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June 11th 2020

From the Management

The Faculty of Science has now formally appointed Per Persson as the Director of CEC from 1 January 2021. The process and dialogue with the Faculty continues, and decisions about the rest of the management structure, a new mission, the board and budget will be taken in the autumn.

The management group this week prepared for the yearly follow up with the faculty, that will be held in September. Undergraduate studies, post graduate studies, economy, staffing and the general situation is discussed with the Faculty management.

This time of year you have the possibility to discuss your work situation and progress in the yearly staff appraisal with your manager. The appraisals are also an important measure for the management to keep an eye on the work environment, so please take the opportunity to bring up any issues that you might have in that perspective. And please also respond to the CEC work environment survey sent out by Health and Safety Representative Niklas Boke Olén to all employees at CEC by latest June 20.

Don’t miss the CEC’s end of term online fika, tomorrow on June 12 at 9.30 in Zoom. Don’t miss this special edition with: Thank you from the management, Quiz and the traditional Swedish song Den blomstertid nu kommer. Notice: for this event we start already at 9.30 and move over from Teams to Zoom. Zoom link: https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/62302467857. Meeting ID: 623 0246 7857.

New LU coronavirus decision

The vice-chancellor has today taken a new decision on how to handle the corona outbreak, mainly affecting how to carry out the education in the autumn. Changes in today’s decision in relation to the previous decision are primarily that:

  • teaching and assessment of students’ performance may be carried out on the University’s premises as of 15 June 2020 provided that the Swedish Public Health Agency’s rules, general guidelines and recommendations for reduced spread of infection of Covid-19 are observed.
  • under certain strict conditions, LU allows for the possibility to carry out education components abroad, to receive international students for education at LU, to approve national and international travel and to receive international visitors.
  • the vice-chancellor’s decision on 2 April 2020 is replaced by a new guidance.

Mostly the same rules apply as before. Therefore, it is still important that you:

  • work from home to the extent that the line manager deems is possible when taking activities and the work environment into account
  • maintain your distance from other people and do not socialise in large groups

Meetings and other gatherings are still to be conducted online as far as possible, and the rule of maximum 50 participants apply for physical meetings. All business trips, within Sweden or abroad, still has to be approved in advance by your line manager and will only be approved if considered necessary. The information on the general LU coronavirus web pages in Swedish and English is being updated right now in accordance with new decisions and guidance.

The background of today’s decision is that on 29 May, the Government announced that universities and other higher education institutions could plan to return to more regular educational activities as of 15 June 2020. The Swedish Public Health Agency’s rules, general guidelines and recommendations to reduce the spread of infection are still to be observed. On 4 June 2020 the Government decided that symptom-free people may travel within Sweden as of 13 June 2020. Measures concerning physical distancing continue to apply.

People

On Monday we welcome postdoc Willian Silva to CEC. Willian is hosted by Jacob Johansson in the Biology Department, and will work in a project studying how seasonal clocks in wild and agricultural plants adapt to climate change. We also welcome researcher Jagdeep Singh to CEC. Jagdeep will work with Johanna Alkan Olsson and Yann Clough in the Land4biomass project.

In August we welcome Lin Yu and Hanna Fors as postdocs to CEC. Lin is hosted by Cecilia Akselsson at INES, and will work in the project “Towards better assessments of nutrient constraints on soil carbon sequestration: including soil microbial and mineral mechanisms into terrestrial biosphere models”. Hanna is hosted by Anna Maria Jönsson at INES and will work in the project “Forest management practices for climate targets and environmental objectives – adaptive strategies based on novel combinations of ecosystem modelling, policy analysis and visualisation”.

We are happy to announce that Cerina Wittbom will stay at CEC. She will start a new position as a Research coordinator in Sustainability Forum. Maria von Post, Helene Serra and Georg Andersson will leave CEC in July. We wish you the best of luck.

Dates

For an updated list of events see the CEC calendar (English version).

