Organisation and Governance

On this page you find more information about:

• Departmental board
• Health and safety representative
• Working group for gender equality, equal opportunities and diversity
• Research council
• Operational plan
• General rules

Departmental Board

The departmental board is the department’s highest decision-making body. The budget, activities plan, appointment of examiners, course syllabi and required reading lists are some of the matters decided upon by the board. In addition, the board takes decisions on guidelines, action plans and policies.

Members for the period from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2025:

Chair

Kristina Jönsson
Head of Department

Secretary of the Board

Helen Fogelin

Teaching Staff

Full Members:

• julie [dot] hassing_nielsen [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (Julie Hassing-Nielsen)
• stina [dot] melander [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (Stina Melander)
• jakob [dot] skovgaard [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (Jakob Skovgaard)
• anders [dot] uhlin [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (Anders Uhlin)

Substitute Members:

• hanna [dot] back [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (Hanna Bäck)
• martin [dot] hall [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (Martin Hall)
• asa [dot] knaggard [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (Åsa Knaggård)
• johannes [dot] stripple [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (Johannes Stripple)

Other Staff

Full Member:

kristina [dot] grondahl_nilsson [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (Kristina Gröndahl Nilsson)

Substitute Member:

mats [dot] janer [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (Mats Janér)

Doctoral Students

Full Member:

paulina [dot] vaughn [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (Paulina Vaughn)

Substitute Member:

evan [dot] drake [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (Evan Drake)

Students’ Union

Full Members:

instrep [dot] svet [at] samvetet [dot] lu [dot] se (Axel Brink)

Health and Safety Representative

Our health and safety representative for 2024-2026 are Åsa Knaggård and Kristina Gröndahl Nilsson. They represent the employees.

Working Group for Gender Equality, Equal Opportunities and Diversity

This is an advisory and preparatory body. It consists of representatives of teaching staff, technical/administrative staff, research students and other students. 

Our work on gender equality

Research Committee

The research committee is an advisory and preparatory body, whose main duty is to support the department’s researchers in their work on applying for external research grants.

Members

During 2024-2027

• Robert Klemmensen (chair)
• Annika Björkdahl
• Markus Holdo
• Sara Kalm
• Catarina Kinnvall
• Ian Manners
• Jonathan Polk
• TBD (doctoral student representative)

Learn more on our research committee’s work

Operational Plan 2024

The present operational plan accounts for the prioritizations that govern activities at the Department of Political Science and the measures planned during the 2024 budget year regarding first and second cycle education, third cycle education, research, work environment, gender equality, equal opportunities and diversity, and administration and joint activities.

First and Second Cycle Education

Increased costs in basic education, combined with the fact that government funding for education is being eroded at an increasingly rapid pace, is prompting cost-cutting measures. The change in the remuneration levels regarding thesis supervision that was introduced for the 2023 financial year remains, as does the lower compensation level for the examination of master's theses. In parallel, there will still be the opportunity to write a bachelor's thesis in pairs. In addition, the somewhat reduced seminar activities at undergraduate level will remain, while efforts to reach a minimum number of students on alternative courses at advanced and bachelor's level will be intensified, with the consequence that alternative courses may be cancelled to a greater extent than before. Further savings may be necessary.

An associate senior lecturer, funded in collaboration with CMES (Centre for Middle Eastern Studies), will take up his position on 2024-01-01. At the same time, a few temporary substitutes are being hired, with different subject specialisations, but significantly fewer than has been the case before.

During the financial year, the review of second-cycle education will continue. In addition, the development work continues to make different subject profiles more clearly visible in the department's education, where the possibility of progression between different levels of education and how this is communicated to the students are central elements, as well as the work to make environmental and sustainability aspects visible in the education. At the same time, efforts to safeguard the breadth of subjects in the course offerings have been strengthened. Furthermore, the work of developing the students' mentoring activities, as well as the work of career counselling for students, in both cases in collaboration with the Faculty of Social Sciences, continues.

The department will continue to support teachers' pedagogical development by taking courses in teaching and learning in higher education, participating in various types of development projects and/or gaining qualifications within the framework of the faculty's pedagogical merit system. New pedagogical seminars at the department will spread experiences between colleagues. A priority area is the question of how generative AI can be integrated into teaching and learning in a constructive way and how it affects different forms of examination.

The education will continue to have a strong international dimension with good opportunities for teacher and student mobility. Existing agreements on student exchange are revised continuously.

Research Studies

Increased costs and eroded government funding also affect doctoral education. Recruitment of doctoral students remains a priority issue and the ambition is to, despite financial challenges, recruit at least one doctoral student on faculty funds in 2024. In addition, additional doctoral students may be recruited through external funding. The recruitment process is coordinated in terms of time with other major political science departments in the country and, to a certain extent, in terms of information and marketing, with other departments at the Faculty of Social Sciences. The strained financial situation means that the department may consider a temporary pause in the recruitment of doctoral students on faculty funds for the 2025 financial year.

