Crisis Response in Higher Education: how the pandemic challenged university operations and organisation in Australia, the UK and Sweden.

Throughout history, universities have been deeply affected by societal developments, war, peace, booms, and busts. Disruption and rupture are characteristic of the university-society relationship, with the pandemic as only the most recent instance in history. Professor Mats Benner will showcase how the pandemic affected universities in Australia, the UK and Sweden, and how governments, university leadership, faculty, staff and students responded. He will highlight the significant differences between the three countries in their approach to the pandemic. The dramatic upheavals of the pandemic years may also provide an opportunity to choose to change things for the better as universities move towards consciously planning for a different future and explore possible lessons to be gained.

QUT and the Centre for Decent Work and Industry is proud to host Professor Mats Benner, a sociologist and Dean at Lund University School of Economics and Management Sweden. Professor Benner will discuss how the pandemic affected universities in Australia, the UK and Sweden, and how governments and the university communities responded.

Mats Benner is a professor of science policy studies at Lund University and is engaged in studies of research policy formation and implementation, and university policy. He has recently written on the future of Asian universities and the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic and its influence on university governance and power relations affected by the pandemic, geopolitical tensions, and other broader forces.

Professor Mats Benner has recently published Crisis Responses in Higher Education How the Pandemic Challenged University Operations and Organisation which explores the impact of Covid-19 on universities, and how students, staff, faculty and academic leaders have adapted to and dealt with the impact of the pandemic. Drawing on experiences from the UK, Australia and Sweden, it showcases how Covid has challenged routines and procedures in universities and thrown them into a disarray of ever-changing events and short-term adaptations. The book pays particular attention to how students, staff, faculty, and leaders have coped with Covid 19, through a series of autobiographical portraits of their strains but also heroic efforts in the harshest of circumstances.

Mats Benner is professor in science policy studies at Lund University School of Economics and Management, and a visiting professor at KTH-Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, NIFU, Oslo, and King's College, London. Previously, he has been affiliated with the University of Essex, Linköping University, Uppsala University, and Halmstad University College. He works primarily with issues of research policy, university governance and state-industry relations. He teaches and supervises primarily in the area of organization and leadership. He is a permanent member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, a board member of Mid Sweden University and have been a member of the Swedish Government’s Research Advisory Board (2009-2010, 2015-2016).

Proudly supported by QUT’s Faculty of Business and Law and the QUT Centre for Decent Work and Industry.

Webinar option https://qut.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8El0SPatT12FXJqXH8fr4Q

For further information please contact rpoffice@qut.edu.au