full of researchers from different countries, students from all over the world, school visits and summer tourists. Everyone’s special interest is the ocean.

Maria Bodin has been here from time to time, ever since she studied marine biology at university. But originally she is from Stockholm.

– That I became a marine biologist may seem obvious considering that I was fascinated by whales and dolphins even as a child. But for a while, I actually thought of becoming a hairdresser instead. That was because at secondary school I did my work experience at a hairdresser’s and she was very encouraging. Even though I was still at school, I was allowed to cut the staffs’ hair, among other things. What I learned there was how important it is to capture the interest of young people, but also that it is always possible to make a person look nice, even if it’s only just a haircut. So I

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worked there for several years and I’m still in contact with the owner.

Later, at university, I studied earth sciences and biology, which was really interesting. But it was when I took a supplementary course in marine biology and came here to Tjärnö for the first time, that I realised that this was what I wanted to do.

Maria Bodin has previously worked as an Environ-

mental Coordinator at the University of Gothenburg and as a summer guide on Tjärnö. In 2012, she became the Director of Naturum Kosterhavet (the Kosterhavet Nature Centre), which she helped to create.

– My job was to get the public, not least school classes, to take a respectful interest in nature. You can do this in many different ways, such as with the help of music along with beach excursions.

Havets hopp – en skräpmusikal (The Ocean’s Hope – a Junk Musical) was an event that Maria Bodin arranged for middle school students.

– Over the course of one day, the students had to pick up rubbish, learn about different sea organisms and practice newly written songs which they then performed for relatives and friends.

Another way to increase interest is to bring aquariums to various public events.

– Sometimes it can involve a little too much lugging

things around and I start to wonder why I do what I do.

But then something special happens, like during Västerhavsveckan (the North Sea Week) in Stenungsund a few years ago. A little six-year-old boy was so fascinated by my aquarium that he did not want to leave. His mother told me that he had never shown an interest in the sea before, but he stood there and helped me explain to the visitors what was in the water. Yeah, I reminded

Are you brave enough to try out Maria Bodin’s future menu?

1. Periwinkle soup with grilled sugar kelp and wild garlic mayonnaise 2. Breaded and deep-fried moon jellyfish, yuzu vinaigrette, croutons and garlic butter 3. Crab salad made from great spider crabs and shore crabs served with deep-fried starfish Sea urchin

Grass kelp, ”truffle of the sea”

4. Herring tapas (marinated sea ribs, grilled ventral fins, deep-fried fish skin and minced fish burgers) with dipping sauce made from lime, chili and coriander 5. Grilled razor clams, softshell clams and cockles with melted butter, horseradish and crème ciona 6. Algae paste with chili-marinated sugar kelp fritters and deep-fried bladder wrack buds

Recipes from Scandsea Bladder wrack pesto 50 g roasted sunflower seeds/pine nuts 5 g dried bladder wrack, soaked in water for at least 30 mins 1 jar of basil 10 cl of cooking oil 1 small bulb of garlic, grated 10 cl of grated parmesan 2 tsp of lemon juice Salt and pepper Cut the soaked bladder wrack into smaller pieces.

myself there and then, it’s for that little guy that I do all the work.

Maria Bodin’s work involves a lot of time out in nature. She is often outdoors also in her spare time, she loves skiing and stand up paddle boarding. But she also has a keen interest in creative pursuits.

– In my work with Naturum, I arranged craft cafés with a marine theme. I believe that everyone needs to use their hands, it is not enough to learn via a computer screen. I think that it’s great fun to reuse things that would otherwise be thrown away. You can make jewellery from a bicycle inner tube, and you can make braided bags from coffee packages.

The sun is still shining but it has become really chilly out on the jetty – Yes, there is something special about Tjärnö. It rarely snows here, but otherwise we have every kind of weather!

Then put everything into a food processor and mix into a pesto.

Cream cheese with grass kelp 5 g grass kelp, soaked 1 packet of cream cheese natural flavour ½ lime, juice and peel 1 small chili, chopped Cut the grass kelp into small pieces, mix all the ingredients together.

