LEADERSHIP ASSIGNMENT. After a period as acting assistant dean, Lena Carlsson has now been appointed the new, permanent assistant dean for research. As assistant dean, she wants to improve the conditions for good research on several levels, including by recruiting the best possible researchers and by ensuring an influx of fresh talent. She also wants more of the Academy’s researchers to become involved in the work of the Council for Research (FOR).
FOR’s mission is to do preparatory work on research issues for the dean. The council is to follow research developments in Sweden and internationally and propose initiatives that could promote research at the faculty, in terms of both quality and quantity. The council is also to encourage research collaboration across subjects and departments, and with other higher education institutions, public authorities and companies. Part of the ongoing work of the council is also to answer questions from the Swedish Research Council, which sometimes needs supporting data for research overviews and other reports.
More can contribute
One of Lena’s first goals as assistant dean will be to increase the number of researchers who are involved in FOR work. For example, they can be part of the working teams preparing specific cases or developing proposals for improvements.
The faculty made extensive preparations for various nominations and awards from private foundations and other external funders, which can be very taxing for FOR members. This is a case where researchers with experience in assessing applications for funding agencies, such as the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish Cancer Society, can help: “We need to get more people involved in the assessment process,” she says. “I would like to have a pool of people who have experience with similar tasks and to whom we can turn for help in preparing these. I’ve already asked the institutes to give us names of suitable candidates, and those who want to contribute their time should feel free to contact me directly.”
Such a pool of experienced assessors will also mean that FOR is better able to focus on preparing proposals for the dean, which improves opportunities for research at the faculty.
“To evaluate how the various measures affect the quality of research over time, we need measurable objectives. The Operational Plan for 2018 now states that we are to establish methods for annual follow-ups of quality indicators, such as publications in high-impact journals or highly cited articles with first or senior authors from Sahlgrenska Academy,” says Lena.
She continues: “It’s very important that we have a research environment that provides good conditions for conducting high-quality research. If we can combine good research environments and calls for proposals with broad teaching and research duties, we can attract excellent colleagues, thereby increasing the quality of research.”
Out in the world
Lena thinks it’s important for FOR to have close collaboration with the Council for Third-cycle Studies (FUR), because FOR can follow up on those who have defended their theses.
“FOR’s work provides us with good insight into how our younger colleagues are doing and we can pick up signals about what could be improved within third-cycle studies to increase competitiveness when acting as independent researchers.”
In making the transition from doctoral student to independent researcher, the opportunity to do an international postdoc can be decisive. FOR is planning to conduct a survey soon to gain a clearer picture of how common it is for researchers who have just defended their thesis to do a postdoc. In any case, it is clear that too few do so, Lena maintains.
“A lengthy stay abroad provides important experience, and in most cases it’s a prerequisite for a successful research career. No one should underestimate the importance to the Academy as a whole because international postdocs often work in excellent research environments at the most prestigious universities and can serve as links between us and foreign groups.”
The personal contacts that young researchers make during their time abroad increases the opportunities for the faculty as a whole to engage in successful research recruitment.
“In their collaborations with other groups, our researchers soon notice that there are motivated young people with interesting profiles that can be invited here to present seminars, and then it remains to be seen where the contact leads. When we post openings, it’s clear they should be announced in international competition, but personal contacts increase the possibility that we will get really good candidates.”
One of the Sahlgrenska Academy’s strategic investments in young researchers is the re-establishment grant, which can be applied for by researchers who come here after having done a postdoctorate abroad.
“It’s a good investment, but I’d like to see more applications per opening. Re-establishment grants are offered on a competitive basis, and those receiving the grant have demonstrated that their research is of high quality.”
From growth hormone for obesity
Lena Carlsson defended her thesis just over 30 years ago here in Gothenburg, with a dissertation on the secretion of growth hormone in rats. This was followed by a postdoc at Genentech in San Francisco, where she also took a permanent job as a researcher, and she remained in California for three years. She was lured back to Gothenburg by a job offer as a research intern, but then began a research position with the former Swedish Medical Research Council. When she took that job, she changed her research field from growth hormones to obesity:
“I think it’s good to change fields after defending a thesis. The idea of doctoral studies is to learn the principles of research. Changing fields is a way to show that you are independent, and it’s also stimulating to read up on a whole new area,” says Lena.
A study with wide-ranging possibilities
For 13 years she has headed the Swedish Obese Subjects study, or SOS, which is the world’s most comprehensive study of the long-term effects of bariatric surgery compared with conventional obesity treatment. The study, which was started in 1987 by Lars Sjöström, has put Sahlgrenska on the world map in obesity research.
“The study’s original goal was to examine how bariatric surgery affected above-average death rates in patients with obesity over a 10-year period, but the study has much broader possibilities that were not anticipated initially. For example, when the SOS study began, the link between cancer and obesity was not known,” says Lena. “Because the effects of bariatric surgery persist throughout life, we have extended the follow-up period so that the study is still under way, and patients are called in for examinations all over Sweden.”
One of the more exciting and unexpected findings has been that bariatric surgery can prevent the development of diabetes in patients.
“In most obese patients that are in a preliminary stage of diabetes, surgery can entirely prevent the development of diabetes, but these patients are not prioritized to receive bariatric surgery. I think we should change that,” says Lena, who takes every opportunity she gets to tell the story of the findings at conferences and other meetings so that more patients diagnosed with prediabetes can have bariatric surgery.
She believes the fact that she is a very active researcher is beneficial for her assignment as assistant dean and as chair of FOR: “It promotes understanding of research conditions, and it makes you work to ensure that conditions are as good as possible for researchers at the Academy.”
The Council for Research (https://sahlgrenska.gu.se/om-fakulteten/akademins-ledning/for) is comprised of representatives from across the faculty. Each department appoints one member and one substitute. Acting on a proposal from the drafting committee, the dean appoints another three members, one of whom will become the vice chair of the council. The students also appoint members.
TEXT AND PHOTO: ELIN LINDSTRÖM CLAESSEN
