Interesting stories about Sweden from the Viking’s time to one of the most developed and richest countries in Europe, along with significant achievements in the work of the University for the benefit of the community, will be remembered by the participants of the Ukrainian project teams during the study visit to Lund University (November 6-9, 2023).
The thoughtful program of the study visit made it possible to get acquainted with the most interesting university cases of the third mission development not only for the Lund community.
Thanks to the achievements of HumTank, which gathered together 14 universities in Sweden and was created to research humanistic topics, community development at the national level reached new heights and, according to HumTank chair Lovisa Brännstedt, made the voice of universities powerful in decision-making for communities.
Noteworthy is all the speakers emphasized the need for cooperation between the university and the community. Thus, Patrik Rydén – the project manager of the cooperation office, – spoke about the fruitful cooperation work and noted the need to involve external stakeholders to improve the effectiveness of the third mission and its compliance with the community’s request. In the course of the topic, Michael Bossetta, a media and communications researcher, talked about the advantages of the university podcast as one of the modern communication tools with the community and conveying the latest knowledge. Michael’s lively speech inspired the Ukrainian participants to the idea of creating a project podcast to disseminate their own experience and best European practices. The rationality of this idea was confirmed during the workshop with the press officer Ulrika Oredsson, who talked about the existing communication networks of the University, their role in attracting investments to support research, and their promotion up to the nomination of candidates for the Nobel Prize.
2023 was the year of recognition of Anne L’Hillier’s fruitful 30-year work in the field of physics, which brought her the Nobel Prize and confirmed Lund University’s status as a powerful research university.
Since the year of foundation – 1666, the University has produced a Fields Medal laureate, prime ministers, dozens of business leaders, as well as numerous innovators and researchers who brought lots of benefits to society. The existence of an ancient tradition of innovations and their combination with art and science is confirmed by the museums existing at the University, which were also visited by Ukrainian delegates.
Cultural impressions and new knowledge of the university’s experience were creatively summarized by Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, the coordinator of the UNICOM project at Lund University and associate professor of the Department of European Studies and Strategic Communications. Working in teams, the Ukrainian project participants put forward Anamaria’s topics for further processing, which she agreed upon for the further processing.
Therefore, the next visit to Sweden should open not only new pages of the history and culture of the Scandinavian country but also help in the development of strategies of cooperation between the university and communities in Ukraine.
Stay tuned for project’s updates!