Maria Bodin Works as: Project Manager for a pilot study on marine allotments at Tjärnö Marine Laboratory. The project is conducted within Marint gränsforum Skagerrak, a collaboration between the Västra Götaland Region, the University of Gothenburg and Viken Fylkeskommune, and is supported by the EU programme Interreg Sverige-Norge. Maria is also Project Coordinator for Scary Seafood, the goal of which is to increase interest in seafood.

Lives in: Strömstad.

Family: Big and spread all over.

What is the most recent book you have read?

The Doggerland series.

What is your favourite music? Håkan Hellström and musicals.

What is your favourite food? Sushi, stuffed cabbage leaves and root vegetable mash with pork hock.

What are your hobbies? Being in the great outdoors, skiing, yoga, but also crafts – preferably using recycled materials.

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Focus | Academic freedom

The academy vs the state

Text: Lotta Engelbrektson Photo: Johan Wingborg Illustration: Agnes Garvell

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Actually, everyone is in agreement. Academic freedom must be safeguarded. Academic freedom has even been written into the Higher Education Act. Still, the debate continues.

There is no single answer

to why the question is so hot right now. Global development – with more autocratic states – is thought to be one explanation. The threat to researchers over the past year is another.

Also a number of cases that have attracted media attention, with university lecturers accused of being ignorant about gender and racism, have also been part of the debate.

Has academic freedom disappeared at Swedish universities?

– No, but it is important that we constantly defend it.

There are a lot of people who want to influence academic freedom. Therefore, researchers need to be aware of their role and continue to keep the issue alive, says Fredrika Lagergren Wahlin, Doctor in Political Science and Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Collaboration at the University of Gothenburg.

There is a generally accepted definition of academic freedom. The definition sounds quite simple: A researcher must have the right to choose a research topic and a method, and be free to publish their results. Academic freedom, as it is defined, should also include lecturers, who should be allowed to lecture at their own discretion and in accordance with the available science. Students are also included in the concept because they are free to choose their education.

At the same time, the university is a state agency with political appointments and a

Fredrika Lagergren Wahlin is Deputy Vice-Chancellor for collaboration.

But I think that academic freedom comes first ...

FREDRIKA LAGERGREN WAHLIN

common agenda. There are also financial frameworks that must be adhered to.

– There is much that can be considered limiting. But since both research and education are financed by tax revenue, it needs to be relevant and have a bearing on the time in which we live, says Fredrika Lagergren Wahlin.

She believes that it can be dangerous to interpret academic freedom as something free and independent that does not have to be connected to the rest of the world.

The university is a part of

society and is populated by people, she says.

– Therefore, we must also relate to the state’s values, and the virtues and attitudes that characterize a civil servant. Whatever we might think of that, she adds.

The very word value has stirred up emotions. The state’s values include basic principles such as democracy, objectivity and the equal dignity of human beings. The loudest protests are about these values being in conflict with academic freedom. Real freedom cannot be achieved if it has to take values into account, some debaters believe.

– This is not unproblematic. I know that people in other parts of Europe react when they hear about Swedish universities’ connection to the state. But I think that academic freedom comes first, then the values of the state come next, says Fredrika Lagergren Wahlin.

She does not entirely understand the criticism of

gender studies, where it is argued that the subject does not belong in academia.

Questioning gender studies as an academic discipline is the opposite of safeguarding academic freedom, she says.

– It is very strange reaso-

ning. Gender studies, like all other areas of study, involves research that has developed gradually. It is not an ideology but the subject is based on theories of power relationships in society.

On the other hand, Fredrika Lagergren Wahlin has nothing against the discussion itself, whether it is about identity politics, gender or postcolonialism. She believes that it is part of the university’s mandate to discuss, argue and experiment.

– We need more, not less, research that challenges and questions the order of things from different theoretical perspectives and approaches, she says.

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Focus | Academic freedom

Debate – a fundamental part of academia Perceptions of academic freedom may differ. But the right to assert one’s opinion is cherished within universities.

An endless discussion is going on at Högskoleläckan.

The debate pages of the

major dailies have been filled with indignant voices claiming that the university world has become too politically correct, that there is no longer any academic freedom.

