Head of Department Letter September 2026

Dear Colleagues,
Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed the summer. The corridors at LTH are once again full of teachers and students, old and new, trying to find their way through the different red-brick buildings, similar but never quite identical.

As a result of the recent recruitment of our communications officer, Johan Lindskoug, for a third of a full-time position, we are now launching the first newsletter for the Department of Biomedical Engineering. And a newsletter needs a Head of Department's letter, so here it is!

The idea behind a shared newsletter is to strengthen and highlight our three divisions as one department. It will help us gain a better understanding of what our colleagues are working on, foster a greater sense of belonging and, perhaps, create new opportunities for collaboration. My ambition with this Head of Department's letter is to give you an insight into what is happening at the level between the department and the faculty, and how we interact with the wider University.

We have just completed our annual development dialogue with the faculty management team. It can be seen as the department's equivalent of the appraisal meetings held between faculties and departments. The heads of department, divisions and administration can highlight what we believe is working well and where we see a need for support. At the same time, the faculty can point to our strengths as well as areas where they see room for improvement.

The process is iterative. Each year, we can raise our needs and challenges at the next organisational level, contributing to a broader dialogue on strategic issues and helping to reduce the degree of top-down governance.

What kinds of questions do we receive? For example, what risks we foresee in the coming year, how we are developing our course offerings, and how we contribute to different educational programmes. We also discuss our needs for new positions. There are more open-ended questions as well, such as how we assess the quality of our research in relation to comparable departments, how we can maintain or strengthen our position, and how our research activities are developing in relation to the needs of undergraduate and doctoral education.

We are also asked to comment on key indicators produced by the faculty, such as the number of doctoral students, publication citations and the number of ETP teaching staff. Financial challenges are another topic of discussion.

Overall, the faculty management team that visited us seemed very satisfied with both our answers and the discussions. It felt as though we were on the right track.

In my role as Head of Department, I want to ensure that we continue to deliver high-quality research, education and administration, while maintaining a stimulating and supportive working environment. But I cannot do that alone. We are all equally important in making it happen.

Let this newsletter support our shared efforts!

Ingrid Svensson

Head of Department
Department of Biomedical Engineering