The International Advisory Board – an overview

The members of the relatively newly established International Advisory Board (IAB) have just left Uppsala and Vice-Chancellor Anders Hagfeldt is satisfied and rather exhilarated.

– We have had very exciting discussions and it’s fantastic to meet such knowledgeable and experienced people who immediately grasp the challenges and are willing and able to contribute their advice and experience. Really inspiring.

The idea of the International Advisory Board came about after a discussion with another university leader, Bertil Andersson, who was President of Singapore University at the time. The question that Hagfeldt tabled was how the University could move forwards, become a more attractive partner for global collaborations and quite simply become even better. The thought soon came up that what it is really about is cooperating, talking about common challenges, sharing experiences and being inspired by one another. All universities succeed in part, none have got everything right.

The composition of the group was another puzzle. The aim was to assemble a group of experienced individuals from different parts of the world who could contribute their own perspectives while being sufficiently well acquainted with Uppsala University.

– We tried to put together a dream team and nearly everyone we asked said yes.

Not all of them were able to attend the meeting in Uppsala in person, but the commitment of those who did come was unmistakable and in the course of our conversations, it became clear that there is consensus on certain fundamental issues, though the members of the group naturally vary in their focus and motivating concerns.

Three of the members found time in their schedule for interviews.

Lise Korsten, University of Pretoria

The first is Lise Korsten from South Africa, whom we meet in the faculty room of the Faculty of Medicine in the University Main Building. There a portrait of Linnaeus catches our eye. Korsten talks about her relationship with the travelling scientists who collected and catalogued specimens around the world and the conversation soon leads on to the world of today.

– Those who do not invest in building networks will become obsolete.

She speaks this word with emphasis. She considers her role as a member of a group of international advisors to the University to be strategically important. Her vision is that Uppsala University will function as one of the nodes in a supernetwork of excellent universities that are capable of taking a long-term, international approach. The great task will be to maintain openness and to recognise the importance of ensuring that academic institutions are transparent and inspire confidence.

There is no mistaking Korsten’s commitment. The energy driving her reasoning feels overwhelming, infectious and constructive. The words she uses are precise and in some cases emerge like an explosion wrapped in candyfloss.

– When I first took my place in the contexts that mattered, I was expected to pour the tea. I refused, but I’ve learned to play the game. In the beginning, I observed that South Africa had invested in ivory towers. They were excellent, closed establishments that were neither inviting nor inclusive. I wanted to break that pattern, but first I needed to be accepted and invited to join the discussion.

Acceptance came in time, through hard work and successful research. Korsten managed to be elected to the editorial boards of several journals and eventually became the first woman to be President of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS).

– Now we’re seeing people beginning to talk about Africa as the future. This is where the young talents are, the potential. We’re like a living lab, albeit with many challenges.

Korsten talks about China’s interest in finding new crops to provide a secure supply of food in the future. She talks about mines and rare earth metals and the environmental consequences of mining. Post-colonialism is another topic of conversation. The fact that many people dislike the French, that the Americans are losing ground, and what a challenge infrastructure represents in the absence of technical know-how.

– The Chinese are exciting. They publish more than anyone in journals like Nature and they reward their researchers and promote them. We’re seeing new, internationally successful tactics. It’s also notable that they have a new agenda when it comes to collaboration.

This agenda is not limited to co-financing research projects. Korsten mentions mobility grants, which enable Chinese researchers to be present in collaborations on site. The intention is palpable. Africa has the natural resources and in addition there are both data and biobanks that the Chinese are interested in.

– We don’t want to give away what we have, but it’s tricky. In Africa we still lack the computer power we would need to be able to process what we ourselves have. This is an important component for the future.

Korsten sees data as the gold of the future and we soon find ourselves talking about the current overconfidence in the global giants’ systems.

– My son was at school with Elon Musk and is also in the AI business. We talk a lot about this and I can see how important it is to have our own systems in place.”

We return to the topic of networks. To the importance of being open and relevant, of making use of Uppsala University’s unique position as an old and credible institution, but also as a leading and credible institution.

– I think you would also benefit from taking a look at your recruitment. Postdocs are a group you should target and you should also make better use of your recently retired staff. They have an enormous amount of knowledge and know who it’s worth focusing on. They often have time and are keen to pay back. Don’t forget them in developing the University.

Meric Gertler, Toronto University

The second International Advisory Board member is Meric Gertler from Toronto University. He is a professor of geography and planning and was president of his university for 12 years, until 2025. Gertler has also taken on the role of chair of the International Advisory Board.

– I agreed to be on the board because I am passionate about public higher education and because I want to help Uppsala University realise its own strength.

We meet in the Vice-Chancellor’s office in the Segerstedt Building and Gertler tells us that as a researcher in urban development and planning, he has had a good deal of contact with Uppsala University through various research projects and collaborations. He gives the impression of being down to earth and urbane at one and the same time. When I ask about his image of Uppsala University and our position among world universities, Gertler says that fifteen years ago, Toronto University was in about the same place as Uppsala is now. When he says this, he is not referring to research or the standard of education. What he is talking about is impact and visibility. Areas in which Toronto University saw potential for improvement and in which they then made great efforts to improve.