The posts are met by equally discontented opponents who believe that the debaters are mistaken and that the threat comes from elsewhere.

– In the academic debate, one must be able to accept radically different views.

You have no right not to be contradicted, states Christian Munthe, Professor of Practical Philosophy and himself a diligent debater.

Personally, he is happy to enter into discussions in the Facebook group Högskoleläckan, where he also acts as a moderator. At present, the group has 18,600 members, the majority of whom have a connection to the university. But the group is also frequented by politicians, journalists, students and other interested parties.

– When I started Högskoleläckan ten years ago, it was because I wanted a forum where we could discuss academic issues. It is obvious that other people needed the same thing, says Ulf Dalnäs, Vice Dean for Collaboration at the Faculty of Fine, Applied

and Performing Arts.

In recent times, academic freedom has been a recurring issue in the extensive Facebook threads. And as long as everyone maintains a decent level of discussion, all opinions are welcome. Ulf Dalnäs also frequently runs live broadcasts in “Läckan” where he talks to politicians and others, who he thinks have something to contribute to the topic under discussion.

– I am deeply impressed by

committed researchers who do not hesitate to delve into controversial issues even though they are aware of what the reaction will be. It has definitely become a tougher climate in which to debate, he says.

Nevertheless, both Ulf Dalnäs and Christian Munthe

… it was because I wanted a forum where we could discuss academic issues.

ULF DALNÄS

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emphasize the importance of a lively discussion. Ongoing discussion is one of the foundations of academia. There is also nothing new under the sun.

For as long as there have been universities – there has been debate about what they teach.

– Throughout history, there

have been discussions about whether the teaching is too religious or secular, whether they are too left-wing or too right-wing. Academia is free, but also controlled. We choose to go in a certain direction and those who deviate from the accepted path may not be accommodated to the same extent, says Christian Munthe.

The basis of the universities’ raison d’être is that there is a kind of consensus, a solid system that everyone agrees on. Therefore, it is also inevitable that some individuals are dissatisfied with certain directions, says Christian Munthe.

– The result of collegial discussions is that as an individual, you may feel that the scope within which you

– Political governance is not a violation. Researchers can still choose whether they want to accept the money. But if they do, the financing entails certain obligations, he says.

The idea of researchers who

can articulate your ideas is limited. But that is to ensure that not everyone’s freedom will be curtailed, he says.

Academic freedom must, among other things, guarantee the higher education institutions’ autonomy and the researchers’ ability to choose their subject areas. But that does not mean that you can do whatever you want. For example, you must not harm anyone who is participating in the research or act in an unlawful manner. Nor can a single lecturer decide what the content of a course should be. Virtually all decisions made within the confines of the university are made in consultation with managers and other colleagues, says Christian Munthe.

– Just because you have certain rights, does not mean that others are obliged to accommodate you. This is

Christian Munthe

where the role of the state comes in, he says.

For example, the state has no obligation to distribute funds to anyone who asks for them. That politicians demand research on the threat to the climate, democracy or antibiotic resistance, is quite natural, Christian Munthe thinks. Developments in these areas are important and the issues affect a lot of people.

are completely independent of the state is not realistic in Sweden. Then we would soon have no universities at all, according to Christian Munthe.

– The state has always had power over us, and you can always discuss the politics.

But the commitment of the state is a prerequisite for the survival of universities.

However, this reasoning does not mean that one should be passive. Right now he is participating with tremendous commitment in the discussion that followed Mid Sweden University’s decision to cancel a lecture with Kajsa Ekis Ekman about her book Om könets existens (On the existence of gender).

“Relativism, different frameworks for interpreting text, as well as different ideas about people’s dignity and rights, etc., are all established theories and research areas within academia,” he writes in a post on Högskoleläckan.

– Actually, I think the How question is more interesting

than the What question. We should talk more about how we express ourselves in public discourse. We are supposed to be professionals at discussing and arguing for our cause.

It’s fine to feel a little offended from time to time, it has nothing to do with having your academic freedom restricted, he says.

