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

Panel 14 – chemistry
state of the art needs attention. This infrastructure looks very good with
many unique instruments.
4.2 Structural issues
DFTEN has had 10-20 academic staff members over the last 5 years, of
which 13 are professors. The mean age of the professor has increased from
53 y to 57 y during this period. For the lectures – now only 2 – the mean
age is 49 y. A point of serious concern is the mean age of particularly the
category of academic professors. In the near future a number of professors
will retire. This is an opportunity to restructure the department and bring
it in line with Lund University expectations. This can only be done by
adapting your HR management system and not to rely on the automatism
in the career development of the academic staff from lecturer to professor.
Professorships should fit in the strategic plan and the best candidates
should be selected in an open procedure allowing national and international
candidates to apply.
The establishment of the structure is substantiated with shared supervision
of Ph.d. students, special multi- and interdisciplinary activities like collaborations
in competence and excellence centers, national and regional research
funding and joint courses in undergraduate teaching. Ph.d. students are also
supervised with scientists from other departments within the faculties of
Engineering, Science, Medicine and Management thus enabling strengthening
of the expertise of the department with basic disciplinary science.
However, the Panel is concerned that the number of students on graduate
level has decreased significantly. For the Ph.d. students, a reduction of 48%
has taken place. Striking to the Panel is especially the high mean age of 40
y for the 8 Ph.d. students in 2007; however, the lower mean age of 34.6 y
for 2002–2007 of the Ph.d. students is more satisfactory, although this is
still quite high in comparison to many other countries. However, the Panel
was pleased to read that the scientific publications have increased from 60
to 70 from 2002 to 2007.
The faculty to Ph.d. student ratio is 1:0.85 (20 academic – 17 Ph.d. students)
– if only professors and lectures are counted the numbers are 13
to 17. The Panel is concerned about this ratio, there are too many faculty
members relative to the Ph.d. students and the number of Ph.d. students
compared to the faculty members is definitely too low! With this number,
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