ReseaRch Quality assuRance foR the futuRe a ... - Lund University

Panel 6 – social SCIENCEs
department has 4 full time equivalent professors and 8 full time equivalent
senior lecturers. With a core academic staff of 12, the department
ranks among the smaller ones in terms of staff numbers. It has 9 full time
equivalent PhD students.
7.2 Overall Assessment
Its research is organised in four major research domains, namely economic
geography, social and urban geography, cultural historical landscape
research, and development geography. Given its small size and compared
with other, larger units, the geography department performs very well. It
has a good number of doctoral candidates and doctoral examinations, the
research intensity percentage (research revenue/total revenue) is high and
the research output, at least for the leading research clusters, is excellent.
There is significant collaboration, both across the university as with other
universities or academic institutions in Sweden and abroad. The research
output is somewhat uneven, with two research clusters that stand out
in terms of international standing, while the others are important in
national terms or in the process of consolidating their contribution (see
below). Most of the members of the department are active internationally
(particularly the two leading research areas) and have excellent international
collaborative networks.
7.3 Research Infrastructure
The research infrastructure is difficult to assess on the basis of the
available documentation and information. I had particular difficulties
navigating the departmental web-site. This is somewhat unevenly organised.
As the website is one of the key windows to world through which the
department presents itself, we would suggest that resources are devoted
to developing, and in particular, maintaining and updating research
information. This is also true for some of the other departments.
7.4 Research Quality
The research output in quantitative terms is impressive. In quality terms,
the research is somewhat uneven. Two research clusters or groups stand
out in terms of the quality of research and international reputation. The
economic geography group is clearly of the highest standard with leading
state of the art research published in international journals and with im-
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