Facts The Facebook group Högskoleläckan – gruppen för högskoleskvaller (the group for university gossip) was started in 2011 by Ulf Dalnäs, Vice dean for Collaboration at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts. The account is administered by Ulf Dalnäs, Johan Lundin and Daniel Ro. The group currently has 18,600 members.

The account describes Högskoleläckan as follows: “Here we share serious and silly content related to the higher education sector.”

Find out more about Högskoleläckan in the GU Journal no.: 1-2021. https://issuu.com/universityofgothenburg/docs/ guj1-2021/18.

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Report

However, Bo Rothstein will not be spending his retirement being sedentary. In the spring of 2022, he will be a visiting researcher at Harvard, the university where he began his international engagement in 1992.

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A University of Gothenburg celebrity bows out – My potential strength as a researcher has been that I saw things that others did not. While most political scientists were interested in politics, I was contemplating what creates human well-being.

And it turned out to depend very little on which party wins the general election. Bo Rothstein, who is about to retire, elaborates.

As a researcher, you should strive to make yourself superfluous, explains Bo Rothstein, Professor of Political Science.

– Now that I’m leaving the QoG institute, which Sören Holmberg and myself started in 2004, there are around thirty younger researchers that will take over. They know everything that I do, and then quite a lot that I don’t. Their commitment has led to tremendous success. In one year alone, the institute had more Research Council applications accepted than any other social science department in Sweden.

Political scientists tend to focus on democracy and political parties.

– Currently, many political scientists are concerned about growing populism and the decline of democracy, for example. But I would argue that there are other things

that should concern us more, such as the tremendous increase in financial inequality in large parts of the world, including Sweden.

Something very worrying, which political scientist previously did not care about, is corruption.

– Throughout my entire

undergraduate period, corruption was not mentioned at all. And in general, there was a view that a little bribe could help to grease the wheels. However, the research community has changed their minds over the past few years, and realised that corruption has immense adverse effects on everything related to human well-being; none of the UN Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved if we do not first build well-functioning public institutions.

One of the most important prerequisites for a good, non-corrupt society is trust between citizens. American political scientist Robert Putnam argued that trust is built when people are involved in volunteer work for NGOs. – But that has turned out not to be entirely true.

Instead, social trust is about public institutions that work.

Because if not even the representatives of the state are honest, who is?

But corruption is a term that is difficult to define, Bo Rothstein points out.

– The most commonly used explanation is that corruption is the misuse of public power for personal gain. But what counts as misuse or personal gain can vary, which makes the term vague. Within QoG, therefore, we define what the opposite of corruption is:

impartiality. By impartiality we mean that public servants cannot consider anything beyond what is written in laws and statutes – for example neither gender, ethnic origin, political views or religion can have any significance.

The universities, who train

the public servants, have a considerable responsibility.

That was the reason why Bo Rothstein, together with Professor Lennart Levi, in 2014 launched the so-called Poznan Declaration.

– That means that issues concerning ethics shall be integrated into all educational programmes, such as for physicians, teachers, economists, biologists, etc. Because just like the American political scientist Francis Fukyama pointed out, impartiality does not appear by itself, it

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Report is something that has to be learned and practised. All 68 universities that are part of the network, The Compostela Group of Universities, have signed the declaration.

Bo Rothstein’s approach to ethics was truly put to the test in 2017. After barely two years as a professor at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford he felt he had to resign.

– Their operation is built on a donation of 75 million pounds from the billionaire Leonard Blavatnik and the school’s motto is “A world better governed”. When it was revealed that Blavatnik had also donated a considerable sum to Donald Trump, I asked the management of the school what they intended to do. The answer was that they did not intend to do anything.

As my field of research is the quality of governance, I felt that I could not, with any credibility, continue; and so I resigned.

However Bo Rothstein does not see returning to the University of Gothenburg as a step back.

– I liked it very much in Oxford, particularly having master’s students from all over the world. But the department of political science at the University of Gothenburg does very well in international comparisons; the ten most cited political scientists here are actually more cited than the ten most cited at Oxford.

And the RED 19 evaluation showed that our department is one of the most prominent in Europe.

Besides being a researcher and lecturer, Bo Rothstein is also involved in public discourse, something that he himself is keen to play down, however.