– We have put a lot into what we call storytelling, talking more about how we work, the challenges we face and the successes we achieve. This has led to good results for us. The sense of pride among our staff has increased, but we have also attracted more external funding.

The image of the university recurs repeatedly in our conversation and he says that Uppsala University, as he sees it, has a great many stories to tell and things to show, but he does not perceive us to be doing so. Gertler also talks about internationalisation and how Toronto University had a very unclear picture of what they were aiming for in terms of internationalisation before they focused on the issue properly. It was a matter of discussing recruitments and who they wanted to attract. They also needed to make the most of the entire breadth of the university.

– There are many similarities with your UUniFI here. We created conditions to set up a number of institutes that tackled broad and complex societal issues and provided them with seed funding. They soon attracted other funders. Our objective in the university management was to identify a model to organise our resources for working more broadly. This doesn’t happen naturally at any university, as we are so divided up.

Gertler is keen to emphasise Uppsala University’s impressive potential. He also comments on the city’s favourable strategic location and says there is much to be gained from promoting the region and entrepreneurial activity via the University.

– The challenge is to keep companies in the region. If that succeeds, you build up one another. That has been one of our achievements in Toronto, that we’ve succeeded in that.

Of course Toronto, with a population of 2.7 million, is a different kind of city than Uppsala, but in Gertler’s opinion, Uppsala’s attractiveness derives from many components. There are political factors, stability, social cohesion and proximity to nature. From the perspective of the urban planner and researcher, he outlines in brief the factors that attract academics internationally and Uppsala basically matches all the requirements he mentions.

It is the countries that are sometimes called ‘middle powers’ that may be able to benefit from events in our unruly world. The outcome of shifts in the balance of power will likely be the emergence of new global powerhouses. Sweden and the Nordic region can be one of them, Gertler says.

– If I can contribute to that, I am happy to do so and I’d also like to add that I think this idea with our group is a really smart idea. Uppsala will be able to advance much more rapidly than we did. Creating an image of what the University can become by drawing on the experiences of others – tremendously smart.

Svante Pääbo, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

While I am talking with Meric Gertler, Svante Pääbo is literally on a roll. He is riding his bike along the newly inaugurated Pääbo Circuit, and arrives a little late at our meeting as he has been held up after his tour by all the students outside the Segerstedt Building who have wanted to ask questions, take pictures and just get close to the Nobel laureate.

– It’s fun to get the attention, but of course it can be a bit of a bother too. So many people want me to come and talk and I simply don’t have the time. I’ve had to learn to say no.

It is a reflective man who faces me across the round table. His answers are quite brief and factual. He says that his role is not to have a grandiose vision, that the world’s universities are important resources with a capacity to step in and take an active role in all kinds of contexts. Pääbo mentions Ukraine as an example. He goes on to say that Uppsala is well placed and functions well as a kind of centre and that he does not really have any pet idea or anything he would really like to change.

This is how the conversation starts out, but then we begin to talk about education and breadth and how he personally made use of many of the University’s areas and activities to move forward in his ideas.

– I was fortunate in joining a well-funded group. We had resources and there was scope for trying out ideas. I think that’s important, having scope to try things out.

Despite his reluctance to formulate the grandiose vision, the conversation turns several times to the issue of recruitment, that it is important to recruit outstanding researchers and that there is reason to target promising early-career researchers who are more mobile than their established colleagues.

– If you attract outstanding researchers, the collaborations come automatically. Many talents can be found in other countries. Many African universities are going to be very interesting.

He speaks in short and concise sentences. Pääbo seems to say no more than he intends to say, then stops, without fleshing out the conversation as many people tend to do. There is something precise about the way he answers questions. It is only when we approach the conditions for research that his reflections become a little more expansive. A question about the importance of being allowed to fail leads Pääbo to reflect on how important it is to learn to recognise when an idea has reached the end of the road. He comments that though most ideas fail, it is actually wrong to talk about failure. Instead, the idea, or theory, that has been dismissed is part of the process and that process includes a need to be a bit wild and crazy, as well as a need to find ways to filter out the crazy ideas.

– Another thing is I think it’s important to change the image of the researcher. We need to explain that research isn’t such a big deal. It’s not unlike mending a bike – you spot a problem and try to find a solution to it. I don’t think it’s such a complicated business.

He believes this insight applies to all research. It is all about treating ideas, crazy or not, in a methodical and orderly way. If you are going to attract talent across a broad front, you have to bring the image of the researcher down to earth, to be prepared to take risks. We also need to keep avenues open for putting together one’s own combination of subjects.

This of course was the theme of the Pääbo Circuit – an illustration of the fact that Uppsala University’s latest Nobel laureate followed a path that swerved between several different disciplines – an inter- and multidisciplinary career. This leads to the question of his view of the research institutes initiative UUniFI, which is explicitly designed to tackle research challenges in a multidisciplinary way.

– I think UUniFI is an excellent ambition and an excellent goal. But I think you need to be careful not to over-administrate it. I hope it will be researcher-centred. Then it will turn out well.

Johannes Borgegård