The appointment is for the period from 1 May 2023 to 30 September 2024, i.e. 17 months rather than three years as previously. Reducing the mandate period is an unusual move, which the government claims to be making for reasons of security policy – something that prompts questions as well as concern.

Under Sweden’s Higher Education Ordinance and Government Agencies Ordinance, the university board has several important jobs to do. The board is responsible to the government, must make sure that operations are conducted efficiently and in accordance with prevailing laws, is responsible for the overall direction and organisation of the university, and responsible too for ensuring that internal governance and control are in place and functioning properly.

This is a broad definition of the board’s responsibilities, and it includes all central operational issues at the level and the degree of detail it is possible to deal with within the framework of its remit. The board also governs, of course, by maintaining dialogue with the university management in different ways, and by monitoring and checking – via internal audit and internal control systems – that the university is taking its responsibility and being managed in an appropriate manner, and obviously in accordance with rules and laws.

When the board is appointed, it is preceded by a nomination process whereby special nominators draw up a proposal. The proposal is intended to help ensure a diversely composed board of directors, with collective expertise that can live up to the task of a board. The nominators are also given a mandate, and they prepare a balanced proposal which could, for instance, be a balance between people with a management background, with knowledge of the government and national governance, with central competences in important areas of research and education for the university, and so on.

It is perhaps less well known that the board members each have direct or more operational responsibility for a specific or more delimited area of the operation. So it is the collective expertise that matters, and the value can be found in the board’s discussions based on different perspectives and jointly in the boardroom, rather than having the board or individual members micromanaging fine details of specific operational issues.

Occasionally, of course, the government wants to reach out to the university for one reason or another, on some kind of specific operational issue. This is normally done via the spending authorisation, either for an individual university or for the entire higher education sector, in special government missions, in the government agency dialogue and, more rarely, in direct dispatches with questions or orders in connection with some kind of urgent occurrence in society.

There are many ways to govern agencies under the government, and it is up to the government to do so in as wise a manner as possible. To now reduce the boards’ mandate period with reference to there being a lack of some defined specialist expertise is unlikely to go down in history as one of these wise ways of governing universities and other institutes of higher education. But the government, of course, is in charge, and it is for us to continue to work loyally under these new conditions. I do, however, look forward to building more trust between state and university in the future.

This challenge-based approach is the main focus of the Global Development Hub, GDH, which began in 2017 in association with four African universities: University of Rwanda, University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Strathmore University (Kenya) and Botho University (Botswana). Together, we have run several courses, held student exchanges and also teacher training. This also makes the GDH a focal point for our presence on the African continent.

In addition, last week we were able to extend our collaboration with the University of Rwanda by signing a Memorandum of Understanding, or MoU. The MoU also includes other parties in Rwanda and a broader portfolio of activities than before, including participation in research and innovation.

Rwanda is a small country in East Africa that has developed rapidly over the past 20 years, and is in different ways a fulcrum for innovation activities, enterprise and societal development in its region. The university has also received ever-better resources for its activities in recent decades, so extending our partnership with it is the right move strategically.

The challenge-driven education model is, as mentioned, pivotal to work within the GDH, but it can of course also be used for activities on campus in Stockholm.

The basic idea is the same: to find potential solutions to societal challenges by combining the challenge in education with innovative solutions. One example is OpenLab, which is run by KTH alongside several higher education institutions in the region, the City of Stockholm and Region Stockholm. It presents an opportunity for our partners to place their concrete challenges in the course and project environment provided by OpenLab.

But the images also prompt questions. How can this happen? Again?  Is this as far as we have come with all the knowledge, research results and technical solutions we have today, in everything from materials, construction, solidity, urban planning, safety and security?

Following the 2011 earthquake in Japan, for instance, the country has focused heavily on securing structures with, as far as I am aware, successful results, and on preparing its people and buildings against future tremors.

There is a great deal of knowledge and competence at KTH regarding different aspects of earthquakes. This includes research into being able to better predict when an earthquake might happen.

And that is a source of hope.

It can engender feelings of unease, incomprehension and suspicion. A sense of fear in the pit of the stomach.

The other day, the ever-escalating violence even hit KTH’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science after a building in Kista was bombed. No one was physically injured, but the entrance and some of the offices in the building need to be repaired and restored.

But I would also like to focus for a moment on how powerfully and skilfully the situation was handled in terms of crisis management, communication, and consideration for those who were directly affected. KTH acted swiftly and efficiently to ensure that as many people as possible knew about what had happened, what action to take, and could then get back to work. Once the police had given the all-clear, scheduled teaching and lab work at our Electrum Laboratory could resume.

Security has been tightened up, some areas are still cordoned off, and it is certainly something that will remain on many people’s minds – for a while at least.

For me personally, though, I will also remember our ability to meet devastating violence with a caring and professional response.