NEWS The Dean of the Faculty of Medicine is creating a new management function to strengthen the strategic work at faculty level with equal opportunities and diversity. Christina Ljungberg, Senior Lecturer in Hand Surgery, has been appointed Associate Dean with responsibility for issues relating to equal opportunities, diversity, inclusion and values.
"The appointment is an effort to put extra focus from the management level on these extremely important issues for a period of time, especially from a strategic perspective. It's not just about counteracting degrading treatment, it's also about making use of competence, and it doesn't stop at goal formulation, but should be continuously followed out in the organisation," says Patrik Danielson, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Umeå University.
Christina Ljungberg is appointed by the Dean to the new management position from 1 February 2024 to 30 June 2025, i.e. for the remainder of Dean Patrik Danielson's current term of office. Christina Ljungberg is Senior Lecturer/Senior Consultant in Hand Surgery and Excellent Teacher at the Department of Surgical and Perioperative Sciences, where she was previously Head of Department 2016 – 2022. Since 2009, Christina has been involved in the management of the medical program and is also the study coordinator for the four study locations and chair of the program council's student welfare committee.
Christina Ljungberg
ImageMattias Pettersson"The various assignments have increased my interest in equal opportunities issues and I look forward to also broadening my own knowledge in the field. Although I know that a great deal of work has been carried out for equal opportunities for a long time, I hope to be able to contribute something in a strategic coordinating function at faculty level and hopefully in the long term broaden interest and awareness among our managers and employees to apply inclusion and equal opportunities in our daily work," says Christina Ljungberg.
Both as an employer and as an education provider, the University has a legal obligation to counteract discrimination and to work for everyone's equal rights and opportunities. The Equal Opportunities assignment at Umeå University includes working with gender mainstreaming and counteracting discrimination according to the seven grounds of discrimination in the Discrimination Act: Sex, transgender identity or expression, ethnicity, religion or other belief, disability, sexual orientation and age.
The Associate Dean's strategic work on equal opportunities, diversity, inclusion and values at the Faculty of Medicine will take place in close collaboration with the faculty's equal opportunities officer, Henna Harinen, and with the members responsible for equal opportunities in the faculty's various central bodies:
"The fact that a person in management is given strategic responsibility does not detract from my or other managers' responsibility to prevent and remedy discrimination and achieve equal opportunities. But with a specially appointed person in the management team with time set aside, my hope is that we will be able to concentrate on equal opportunities, diversity, inclusion and values during the time that remains of this faculty management's term of office," says Patrik Danielson.
The Faculty Board at the Faculty of Medicine has previously decided on a new arrangement, where central strategic bodies have an equal opportunities responsible so that this perspective permeates the entire organisation.