– I neither blog nor tweet, and do not appear on TV programmes. But I do find it peculiar when researchers

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Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

All researchers are wrong sometimes, but it is about being wrong in interesting ways.

BO ROTHSTEIN

do not participate in public discourse at all, do they really have no findings that would interest the public? I would be happy to accept if I was invited to hold a lecture. And I also try to contribute about ten modest op-ed articles per year, with some humble comments.

In particular, he has become known for his position on gender research.

– At the beginning of 2000, Yvonne Hirdman argued that my position on gender science was so bizarre that I should personally be the subject of a research project. I responded by saying, please, go ahead: there is a large number of cine films from my childhood, as well as former classmates and dear girlfriends who would gladly get involved.

But on a more serious note, I have nothing against gender science, what concerns me is that the discipline is so gender segregated, with almost exclusively female researchers and students. I would argue that if anyone has promoted gender equality it is me: of the 17 doctoral students I supervised, ten were women, as were 14 of the 23 post-docs who were employed in my projects.

Besides gender, Bo Rothstein has more recently debated the corona crisis, populism, religiosity and the

Have you ever been really wrong about something?

– Of course. All researchers are wrong sometimes, but it is about being wrong in interesting ways. Putnam’s theory about trust was wrong for example, but it led to an important discussion that drove progress. Depending on how you conduct research, there are also different risks of being wrong: If you assume a theory, you risk just looking for the things that support that theory, and if you assume a method, then you risk illustrating a problem in an overly narrow way. A third way is to take a problem and then use theory and method as your tools. You can still go wrong, of course, but the focus on the problem makes it easier to change your approach and redo things.

Another problem for researchers is to want to much.

– “Willing that which cannot be willed” is a phrase coined by the Norwegian political scientist, Jon Elster.

It means that the more you want something, the less probable it is that it will happen.

For example, you won’t fall in love or become creative just because you really want to. Instead, you should create the right conditions for what you want to happen, and then stop trying to control the situation.

When Bo Rothstein retires he will not just tend to his garden in Liguria in Italy. He will also be senior advisor in a number of research projects, a visiting scholar at Harvard in the spring of 2020 as well as popping in at the department in Gothenburg if anything fun is happening.

– Even though it’s nice to retire, I also feel a certain sadness. Working at the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothen-

burg has been a privilege.

For example, I have never experienced even the slightest conflict with any of the heads of department. And out of the many prominent political science departments where I have worked, in various parts of the world, none of them can match the one in Gothenburg.

Text: Eva Lundgren Photo: Johan Wingborg

Bo Rothstein became Professor at the Institute for Working Life in 1994 and Professor at the University of Gothenburg in 1995.

Together with Sören Holmberg, he started the Quality of Government Institute (QoG), here in 2004. In 2016–2017, Bo Rothstein was a Professor at the University of Oxford. He has also been a visiting Professor at the University of Bergen, Harvard, the University of Southern Denmark and Aalborg University.

Recent books: Controlling Corruption: The Social Contract Approach and The Oxford Handbook of the Quality of Government; editors: Andreas Bågenholm, Monika Bauhr, Marcia Grimes and Bo Rothstein.

Family: Wife and two children.

Lives in: Central Gothenburg and Northern Italy.

Role model: Elinor Ostrom who, in 2009, became the first woman to receive the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, something that Bo Rothstein strongly supported in his role as an expert with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He is also the receiver of HM The King’s Medal, 8th size with the ribbon of the Order of the Seraphim.

A few colleagues about Bo Rothstein…

Sören Holmberg Emeritus Professor in Political Science

Bo has been Don Bosso and

I have been Consigliere in our collaboration. It has been wonderful. However, the gods should know that he does not always listen to advice. But it has been good. You can rely on Bo!

Marcia Grimes

Professor i stats­vetenskap

Both within QoG (the Quality

of Government Institute) and at the department as a whole, Bo has prioritized a positive research environment. His philosophy is that one starts with a shared problem, but that it is then up to each researcher to decide for themselves which specific issue they want to study within the field. Within QoG, it is also natural to read and discuss each other’s writing in a generous way and to come up with constructive criticism.

