We see increased project financing and project applications, and growing student numbers. This brings our Faculty a lot of opportunities but also demand a lot from our employees, work pressure is high. There is also political pressure to reduce the number of international students.  How do we perceive expected growth? How big do we want our institutes and educational programmes to be? What mechanisms do we have to control this and what are choices that we can make?

We are a faculty with institutes that all have their own profile. But who are we as a faculty and what do we consider important? The University has 4 core values: Connecting, Innovative, Responsible, Free. What do these values mean to us? Are these our values? If not, what are our core values? How can we make better use of our values, together with the mission and profile of the faculty, and give more identity to the faculty based on the strengths of the institutes? What does that mean for our profiling and visibility?

As a faculty, we are taking steps regarding Recognition and Rewards. We work on leadership, our organisational structure and our organisational culture. How can we optimally deploy Recognition and Rewards within the faculty, to ensure that we continue to bind and retain young talents, in WP and OBP? What do we consider important in this? What criteria do we use in our yearly evaluations and what do we value to get promoted? 

The faculty is taking steps to get the basics right. The dilemma regarding support often rises from the following trade off: standardization and harmonization versus a diverse, tailor-made provision of services close to the work floor. What do we consider important in this? What is a good model for university cooperation between the levels university-faculty-institute? How do we achieve sharing of best practices? And what is the specific (and urgent) need for it?

We are a faculty that is becoming increasingly diverse when it comes to attracting talent from elsewhere (students and employees). Our female talent is also moving onto higher positions more often, although that is not happening quickly enough and still suffer from a “leaky pipeline." How can and how do we want to strengthen DEI further, and what is needed to achieve that? “Diversity is a fact, inclusion is an act.”

We are a research-driven faculty, where research is often at the forefront. Do we consider good education as important as good research? Or is there tension between them? And what exactly do we find important?

We are a research-driven faculty and we highly value the teaching-research nexus in our education. However, in our policies and practices research and education are generally treated as separate entities. Is the research-education nexus sufficiently safeguarded via the appointment of staff in which researcher and teacher functions are combined?  What other opportunities exist to strengthen our teaching-research nexus?

We offer a wide palette in research-intensive education. That is our strength, but how do we actually see our education? How do we ensure innovation and how do we effectively adapt to changes in society, e.g. when it comes to student skills, good connection to the labor market, and life long learning? And what does that mean for our educational programmes, including our honours and minors programmes? But also for the development of transferable skills, active learning, the opportunities of digitalization, or student success and engagement with society.

We have a campus location with a lot of potential, but the campus livability has been below par for years when it comes to atmosphere, accessibility and an inspiring place for meeting, learning and sharing knowledge, partly due to building activities for our new Campus. Phase 2A of our new Campus will be ready for use in 2024, with communal facilities such as a restaurant, a new library and a large new lecture hall. How do we want to use the Campus?