KUF meeting 44 minutes
Video meeting on 12th September 2012, starting at 12 am Scandinavian time.
Present, regular members
Name
Anna Valros, chair
Mari Sundli Tveit
Lena Andersson-Eklund
Birgit Nørrung
Björn Thorsteinsson (joined at 13:15)
Elise Norberg (joined at 13:30)
Heli Peltola
Marcus Andersson
Institute
HU-V
UMB
SLU
HEALTH
LBHI
AU-A
UEF-F
SLU
Present, coordinators
Pauliina Karvinen
Thorbjörg Valdis Kristjánsdottir (joined at
13:15)
Janna Koivisto
UEF-F
LBHI
HU-V
Absent regular members:
Juha Helenius (HU-AF), Halvor Hektoen (NVH), Hanna Husum (UMB).
Absent coordinators:
Marianne Aarø-Hansen (AU-A), Jill Archer (LIFE), Sari Mikkola (HU-AF), Helena Eklund Snäll (SLU), Cathrine Strømø (UMB), Melanie Etchell (NVH).
Extra participant:
Grete Bertelsen, SCIENCE
44.1
Opening of meeting, presentation of the new representatives
Anna Valros opened the meeting and welcomed everyone. Three new persons presented themselves: Associate Dean,
Birgit Nørrung, who will represent the Faculty of Health and Science of the University of Copenhagen, senior
researcher Heli Peltola, who will be the representative of School of Forest Sciences of the University of Eastern Finland
and coordinator Pauliina Karvinen, also from the University of Eastern Finland.
44.2
Approval of the agenda
Decision: The agenda was approved.
44.3
Follow-up on KUF meeting 43
The minutes of the KUF meeting 43 were presented as the enclosure 44.3.
The secretary highlighted some aspects of the meeting 43 as a follow-up, informing the KUF that in total 225.971€ was
granted to PhD courses of 2013 and 39.037 € to master courses. The secretary had the task to ask for further
information regarding two projects (PhD-course “Wood structure and properties with a special emphasis on wood
durability” and master course “Sustainable Pig Production”) and informed KUF that a satisfactory clarification was
received from the main applicants.
The secretary told that according to the suggestions received from KUF at the meeting 43, the course plan template
(which the PhD course applicants have to fill out) was renewed so that it would be more informative and clear. Also
the web pages concerning applying a grant have been updated by the secretary, which was also a wish of the KUF.
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KUF meeting 44 minutes
Decision: The minutes were acknowledged without comments.
Connected to this item, the matter about the requirements concerning the origin of the teachers in each course was
raised up by Mari Sundli Tveit. The NOVA strategy 2011-204 includes an aim that by 2014, 30 NOVA PhD courses
would be arranged each year. Since for the past two years, the reality has not been close to this goal, there might be a
need to redefine the requirements for the course. One possibility could be allowing a course to run even if the
teachers would be only from one NOVA member.
Decision: The matter of possible conflict between strategy and real possibilities to reach the goals will be taken to the
Board and will be dealt with at the next KUF meeting.
44.4
Information on EC decisions
The secretary informed the KUF that since the last meeting, the following EC decision had taken place: Planning
application “Plant Breeding” was granted 5000 €. No comments or questions regarding this decision were made.
44.5
Activity follow-up
Terttu Virri presented an activity follow-up. Three main things were highlighted.
a) Promotional campaign
A project leader Jonathan Sohl, had been hired to produce a promotional leaflet, mainly directed to new PhD students
within the NOVA network. The text of the brochure is ready, except for the interview parts, which will take place
during the week 37. After that, the finalization of the leaflet won’t take long, according to Jonathan Sohl.
Action: The secretary will keep KUF informed about the progress and send the next draft of the brochure to KUF
members and coordinators.
At the previous KUF meeting a suggestion about a promotional video clip was made by LBHI, and Thorbjörg Valdis
Kristjansdottir had promised to make more detailed plans about the project. She now told the KUF that unfortunately
their efforts to recruit a student to make the video were not successful. However, LBHI is willing to look for other
alternatives and develop the idea. TVK shortly presented the current plan for the format of the video: 1) introduction,
2) interviews of the students 3) interview of the teachers and 4) closure. The general parts would be the same, but for
some parts, native language could be used.
