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

Panel 15 – LTH | product development
3.4 Collaboration Excellent (5)
The level of national and international collaboration seems to be excellent.
The Department of Energy Science actively works with other research
centres and collaborative organisations in Sweden as well as at the
European level. There have been 20 visiting researchers staying for three
months or more, and 4 researchers that worked at other institutions for
three or more months. The guest professors program has had 4 visitors.
The department even contributes for research outside the energy sector.
The 5 research groups within the Department have several collaborative
programs, joint proposals, joint papers and teaching. The department also
has strong collaboration with other departments within LTH and LU
under the umbrella of the Combustion Centre FTC, and the CECOST
(one of the SSf strategic centers).
3.5 Research Activity and Teaching Very good (4)
Academic staff and PhD students are not involved enough in the undergraduate
teaching process (undergraduate teaching is about 10% of
the departments budget). Revenues from undergraduate teaching have
slightly increased from 2003 to 2007 but the ratio of revenue for undergraduate
education per researcher is still poor. PhD education, on the
contrary is excellent and the department is probably very attractive for
national and international students.
3.6 Evaluation of Future Plans Very good (4)
The department has detected interesting promising research areas (e.g. in
the transportation sector that is looking for environmentally acceptable
engines, low fuel consuming vehicle and alternative fuels) that could may
be sustain its current level for the near future. New collaboration could
result in the developed new funding sources and may be some diversification
of their R&D effort. Furthermore, developing collaboration
with economics, organization and human behaviour is a good idea. But
improving modelling competences thanks to new tools or techniques to
deal with complex process is relevant and should be actively pursued.
The plan for a new laboratory for combustion engines and the renovation
of laboratories for heat transfer research will are right on. In this
kind of sciences it is necessary to continuously upgrade the research
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