Seminars and conferences are also open to interested parties outside the group, which leads to even more interesting discussions.

Mikael Gilljam

Head of the Department of Political Science:­

When Bo came to the University of Gothenburg in 1995, the Department of Political Science was still very Swedish.

One of the first things he did was to get us to participate in the major international political science conferences.

This has led to about twenty University of Gothenburg researchers usually attending the American Political Science Association’s conference, for example, while other Swedish universities have only a few employees attending.

– Bo is always very committed, for example, he worked hard in order for Elinor Ostrom to receive the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 2009. He did a tremendous job when he was responsible for the department’s self-evaluation within RED 19 and has been extremely involved as deputy head of research. During his time here, he has brought in approximately SEK 175 million in research funds as the main applicant, in addition to grants where he was a co-applicant. At the same time, he has no hubris and is very grounded. He is simply a role model for the research community.

Andreas Bågenholm Program Manager at the QoG Institute

I have worked closely with

Bo for almost ten years and what was most striking throughout this time is his tremendous drive and creativity to constantly find new ideas and opportunities for funding. The prime example of this, but far from the only one, is of course the QoG Institute, which in a short period of time became one of the largest – if not the largest – centre for corruption research. Bo has a rare ability to enthuse and inspire, two qualities that are difficult to overestimate the importance of when it comes to research management. Without the risk of sounding too devout, it has been a privilege to work with Bo for such a long time.

Anna Persson,

associate Professor of Political Science

– I have had the privilege of

working close to Bo Rothstein for almost 20 years. To work with Bo is to have a never-ending source of inspiration next to you. The curiosity and drive Bo possesses are rare.

In addition, not many are as brave in research as Bo. The

problems he attacks are often both difficult and complex.

In addition, Bo rarely avoids new challenges. The QoG Institute is a brilliant example of Bo’s way of working. Social relevance is always a guiding star, as is the willingness to share knowledge and success – with colleagues, students and society at large. It is often said that age is just a number.

I hope and believe that this also applies to retirement age.

Aiysha Kanval Varraich doctoral student at the QoG Institute

Bo has been and still is one

of my foremost mentors in the academic world. It was as his research assistant that I began to understand how the production of academic knowledge worked, without that experience I probably would not have become a researcher. He demonstrated how it is possible to find and develop your own ideas, and how an idea can be developed into a real project. As a novice, I was able to participate without my efforts or suggestions being diminished. As a mentor, he is discerning and does not interfere unnecessarily, and his openness to ideas that differ from his own has contributed to significantly advancing corruption research – the greatest proof of this is the QoG Institute. Bo has always said that he would retire at 65, but since he is such a researcher at heart, I never believed him. However, I guess he has new projects underway and I wish him the best of luck with everything.

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Invisible threats to democracy Text: Eva Lundgren Photo: Allan Eriksson

What right does the state have to decide that its citizens should be vaccinated? That question was asked as early as the 19th century, when smallpox vaccination became mandatory in Sweden and in many other countries.

– The resistance to vaccinations is as old as the vaccinations themselves, says Johannes Lindvall.

He is the new August Röhss Professor of Political Science and believes that historical knowledge gives us perspective on today’s problems.

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Should the school be public or private, state or municipal?

How should the police be governed? Should vaccination of children be mandatory? People thought about that during the 19th century as well.

The GU Journal met Johan-

nes Lindvall at the Department of Political Science. He had cycled there from the central station after taking the train from Lund, where he is still working for a few more weeks. He folds his two-wheeler into a handy package that he carries through the entrance. It has been 17 years since he defended his thesis here, now he is back after also working at Oxford and Harvard, among other places.

Social science and humanities research is important, not least to teach us to look at the time in which we are living with new eyes, Johannes Lindvall explains.

– We like to believe that the time in which we are living is unique, but it is almost always possible to draw parallels to other countries and eras.

Political science is about how society works, and in a democracy it is a question that should concern everyone.

JOHANNES LINDVALL

Johannes Lindvall’s latest book, Inward Conquest, is about how public services, such as the school and the police, have developed since the 19th century. But he is also involved in other projects, for example on migration policy and the welfare state, as well as on government building in the 19th century.