Terttu Virri mentioned that around 2000 euro could be used to this project, since there will be some funds left in the
budget for the promotional campaign, after the expenses for the new brochure.
The suggestion of a video clip was discussed.
Decision: The video should be exclusively in English, other languages should not be used. Before starting to make the
video, a target group must be clearly defined.
Action: LBHI will proceed with the project, after discussing it with NSB, which will have a meeting in Reykjavik in the
beginning of October.
b) NOVA web pages
The secretary explained that she had been working on the web pages, which are given a high priority in the to-do-list.
A request to add a link “Nordplus grants” on the left pane of the front page of NOVA made.
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KUF meeting 44 minutes
Action: Terttu Virri will continue working on the pages, and welcomes all suggestions to improve NOVA web pages.
Since information on Nordplus grants is to be found both under “For Students” and “Grants and funding”, the
secretariat sees there is no need to insert a link into the front page, which is meant to cover all the main aspects of
NOVA (and grants for master students is not such a thing).
c) NOVA courses in 2012
The secretary told about that the 14 NOVA PhD courses that were scheduled to run between January and August 2012
had run, except one, “Peat soils and peatlands in Nordic countries”, which was cancelled. The amount this course was
granted, 20.700 €, will be treated as regained funds in the NOVA budget 2012. Three more PhD courses are scheduled
to run still this year.
No special comments were made.
Action: The secretary will give next follow-up on this at the KUF meeting 45.
The secretary shortly informed KUF that the autumn call for grant applications was opened on 20th August and the
dead line for applications is 15th October. Information is available at the NOVA web page.
Action: Local teams will spread the information of the call within their university / faculty.
44.6
Draft of the Activity plan 2013
The secretary presented a draft of the activity plan for 2013. She mentioned that one item has to be added into the
plan, namely “Rotating secretariat”, since during 2013 decisions of the change of the chairmanship and secretariat
must be made.
The draft of the activity plan was discussed and the following decisions were made:
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Item 2, “Promotional campaign”, will be titled more broadly, i.e. Visibility / Communication.
Item 3, “Quality PhD courses”: For the sake of consistency, a goal for every NOVA member to organize certain
amount of PhD courses in 2013 will be mentioned (as it is on the item concerning master courses).
Item 7, “Annual Seminar”- the title will be changed to “Policy forum” (as it has been in the previous plans),
under which the annual seminar will fall alongside the Board meeting in autumn, which is also an important
policy forum of NOVA.
Item 8 will be added: Rotating secretariat.
Meeting dates: Changes according to the item 44.11 on the agenda.
Actions:
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44.7
The secretary will make the corrections into the action plan and distribute it to KUF and coordinators for
inspection.
The activity plan for 2013 will be presented at the NOVA Board meeting on 18th October, after which the
secretary will send the confirmed version to the coordinators.
Local teams will make local activity plans 2013 in line with the general activity plan, submitting their plans as
previously agreed to the secretariat by 15th November, to be presented in the KUF meeting on 22nd
November.
Accounts 31.8.2012, discussion on the budget for 2013
The 8 months’ account was presented as the enclosure 44.7. Based on the situation on 31.8.2012, a prognosis of the
situation at the end of the year was included in the enclosure.
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KUF meeting 44 minutes
The secretary gave a short introduction into the accounts and prognosis. No major comments or questions were made.
Decision: The KUF acknowledged the accounts and prognosis.
The KUF discussed the budget for 2013 in a general level. Member fee was acknowledged to be the most important
issue to be solved by the Board.
Decision (budget for 2013): The KUF agrees on trying not to reduce the study possibilities for PhD students, even if the
budgeted amount for PhD courses would be lowered by the decision of the Board. In case there is a need to reduce
the budget, maintaining the amount of courses offered with a lower budget could be done in various ways.
