Cooperation is key

Joakim Palme took up office as the new Vice-Rector of the Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences on 1 February 2025. He succeeds Tora Holmberg, and before this, he was Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

He describes his role as the Vice-Rector of the disciplinary domain as in part an advocate for the humanities and social sciences within and outside the University, and also as an important part of promoting cooperation between the faculties in the disciplinary domain.

“If you’re going to effectively represent the disciplinary domain, you must first have good cooperation internally. We have excellent cooperation today, but it’s not something you can take for granted,” says Joakim Palme.

Interesting times

He describes the environment and the times we live in as ‘interesting’.

“A Research and Innovation Bill has just been presented to the Swedish Government that in general terms does give more money to research. At first sight, the humanities and social sciences might not appear to be a priority in this bill. But there is more money for research in the humanities and social sciences than previously. It’s important not to lose confidence. Many things are working really well in our disciplinary domain, but even small changes can put pressure on our activities,” he says.

The government bill emphasises funding for research from the research councils, but investments in excellent research are also planned.

“The humanities have been particularly successful in previous excellent research initiatives.”

There are also targeted investments in the government bill in health, crisis preparedness, and climate issues.

“The targeted investments in the bill sound a lot like research in a different guise. But it doesn’t take much to see that both the humanities and social sciences can be part of them. Although this requires cooperation with the other disciplinary domains. At Uppsala University, there’s a high concentration of what’s good, but we should be able to exploit the breadth in the University’s research better.”

In this context, Joakim Palme mentions UUniFI, the new Uppsala University initiative focused on future institutes to address various societal challenges.

“The work with the institutes that are part of UUniFI provides opportunities for enhanced cooperation across disciplinary domain boundaries. Right from the first planning phase, which has just been completed, people from different disciplinary domains have been involved in this work.”

Making the best use of evaluations

In the interview, Joakim Palme took up the research programme Democracy and Higher Education and the Higher Education and Research as Objects of Study (HERO) centre. Democracy and Higher Education has just received a new instruction and HERO is currently being evaluated.

“It’s important to take these activities further in a positive way,” he says.

“It’s also important to make good use of the Quality and Renewal (Q&R24) evaluation that has just been carried out across the University.

“The faculties are now working on taking on board the faculty-specific evaluations from Q&R24. This work is a good basis to take into the upcoming work on a new goals and strategies document for the University – it can help provide a bottom-up perspective in work on strategy. The disciplinary domain can certainly help to take that work further up the line in our University,” he says.

Exchanges, collaborations and collegiality

When Joakim Palme looks a bit further into the future, he talks about things like international student exchanges, research collaborations nationally and internationally, and the importance of collegiality.

“There’s a risk in today’s society with all the pressure on individual researchers to get tenured positions and funding that they don’t have the energy, or feel reluctant, to collaborate. But collaboration is in fact the key to success; it’s an easier way of getting ahead. I’ve noticed that young researchers seek out research collaborations and publish jointly, which is of course great.”

He has also noted an increased interest in the collegial decision-making process.

“For example, courses in collegiality have been in high demand. We all need to take our collegial responsibility and ask not only what Uppsala University can do for you, but also the reverse. That creates a sense of being part of something, and that’s enriching.”

Students are a great resource

Joakim Palme ends the interview by talking about what a great resource the students are. The humanities and social sciences have the most students of the three disciplinary domains.

“Our students are a great resource. When you teach, they keep you on your toes. You always get back something new and different from what you get from your colleagues. That’s very good for you. And of course there are many staff who have heavy teaching loads, and I think it’s important that everyone has at least some time for independent research. But that principle is under pressure,” he concludes.

Anders Berndt