Social sciences, not least political science, should serve the public interest, he says.

– Political science is about how society works, and in a democracy it is a question that should concern everyo-

Johannes Lindvall Currently: New August Röhss Professor in Political Science.

Background: Defended his thesis at the University of Gothenburg in 2004, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford from 2007–2010, Professor at Lund University in 2013, guest lecturer at Harvard University from 2016–2017.

Selection of published books: Inward Conquest (2020), 134 dagar: om regerings­ bildningen efter valet 2018, together with Jan Teorell, Hanna Bäck and Johan Hellström (2020), Reform Capacity (2017), SNS Demokrati­rapport 2017: samverkan och strid i den parlamentariska demokratin in collaboration with Hanna Bäck, Carl Dahlström, Elin Naurin and Jan Teorell.

Family: Wife and two children.

Book recommendation: Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times by Nancy Bermeo.

What is the most recent book you have read? Summerwater by Sarah Moss.

What is the most recent film you have watched? Tomboy by Céline Sciamma.

What is your favourite food? Pancakes.

What are your hobbies? Board Games (Favorite right now: Brass Lancashire).

ne. Therefore, participation in public discourse is an important part of my work. If I cannot explain what I’m doing in a way that is comprehensible, then I’m probably doing the wrong thing.

Johannes Lindvall has contributed to the discourse through his participation in two books. 134 dagar: om regeringsbildningen efter valet 2018 (134 days: the formation of government after the 2018 election) is based on a research project, led by Jan Teorell, who examined the January agreement and the fall of the Alliance. SNS Demokratirapport 2017: samverkan och strid i den parlamentariska demokratin (SNS Democracy Report 2017: Cooperation and Struggle in Parliamentary Democracy) is about the situation after the 2014 election, when parliame-

nt voted down the government’s budget and the prime minister threatened to call another election.

– The report is based on

a survey that some colleagues and I did because we were worried about what we perceived as the politicians’ increasing inability to handle conflicts. However, our study made us cautiously optimistic. The will to make the political system work is, after all, considerable, contrary to what you might believe when you follow mass media reporting. An example of the support for the democratic system came in early June when the Constitution Committee presented its review of the government’s handling of the covid-19 pandemic.

– The committee was

united in its considerable criticism, which even the parties that are part of the government had signed. I see that parties with very different views can agree on the political rules of the game as proof of strength. Compare this with the USA, for example, where the slightest change in electoral law or the electoral boundaries of the constituencies leads to protracted disputes.

Even though democracy is strong in Sweden, there is reason to worry about developments in the rest of the world, says Johannes Lindvall.

– Threats to democracy are more difficult to perceive today. Previously in history, the differences between democracies, totalitarian states and military dictatorships were clear to people. Today, democracy is being undermined by parties that profess democratic principles but that make it difficult or impossible for other parties to assert themselves.

Democracy is basically a set of rules for making political decisions, Johannes Lindvall reminds us.

– Democracy is based on the idea that we can live together even if society is characterized by contradictions. There have always been those who have argued that democratic societies are weak because they cannot unite the nation. I think instead we should be proud that we have a political system based on respect for different people’s views.

On January 10, the so-called pandemic law came into force, which, among other things, makes it possible for the government to restrict people’s freedom of assembly and demonstration.

– These are rights that are outlined in Chapter 2 of the Swedish Instrument

of Government. But it also states that restrictions on the freedom may be imposed, for example to prevent epidemics. The COVID-19 Act is therefore not unusual, and similar laws exist in other countries. What you might worry about, however, is that the perception of what is normal has shifted. Therefore, it is important that the restrictions on citizens’ freedoms and rights are not continued beyond what is absolutely necessary.

Johannes Lindvall grew up in an academic family. His mother, Ingrid Elam, is a wellknown cultural figure who was dean of the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts for six years. His father was a professor of Romance Languages in Lund and in Gothenburg.

Was it natural for you to pursue an academic career?

