Last week, the university management visited the Faculty of Medicine. On Thursday they were with us at K2. Those who attended were Rector Margareth Hagen, Vice-Rector Pinar Heggernes, Vice-Rector Benedicte Carlsen, Senior Consultant Morgan Reza Rashidi Alangeh, University Director Robert Rastad, Assistant University Director Tore Tungodden and Department Director Kari Fuglseth.
We held the meeting in Glasblokkene with a good view of the many buildings K2 is located on Campus Haukeland and to show the close relationship with the university hospital. There was room for three short professional talks. Professor Eva Gerdts seemed to convince everyone that there is a big difference between women and men in terms of heart disease and that more research is needed to better treat women with heart disease. Researcher Marc Vaudel aroused interest in data showing that the child’s own genes are most important for birth weight and increased risk of diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease later in life. And Professor Eystein Husebye demonstrated the Endopod, a teaching podcast developed by a medical student in his research group.
The university management had wanted to hear our thoughts on opportunities and challenges. Regarding the first, we pointed out the opportunities for research, teaching and innovation in the close relationship with Haukeland University Hospital. We have several centers under planning and have an application for a COE in the finals. We see many opportunities to increase external funding, especially EU funds, and that building a culture on K2 is important. When it comes to challenges, the failing economy is key. We perceive that there is a gradual reduction of K2 by a significant reduction in our basic allocation over the last three years. The cuts hit us especially hard due to our large BOA economy. We perceive this as unfair and demoralizing. We also explained that so far, we have not had any streamlining or improvement of the economy through the introduction of the BOTT systems, centralization of finance and specialists. Both the Rector and the University Director agreed with our description of the situation and that this is of great concern. Various measures were discussed. The university management works intensively with the case through various channels. They want to come back to visit some of our centers to learn more about how they work. These are good signals from the management!
Wishing everyone as good a weekend as possible given the situation in Ukraine. My thoughts go to the Ukrainian people who are having a terrible time now.
Pål