Tonight, 11 June at 19.00-20.00, you have a chance to follow an interesting online debate about the corona crisis and climate change. Debatt i Lund about The Corona Crisis and a Sustainable Future – is this truly an opportunity to adjust our societies to save the climate? (The event is in Swedish) Is it now, with all the governmental subsidies and the adjustments we have done due to covid-19, we should take the opportunity to save the climate and our environment? Listen to Markku Rummukainen, CEC; Fredrik NG Andersson, associate professor in Economics, Lund University; Maria Wetterstrand, former “språkrör” or spokesperson for Miljöpartiet and part of Handelskammarens Omstartskommission; and Frida Boklund, representative of the organisation Företagarna. Welcome to read more here: https://www.lu.se/article/debatt-i-lund-ar-det-nu-vi-ska-radda-klimatet 

Tomorrow, Friday June 12 you are warmly welcome to the CEC’s end of term online fika, 9.30-10.15. No talk this time. Don’t miss this special edition with:

  • Thank you everyone for this semester
  • Quiz on the theme CEC and corona – nice awards for the winners!
  • Sing a long Den blomstertid nu kommer

Be sure not to miss it!

Notice: for this event we start already at 9.30 and move over from Teams to Zoom.

Zoom link: https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/62302467857

Meeting ID: 623 0246 7857

This year the public outreach event Forskarfredag is arranged during the European Researchers Night on November 27th. This is an excellent and fun opportunity to explain you research to the public. The theme this year is “Research for a sustainable future” and therefore we would like to make an extra effort to visualise this type of research at Lund university. To stimulate participation in this activity we invite researchers and PhD students to a meeting with the aim to share information about this event and to start shaping the ideas for what to do and how to collaborate. The meeting will be on zoom on June 16th at 13 - 14. Send a mail to Ullrika [dot] Sahlin [at] cec [dot] lu [dot] se (Ullrika[dot]Sahlin[at]cec[dot]lu[dot]se) to get a link to the meeting.

CECs Friday talk now takes a summer break, and will resume again in the autumn. You could still join the daily CEC Fika Online every day at 10.00 and 15.00 the Teams group ”CEC”. You should have received an invitation to the team “CEC“ – if not, use this link to join it or use the code: 293u3aw in the “teams” panel to the left.

ClimBEco summer meeting 2020 will take place August 26-27 with combined Zoom and in-person events. The theme this year is ‘Exploring ecosystem services in our urban spaces’. More information is on the website https://www.cec.lu.se/education/post-graduate-studies/climbeco-graduate-research-school/climbeco-annual-meetings

The Joint PhD seminar series continues in the autumn with two seminars scheduled for September and October. See https://www.cec.lu.se/climbeco.lu.se/joint-phd-seminars-on-environmental-challenges for information and registration.

The CEC staff pages

As you may have noticed, we are restructuring the CEC webpages. From now on, you will find the Staff pages in the upper right corner.  It will take some time before we are ready with everything, so please be patient.  More information is to come when we have finished the project.

The CEC kitchen

Starting on June 29 everything in the CEC kitchen will be wrapped up and removed. Thus you have to use another kitchen in the building from that week on. There are kitchens on both floor 2 and 1 that you are free to use. From July 13 there will be construction work going on in the CEC kitchen. You will be able to use the offices close by, but there might be some noise. Please feel free to use another office if you are affected. The new kitchen on floor 3 will be ready in the end of August. Please make sure to collect your food, containers, flowers etc from the CEC kitchen as soon as possible.

Apply for summer vacation or other leave no later than June 18

This regards PhD students, researchers, administrative and technical staff employed at CEC. All leave has to be approved in advance by your supervisor/manager, please write that as a comment in Primula. You have to take at least 20 days (4 weeks) of annual leave during the year, and you can only accumulate a maximum of 30 saved days including saved days from previous years. For questions, please contact irene [dot] bergstrand [at] cec [dot] lu [dot] se (Irene Bergstrand).

Digital meetings – Dos and Don´ts

Experiences of organizing digital conferences and larger meetings in Zoom are now available at the CEC Staff pages as support for CEC staff for future arrangements. Link to Digital meetings – Dos and Don´ts at CEC Staff pages

CEC in media

To read the full newspaper articles for free, search in the Media Archive available via the LU Library portal here.

Yann Clough has answered question in the magazine Forskning & Framsteg about terrestrial arthropods, whether the number is generally decreasing, in that case why, and how ecosystems are effected. Read more here.

Skånska Dagbladet has covered Anna Persson’s research project about how schoolchildren can (hopefully) learn about nature in school yards. Read more here.

On the CEC newspage you can read about that the graduate research schools ClimBEco and the Bolin Centre Climate Research School (CRS) at Stockholm University have recently initiated a collaboration. The joint activities will strengthen the course curriculum and network possibilities for the respective PhD students and contribute to the national advancement of the climate and biodiversity research front.