– No, one thing just led to the other, I had no definite plans at that time. But I grew up in a home where there were constant discussions about politics, literature and the changing society, and that affected me a lot. That I studied political science was probably due to the tough period Sweden was in, both economically and politically, in the early 1990s; I simply wanted to understand what happened and how politics works in practice. Now I’m back at my old department. I look forward to reconnecting with my old teachers and colleagues but also to making new acquaintances. The department has grown since I left many years ago and has gained several new strong research environments. Of course, I hope to be able to contribute to the continued development.

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Maps research on distance workin What are the pros and cons of working from home? Few researchers have previously been interested in this area. But then came the pandemic.

– In one year, interest has doubled, including in psychology, management and of course IT”, Aleksandre Asatiani explains. He is leading a project that will map the last 20 years of research on distance working.

Aleksandre Asatiani, senior lecturer at the Department of Applied IT, Division of Informatics, has been researching distance working for six years, a field that has significantly expanded in the past year.

He is now leading a one-year project, which will investigate publications on distance working from the period 1999–2021. Its focus will be on management, information systems, work psychology, human-computer interaction and computer science.

– The aim is to get a 360-degree perspective on how to create digital work environments that are sustainable from both the employer’s and the employee’s perspective. Among other things, we are interested in how digitalization affects individuals, their relationships in the

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workplace and their family situation.

The study will be completed by the autumn, but Aleksandre Asatiani has already identified some trends.

– Previously, there was a perception that distance working is only suitable for certain industries. Now we have proof that quite a few people can work from home. The resistance that existed before, both among managers and employees has been changed to a greater openness towards distance working, which can be an alternative in many professions.

Digital technology can simplify working life in many ways, Aleksandre Asatiani points out.

– Now that we are used to digital meetings, we will probably have them more often, and not just to avoid longer trips. A quick catch up via teams can be effective even if colleagues live in the same city. At the same time, personal meetings will probably be valued higher than they are today.

Hybrid meetings can also

become more common, where some participants are on site and others are at a distance.

– Distance meetings can increase equality in a workplace in many ways. It could allow more people to participate in meetings, even those who for some reason have

The aim is to get a 360-degree ­perspective on how to ­create digital work environments that are sustainable from both the employer’s and the employee’s perspective.

ALEKSANDRE ASATIANI

difficulty physically attending. Digital meetings usually have a stricter focus on the task, and not so much on the personal characteristics of the participants. It can make it easier for employees who risk discrimination because they are in some way different. But digital meetings can of course also be problematic: those who have already met in the kitchen whilst making a cup of coffee, may have had time to discuss the issues that are then raised at the meeting and thus have an edge over colleagues who participate at a distance. It is also easier to withhold information and,

a common culture and sense of belonging when employees rarely meet.

Different employees may have different needs and wishes. Some may have good reasons for wanting to work remotely with flexible working hours. At the same time, others may need specific times in the office, just like before the pandemic.

ng

for example, have meetings behind the backs of certain colleagues, if you do not meet physically very often. These will be important issues for managers to keep track of.

Previous studies have assumed that only one family member works remotely from home. This has not been the case during the pandemic.

– That perhaps an entire family work and study at a distance creates new challenges, both technically and when it comes to separate rooms to work in. Another interesting question is about how a workplace can create

Aleksandre Asatiani believes that hybrid meetings will be more common.

– It can be difficult for an employer to find a balance that works for everyone. Even if, for example, you accept greater flexibility, the employees may still have to have a meeting at ten o’clock every morning, and then the working day is ostensibly controlled by this. Some managers may have greater confidence in their employees and let them decide a significant amount for themselves, but others may want to exercise greater control. There are examples of companies that install monitoring programs on employees’ computers, which can make them feel even more controlled at home than when they are in the office.

The aim of Aleksandre Asatiani’s study is to develop models of sustainable remote workplaces.

– The pandemic has put us in a special situation where we learned a lot about how to work remotely. The question now is how much of this we can benefit from in our subsequent working life. It should work year after year, not just as an emergency solution in a difficult situation.

Text: Eva Lundgren Photo: Peter Larsson Translation: Ann Nilsen

Facts Working from home as a sustainable work environment is a research project funded by Forte. The research leader is Aleksandre Asatiani, senior lecturer at the Department of Applied IT, Division of Informatics.

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