NEWS Umeå University's Vice-Chancellor Hans Adolfsson was re-elected as President of The Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF) at the Assembly earlier in October. There were also other issues at the last meeting of the Assembly that involved Umeå University.
Hans Adolfsson, Vice-Chancellor of Umeå University. Photo: Mattias Pettersson.
"I am, of course, honoured to be re-elected as chairman for another two-year term. The work we do in SUHF is important for the entire sector as we safeguard the interests of universities and colleges externally and work internally on a number of issues that affect all members‘ higher education institutions," says Hans Adolfsson, Vice-Chancellor of Umeå University.
At SUHF's most recent general assembly, all centres of education also agreed to develop joint priorities for the development of e-infrastructure for education and research. This is to better take advantage of the opportunities offered by digitalisation. Something that affects Umeå University in that the unit for IT support and system development at Umeå University (ITS), manages and develops some of the most important IT systems for education.
Based on the SUHF investigation, it was also decided to work to create a clearer national division of roles, where responsibility for e-infrastructure for education is gathered at the Swedish Council for Higher Education and responsibility for e-infrastructure for research is gathered at the Swedish Research Council.
Katrine Riklund, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Umeå University. Photo: Mattias Pettersson.
Another subject that also has a bearing on Umeå University is SUHF's recommendation to decide on common principles for suspension time for misleading behaviour in connection with examinations. This is an investigation that has been led by Katrine Riklund, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Umeå University, as chair of the working group for disciplinary matters (Arbetsgruppen för disciplinärenden) at SUHF.
SUHF's recommendation is that universities and colleges in Sweden should use six weeks as the standard period for suspending a student from the institution's activities in connection with an attempt to mislead during an examination. At present, the suspension period varies between different higher education institutions. The practice at Umeå University is in line with the new national recommendation.