Quality work in doctoral education continues. The development plan that was developed in 2020 on the basis of the faculty's evaluation of the doctoral education in political science will continue to be implemented in 2024, including follow-up of new and revised courses. In light of the fact that the cohort of newly recruited doctoral students may decrease in the next few years, the frequency of course delivery in doctoral education should probably be adjusted. For cost reasons, the number of compulsory courses in doctoral education should also be reviewed. A priority area continues to be issues related to doctoral students' stress and health, as well as providing support in issues of ethical review regarding empirical investigations related to dissertation work. At the faculty level, a doctoral course in research communication is developed during the financial year to provide doctoral students with support in their efforts to make their own research visible to potential stakeholders outside academia.

Special funds have once again been allocated to support jointly organized activities by the department's doctoral students.

The general research seminar with invited guests from Sweden as well as other countries continues to play an important role in the doctoral education, as do the department's various internal workshops and research retreats.

Research

The Faculty of Social Sciences has limited faculty funding for research compared to several other faculties. In order to enable research for the majority of teachers, the department's ability to obtain external research funding is therefore of utmost importance. Supporting the department's teachers in their work to obtain external funding is a priority. This will be even more important in the future, in light of general cost increases and continued erosion of government funding for research. In this regard, the department's research council continues the systematic work of supporting and further developing the department's research, for example by assisting in the process of writing competitive research applications. Special development funds, which the Scientific Council has at its disposal, have been set aside in the budget, albeit to a lesser extent than before. The funds will primarily be used to arrange research retreats/residencies, but also for other activities focusing on the department's research and related themes.

In light of the economic situation, the work of reviewing the conditions for different categories of staff engaged in research continues, including in light of the principles for the distribution of working hours at the Faculty of Social Sciences that the Faculty Board recently decided on. Questions that may arise here concern the principle for deducting external research funds (the so-called staircase), the proportion of faculty-funded research and competence development in employment, and which tasks can be said to fall within the framework of faculty-funded research and skills development time and time for administration. In addition, strategic discussions are continuing regarding the scope and direction of the department's co-financing of external research grants.

Based on the experience from the quality evaluation of research at Lund University – RQ20 – a new research strategy was developed for the department for the years 2021-2025 in 2020. The goals and measures identified in the strategy, and which were also reflected in the evaluation of Swedish political science conducted by the Swedish Research Council in 2021, will continue to guide the work to further strengthen the department's research in 2024 and beyond. A particular area for review in the coming years is the department's publication patterns in relation to various international ranking systems for research, e.g. in light of the university-wide analysis of publication and citation data that is currently underway at Lund University. A central aspect in this regard is how we can work to make visible the extensive and high-quality publication that takes place, where the department's researchers and teachers are involved, but which is not captured in various ranking systems.

As before, funds are allocated for permanently employed teachers without research grants to enable participation in conferences/workshops and the purchase of literature, albeit to a significantly lesser extent than before. If researchers have not been successful in obtaining funding for such expenses from external funders, it is possible to apply for funding internally. The investment that has previously been made in language editing of dissertations, books and journal articles will also continue, but also to a reduced extent.

In 2024, the department's collaboration with SASNET (Swedish South Asian Studies Network) and CFE (Centre for European Studies) will continue, where employees at the department have different types of assignments. In addition, the collaboration with CMES (Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies) is further deepened, with several joint engagements.

The investment in collaboration that began in 2022, with a special assignment as collaboration coordinator, remains and is being developed in collaboration with the Faculty of Social Sciences' collaboration council.

A number of fixed-term postdoctoral positions, financed by external grants, will be filled during the financial year, as well as positions as researchers and project assistants. The work of promoting the possibility of being promoted to professor continues.

Work Environment, Gender Equality, Equal Opportunities and Diversity

The department will continue to conduct active and systematic work environment management and work on issues of equality, equal treatment and diversity. A new annual action plan for work environment management will be adopted at the beginning of the year, as well as a new plan for gender mainstreaming and equal treatment. The work to promote equality and non-discrimination in education continues. In addition, the competence development work regarding students' mental illness continues. In addition, further training measures are planned regarding actions in the event of threats of violence in education. In addition, further efforts are being made to increase transparency in the distribution of teaching commitments and, in a broad sense, to safeguard the department as a continued inclusive work environment.

Administration, External Engagement and Joint Activity

A new Head of Department (Kristina Jönsson) and Deputy Head of Department (Rikard Bengtsson) will take office on 2024-01-01 for a term of office of three years. The new, expanded management structure at the department that was introduced in 2021, and which was evaluated in 2023, will remain in place for the next term of office. 

In addition to the Head of Department and the Deputy Head of Department (who are appointed by election), there are three assistant deputy heads of department: (1) the Deputy Head of First-cycle and Second-cycle Education (Rikard Bengtsson); (2) the Deputy Head of Doctoral Studies (Ted Svensson); and (3) the Deputy Head of Coordination of Research (Robert Klemmensen). 

Together with the two positions as the Director of Studies for First- and Second-cycle Education (also Rikard Bengtsson); and the Director of Doctoral Studies (Sara Kalm), for whom a new term of office begins on 2024-01-01, these functions will continue to constitute the Department of Political Science's management.

The work to strengthen the financial administrative support for project managers will be intensified in 2024.

A boarding/“in-house-retreat” for the department's administrators is planned to take place in the spring and a boarding for the entire department's staff will take place as usual at the end of August.
 

General Rules

At Lund University, there are general rules and decisions within several different areas. 

Read more about general rules on the Lund University's Staff Pages