For example by lowering the maximum amount of grant for a course, lowering the budget for accommodation costs of
the course participants, possibly combined with institutions using more internal money to fund attendance etc.
Measures of this kind will be discussed by the KUF if the need arises.
Actions:
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44.8
The draft of the budget plan for 2013 will be prepared for the Board meeting on 18th October by the
secretary. KUF will discuss the budgetary framework at its meeting on 22nd November 2012.
The secretary will gather information on unreported grants (categorized by the university of the main
applicant) and send a list of them to the coordinators and KUF member of each institute.
The NOVA member institutes will help the secretary on getting final reports for any unreported projects
which have been due before the current date.
NOVA guarantee for the year 2013
Janna Koivisto, the central NOVA-BOVA Nordplus network coordinator, presented the backgrounds of the NOVA
guarantee. She proposed that the guarantee for the academic year 2012-2013 would be 60 000 €.
Decision: KUF accepted the proposed amount as NOVA guarantee.
44.9
Annual Seminar 2013
The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences will host the next Annual Seminar. Lena Andersson-Eklund told that
the seminar will take place in Uppsala, and she suggested 23.-24.5.2013 to be dates for the seminar. The theme will be
PhD-education, as preliminary decided by the Board in May 2012.
The KUF had a short discussion on the content of the seminar. Lena Andersson-Eklund suggested that the seminar
could perhaps be partly divided into sections according to different scientific areas of NOVA. It was seen important to
decide on the target group of the seminar before starting to compile the programme.
Decision: The seminar will take place in Uppsala 23.-24.5.2013. The theme will be PhD education.
Action: The KUF, NOVA EC, the secretariat and the local team of SLU will work together on the seminar programme
and the responsibilities of practical arrangements will be agreed on between the secretariat and SLU.
44.10
NOVA course certificate
At the last KUF meeting, a proposal of reforming the NOVA course certificate was made by UMB. Both the draft of the
new certificate (prepared by UMB) and an example of the current certificate was enclosed in the meeting documents.
Due to the lack of time, no actual conversation on this matter took place.
Decision: No decision was made. The secretary will ask KUF’s and coordinators’ opinions by email. New certificate
could be taken in use after making sure that all the proposed changes can technically be done (certificates are linked
to the information in the NOVA database).
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KUF meeting 44 minutes
Action: The secretary will ask KUF’s and coordinators’ opinions by email.
44.11
Meeting dates for 2013
The secretariat proposed dates and hosts for the KUF meetings in 2013.
Decision: The KUF will have meetings in 2013 on the following days:
Tuesday, 5th March
th
th
Thursday - Friday 23 – 24 May
th
Thursday 13 June
th
Tuesday 17 September
Tuesday 26th November
Video meeting at 12 Scandinavian time
KUF – BOVA CC in conjunction to the Annual Seminar
Video
The secretary proposed that LBHI would host the meeting in June, and HU-AF in November. Bjørn Ϸorsteinsson said
the LBHI will be happy to host the meeting in June or in November, but weather wise best option would be June. As
there were no representatives in the meeting from HU-AF, the secretary will contact Juha Helenius and Sari Mikkola
about the possibility of HU-AF hosting one meeting next year.
Decision: The hosts for the meetings in June and November 2013 will be decided on later on.
44.12
Other issues
Lena Andersson-Eklund told that followed by the KUF meeting on 22nd November in Uppsala, there will be a possibility
to participate on a tour of the SLU’s new life stock research centre. She will send out a separate invitation about this.
Terttu Virri told briefly about the meeting Antti Sukura and she had with the representatives of NJF, The Nordic
Association of Agricultural Scientists. The president of the NJF Board, Svein Skøien and the secretary of NJF Roland
Sigvald proposed a joint effort combining a NOVA PhD course and a conference organized by NJF (this could happen at
the earliest in 2014). NOVA promised to help NJF in finding cooperation partners within NOVA networks. NOVA chair
invited Svein Skøien and Roland Sigvald to give a presentation of their organization at the annual seminar.
44.13
End of meeting
Anna Valros ended the meeting at 14:10 Scandinavian time.
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