Linköping University (LiU)

Basic facts

Linköping University (LiU) applied for eleven SRAs and received three. Furthermore, LiU receives funding as co-applicant from two other funded SRAs.

In total, LiU was allocated approximately 253 million Swedish Crowns by the government for the SRAs (2010–2014).

During 2014, the SRA funding corresponded to 3% of the basic funding for education and research given to LiU from the government.

General comments

LiU leads three SRAs and is a partner in two more. It highly values its SRAs as mechanisms to strengthen and renew strong areas (notably Materials Science and ICT), to introduce a new cross-disciplinary area (Security), and to have an even stronger industry impact. It also aims to maximize the value of partnerships with other universities through shared SRAs. This was highlighted in interviews with individual SRAs, notably EvetKTH and ItkLiU.

Strategic management and use of the SRA funding – Excellent/good

University support is specifically targeted at Government goals for the SRA programme. Support includes:

• close monitoring and support (through the Grants and Innovation Offices) of SRA development by senior management while leaving the research environments to be responsible for overall management, recruitment and transfer of knowledge

• all SRA funding going to SRAs; there is no central subvention but the University makes a significant investment of its own faculty grants in SRAs

• 16 professorial contracts awarded to the SRAs with 2.2MSEK/person/year additional funding for 5 years

• continuous discussions on how to implement good practices with emphasis on collaboration in projects across faculty borders

• moving to a tenure-track-like system

• special programmes for early career researchers and in order to attract high-profile international visitors.

LiU has reviewed its handling of its SRAs over the last 5 years noting what could be improved and developing detailed plans for the future of the SRAs. These include further development of academic leadership; increasing international collaboration; seeking to extend the impact of the SRAs on the undergraduate curriculum; and consolidating and investing more into research infrastructure and making it more readily available to other partners – especially those from industry.

University outcomes and excellence – Excellent/good

As evidence of success, the University cites the excellent results for its SRAs in winning external funding and major prizes. It is particularly proud of the ERC grants awarded to its junior scientists.

LiU’s SRAs have also enabled more and stronger collaborations with industry, building on an already strong base. On education, LiU notes that the biggest impact for both undergraduate and postgraduate has been in the ICT. This field has a large number of students but specialist graduate courses have been introduced from the other SRAs. Additionaly senior researchers from laboratories in other countries are sending their graduate students (with their own funding) to conduct research in the SRAs.

Added value of the SRA funding instrument – Excellent

LiU had a spectrum of concrete measures in place to support the development of the SRAs in all dimensions from research excellence to integration with education and tangible societal impact. In the words of the LiU Vice-Chancellor, ‘The SRAs have clearly contributed to the positioning of LiU, both nationally and

internationally’. This is not surprising, as LiU has worked hard to maximize the value of SRA funding, which constitutes more than 10% of the total funding for its Faculty of Engineering. The University stressed that the SRA funding has made it possible to initiate high-risk research, which is generally not funded by the research councils. Some of this high-risk research is carried with industry. The long-term nature of the funding is particularly valued in this respect.

LiU has high ambitions both in Materials Science as well as in ICT. It aims to be in the top 5 in the world in Materials Science with world-leading infrastructure. It believes the SRA funding will enable it to realise these ambitions.

Summaries of the individual SRAs

MatLiU

Performance: Excellent Strategy: Excellent Added value: Excellent

MatLiU focuses on Advanced Functional Materials and is world-leading in some areas, notably soft materials.

It has a high-impact publication record, with three papers in Nature Materials this year alone. Since 2010 MatLiU has attracted significant prestigious prizes and grants including 3 ERC Starting Grants, 2 ERC Advanced Grants, 2 Wallenberg Scholars, 3 KAW Projects, and 3 SSF Future Research Leaders. SRA funding has been primarily used for recruitment and support of high-profile senior and junior faculty and support for nationally relevant infrastructure which is available for industry use. The funding has allowed MatLiU to undertake high-risk research. It has also strengthened its commercial and industrial impact with several new spinoff companies, new patents, more joint positions with industry, and the majority of its PhD graduates working in industry on graduation.

ItkLiU

Performance: Good Strategy: Excellent/good Added value: Excellent

ItkLiU is an SRA spanning the research fields of communications, networks, control, electronics, embedded systems, software, autonomous systems, and complex systems and reaches the highest international quality for research in control theory. It has four participating higher education institutions – LiU (as host), Lund

University (LU), Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) and Halmstad University (HH) – and has strong links to industry including an industrial board with representatives from Ericsson, ABB, Scania, Sectra, Schneider, Axis and SAAB. This board, along with the SRA’s International Scientific Advisory Board, has provided valuable guidance on which research programmes to support and which to abandon. SRA funding has been used primarily to recruit high-quality researchers. Through the SRA funding ItkLiU has significantly strengthened cooperation between its participants; it has attracted >76 MSEK in new grants; filed several patents: and had a significant impact on education at all levels.

SäkLiU

Performance: Good Strategy: Excellent/good Added value: Excellent

SäkLiU is new venture for its core partners, LiU (host) and FOI (KTH and Chalmers are also contributors), but fits in well with their priorities and expertise with its focus on ICT theory and methods for security

applications. As it has relatively modest SRA funding (7.6MSEK pa in the last few years), the priority has been to recruit quality research talent and then support the SRA’s researchers in gaining sufficient external funding for the environment to help it reach optimal size. An indication of its growing research impact is that it already has a strong presence in EU Security projects with around a 50% application success rate. SäkLiU receives guidance from its industry board and has good bi-lateral collaborations with several industrial partners. In education, its graduate school, Forum Securitatis, has been successful with 20 current PhD students and all graduates to date being employed by industry.