Meet Eva Wiberg - assistant vice-chancellor

Eva Wiberg has a background as an elite heptathlete in Italy and a future as assistant vice-chancellor with responsibility for first-, second- and third-cycle education.

Will your career as a heptathlete be of use to you as a member of the university management?

“Yes, I think so. I have learnt not to cry over spilt milk; if the hurdles don’t go very well, you have another chance in the high jump. There is an optimism in heptathlon, you have to be totally focused on one thing at a time, yet it is still the whole that counts in the long run. You have to have perseverance and see things through. This attitude works at the University as well; we don’t have time to fret, rather there are new chances every day to make progress a little at a time.”

Where are you going to start?

“I’m going to start by visiting the different faculties and getting to know their circumstances better. It is important not to govern from the top; each faculty must be allowed to operate its own change processes. The best effect is achieved when the faculties have a say in what changes should be made across the University. The goal is not to standardise all the programmes and courses, but to highlight good practice and identify the things that could be beneficial to more programmes and courses.”

What is the most important thing to change with regard to education at Lund University?

“One of my primary tasks will be to try and support the vice-chancellor and pro vice-chancellor in influencing the Government and Riksdag to raise the national funding levels for certain programmes and courses. At LU we maintain a high standard and have a lot of excellent programmes and courses. All these should be supported, but there are areas that have been neglected and need to have a decent level of funding, especially in the humanities, theology, economics, the social sciences and law. The University’s task is to carry out both research and education, and education must not be neglected. External circumstances mean that this is happening in some areas at the moment.”

There is a lot of talk about fee-paying students; how important is it to attract them?

“I would rather the international students didn’t have to pay. Managing the fees requires a huge amount of work and a lot of work has been put into attracting them here; the question is whether this is in proportion to what we get out of it. However, this is the way it has to be now if we want to compete internationally. If we don’t make a concerted effort we will fall behind other universities, and we are at the forefront in Sweden. Having students from other countries enriches the University and I therefore also want to safeguard the European students who don’t pay. It is very important that they and the Swedish students have the same chances as paying students.”

What needs to be done for doctoral students at LU?

“More systematic quality assurance of PhD programmes is needed − this is something which emerged in EQ11. There are major differences between the conditions for doctoral students at different faculties and we must try to do something about this.”

- Jenny Loftrup