LU news

The Swedish National Archives urge public authorities to preserve documents containing information about the coronavirus/Covid-19

When the pandemic is over, it is important that information is preserved about how Lund University faced and managed the crisis. What decisions were made? What measures were taken? How was the organisation and its activities affected? Preserved information constitutes a basis for research and learning for the future.

There are two types of documentation related to the coronavirus/Covid-19:

  • Changes and adaptations in documentation that would have existed nonetheless in regular activities. This is registered/preserved in the same way as usual, but should be labelled clearly in headings, description of matters etc. to show that it relates to coronavirus/Covid-19. Write “coronavirus (Covid-19)” when you refer to the coronavirus in the register.
  • Completely new documentation that would not have been produced without the pandemic.

It is appropriate to preserve documentation more than usual in order to provide an overall picture, e.g. web information, meeting notes from specific crisis management group.

Read more at Staff pages.

New date for Campus Helsingborg’s 20th anniversary celebrations

Due to the prevailing circumstances, the Campus anniversary has been moved to 20 November 2020. We plan to hold the Campus anniversary celebrations in connection with Campus Open. More information will follow in due course.

EUGLOH photo competition for students and staff

Right now, the EUGLOH photo competition is in progress and all students and staff at Lund University are welcome to participate! How has the pandemic affected our campus? Take pictures showing Lund University right now in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. First prize is a camera.

Read more about the photo competition on the EUGLOH website

The competition is open until 30 June 2020.

Read more about EUGLOH on the Staff Pages

Future Week to be held 12–18 October

This year’s theme is Forces in Motion. Work on the week is in full swing and in order to arrange Future Week in October, the working group is ensuring that the event is planned according to two scenarios, i.e. either as usual or remotely, so that Future Week will be held regardless.

Contact project manager Louise Pierce, louise [dot] pierce [at] kommunikation [dot] lu [dot] se (louise[dot]pierce[at]kommunikation[dot]lu[dot]se), to take part or for more information about the week.

Read more at lu.se

Free admission to Skissernas Museum

Skissernas Museum wants more people at Lund University to discover the University’s own art museum and is now offering free admission for all employees. Skissernas Museum – Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art is a unique art museum, focusing on the artistic, creative process. It houses the world’s largest collection of sketches, models and studies for Swedish and International public art.

The museum reopens on 2 June and the week after, on 9 June, is the opening of Jockum Nordström’s exhibition Utan Lykta (Without lantern). The show will present sculptures, collages and sketches, focusing on Jockum Nordström’s artistic process. The exhibition runs until 18 October, so there is an opportunity to enter Jockum Nordström’s dreamlike world throughout the summer.

Read more about the exhibition on the Skissernas Museum website.

Admission is free to Skissernas Museum on presentation of an LU Card.

Reporting from the RQ20 Subject Panel Week

In early May, the RQ20 Subject Panel Week was completed, with the 32 external panels (193 advisors) meeting the authors behind the self-assessments, i.e. representatives from the 161 research environments (UoAs), to discuss the present and future conditions of research at Lund University.

Originally, the panels were expected to meet in Lund; however, with the repercussions following the Covid-19 outbreak, this was no longer an option. Instead, the panels met online with selected UoA representatives via pre-organised meeting rooms.

The RQ20-team was present at the Subject Panel Week HQ all week, situated at the Department of Sociology, and can report that the summits proceeded with great affluence. The combination of excellent technical support, flexible and accommodating minds, together with the arrangement of structured and well-communicated programmes ameliorated a potentially overwhelming situation, logistically.

To this end, the RQ20-team wish to extend their gratitude to all who made this week possible, with particular appreciation to LU-conference and the technical staff who ran the operation behind the scenes.

The next step in the RQ20 project is a Q&A session between the external panels and the UoAs in order to clarify any outstanding issues from the interviews during the panel week.

Read more about RQ20 on the RQ20-blog

Pictures and videos during your time at CEC – GDPR

During your time at CEC there will be pictures taken and videos shot at staff meetings etc. If you do not wish to appear in photos, videos etc. please notify anna_maria [dot] erling [at] cec [dot] lu [dot] se (anna_maria[dot]erling[at]cec[dot]lu[dot]se) or stina [dot] johannesson [at] cec [dot] lu [dot] se (stina[dot]johannesson[at]cec[dot]lu[dot]se). See more information about data protection at Lund University. 

About the newsletter

The CEC newsletter is sent to employees and those that are associated with CEC. The newsletter is sent out on Thursdays every second week. If you have anything you would like to add to the newsletter, please send your information to Karin Hofvendahl, no later than Tuesday the same week.