Annika Östman Wernerson: We are facing several strategic challenges

Our close partnership with the healthcare sector facilitates collaboration between preclinical and clinical researchers and our partnership with industry promotes enterprise and creates research-related job opportunities. All in all, this is the perfect environment to train the researchers of tomorrow, develop novel methods and techniques, and ensure a steady supply of personnel for the healthcare and life science sectors.

However, there are also several strategic challenges:

1. Educational funding: The government funding does not fully cover price and salary increases, or the cost of adapting our courses and programmes to the rapid technological developments that we are seeing in the healthcare sector. We need a closer strategic dialogue on this with the Ministry of Education and Research.

2. Use of healthcare data for research purposes: Data-driven research entails higher investment costs and ensuring high standards of data security. We fear that such an increase in outlay will eat into the funding.

3. Access to capital: A new resource allocation model has been implemented for the 2025 financial year to ensure that our capital is utilised on a day-to-day basis. Another initiative is the provision of extra financial support for departments included in EU collaborations.

In the budgetary data that we submit to the government, we present a forecast for our financial growth and our challenges. The crux of the document is proposals for changes to the fundingso that we can better contribute to the government’s objective to strengthen Swedish research and education.

Sustainable skills supply

To ensure that KI remains relevant and competitive, we have established a strategic competence provision group. The work and remit of this group is in demand and will fill an important need for guaranteeing a stable and sustainable supply of skilled professionals. The group comprises the deans, academic vice presidents of the three committees, the chair of the Recruitment Committee, the head of HR and a student representative. They have now had their first meeting and later in the spring they will be considering the departments’ proposals for the positions of senior lecturer and professor to be advertised and announcing their decision.

Preparedness for presidential decisions that could affect us

A series of decisions made by US President Donald Trump are affecting both research and education worldwide. How exactly KI's extensive collaboration with American universities and our federal funding, mainly from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will be affected is still difficult to know. We are monitoring these developments very closely to increase our readiness to act when we see the effects of the President's decision.

Safety and security on campus

Since the Risbergska school shooting in Örebro, people are naturally more worried than before about their security. It is a tragedy for those affected and their families and friends, and the questions of how similar disasters can be avoided are now especially pressing. In the event of threats and violence, the advice, that we would rather not have to give but that must be given, is to first make sure you are out of harm’s way and then to raise the alarm. You can find more about safety and security on the Staff Portal.

KI works systematically with security on our campuses and the Security Unit is in regular contact with the police and security service. Our crisis plan raises our preparedness for serious incidents and security staff and guards patrol both campuses 24 hours a day.  

We need to take care of each other in our daily lives and if there are any major concerns, we encourage people to contact the occupational or student welfare service.

Let us join together to do what we can to make sure our campuses remain safe and secure for all.