Proposal for UUniFI’s organisation

The initiative for Uppsala University Future Institutes (UUniFI) was taken by Vice-Chancellor Anders Hagfeldt. The basic idea of UUniFI is to focus on challenge-driven and cross-disciplinary research with new ways of working for multi- and interdisciplinary collaborations.

“UUniFI will make it possible to establish new collaborations in excellent research. I hope this model can complement the subject-area based model that otherwise characterises Uppsala University,” says Anders Hagfeldt, Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University.

The project group that worked on the report was led by Anders Malmberg, post-retirement professor and former Vice-Chancellor of the University.

University Board should establish UUniFI

The report concludes that it is a challenge to achieve cross-disciplinary and thematic research in a university environment with strong disciplinary boundaries and independent faculties and disciplinary domains. To date, to pursue university-wide or cross-disciplinary initiatives, two models have been used at Uppsala University. These initiatives have either been placed organisationally directly under the Vice-Chancellor or under a disciplinary domain. However, both of these models have their drawbacks, as outlined in the report.

The project group therefore proposes that a new organisational model should be used to establish UUniFI as a university-wide institute, thereby creating good opportunities for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary collaborations. It is proposed that UUniFI should be jointly owned by the Vice-Chancellor and the disciplinary domains. As this involves a new type of organisational unit, the project group also proposes that UUniFI be established by the University Board.

UUniFI host organisation

The report proposes that UUniFI should function as the host organisation for thematic and cross-disciplinary research institutes. In practice, the thematic research institutes will function as research departments or long-term research programmes within UUniFI. The ambition is that the new organisation model for UUniFI will support the development of excellent, challenge-driven and cross-disciplinary research, and that over time the research institutes that are part of UUniFI should vary. The research institutes are built around one or more major, long-term, research programmes.

UUniFI Fellow

The report proposes ways of attaching researchers to the activities. It is proposed that all researchers working within UUniFI should have a dual affiliation with UUniFI and at least one department. Researchers are attached to UUniFI as UUniFI Fellows at normally between 25–75% of full time for a shorter or longer period of time. Their remaining working hours will be spent at the department and the researchers retain their position at the department. It is proposed that resources for payroll and direct research costs are transferred from the UUniFI budget to the relevant department.

Floor allocation

The project group proposes that UUniFI should receive long-term base financing from the University’s floor allocation, while the ambition is that over time the institutes within UUniFI will attract significant external funding.

The project group also proposes that the funds for UUniFI be financed partly by a permanently reduced provision to the Vice-Chancellor’s strategic funds and partly by setting aside funds for UUniFI in the University Board’s operational plan. In addition, it is proposed that the earnings from the University’s donation funds could be used for short-term initiatives within UUniFI.

The funding set aside for UUniFI’s activities will finance research carried out mainly by researchers who are already employed at the University, and the majority of the funding will be used at the department where the researchers attached to UUniFI are employed.

Proposed research institutes

In parallel with the project group for UUniFI, working groups for the four research institutes that are planned to start within UUniFI each produced a report with the intended research focus and an action plan for each research institute. These reports are appended to the above final report. The four institutes will deal with migration, precision health, the green energy transition, and AI.

In autumn 2024, UUniCORN (Uppsala University Conflicting Objectives Research Nexus) was launched, which will also be part of UUniFI.

The plan is also to include the Centre for Integrated Research on Culture and Society (CIRCUS) in UUniFI as one of the institutes. CIRCUS has been working to develop multi- and interdisciplinary research since 2019 from its base in the Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences. The idea is that knowledge and learning about multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research should be included as part of UUniFI – to support the other research institutes but also other research at the University.

In 2024, CIRCUS’s mission to develop cross-cutting research within the entire University was strengthened, and if CIRCUS becomes part of UUniFI, the plan is that CIRCUS will receive new instructions and tasks.

What happens now?

The final report and the reports from the planned research institutes now form the basis for preparing the decision data, governing documents, etc., for making a decision at the University Board meeting in June 2025 on the establishment of UUniFI.

Following a decision in the University Board, the Vice-Chancellor plans to make decisions during the summer and early autumn in 2025 on more detailed instructions, boards, the specialisations of the research institutes, etc. After this, a Head of Department for UUniFI and directors for the research institutes will need to be recruited during autumn 2025.

Note that the project group have proposed a new formal name in Swedish for UUniFI: Institutet för framtidsinriktad och tvärgående forskning. This translates roughly as the Institute for future-oriented and cross-cutting research.

The plan is that the activities of UUniFI and the planned research institutes within it will be up and running from 2026.

Anders Berndt