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The culture at Computer Science

The Department of Computer Science recognizes and appreciates the multitude of different ways that the employees of the department contribute to the goals of the department. The department is characterized by a shared responsibility and solidarity in solving the tasks of the department. The management style is appreciative and delegating – many decisions are delegated to committees.

Moving forward, the department will benefit from a more diverse group of employees coming with different backgrounds from all over the world. It is our expectation that the entire staff will contribute equally in shaping the department and making it their own. In particular, the department will work wholeheartedly on getting a more gender-balanced employee profile.

The department will continue to work systematically with improving the work environment based on the mandatory regular psychological workplace evaluations. In recent years this has led to efforts to recognize stress and improve acknowledgement. The department will continue that endeavour. The size of the department enables us to have monthly joint faculty lunch meetings, thereby ensuring and developing the sense of belonging to one department with mutual interests. Annual two-day seminars for permanent academic and non-academic staff have, over the years, contributed to the development of a joint sense of direction among the employees; this tradition will continue. In addition to the faculty seminars, the department now has annual retreats for postdocs and PhD students and quarterly meetings with PhD students and postdocs. The recent establishment of a CS Staff Club, which organizes social activities, has proved to be promising and will be developed in the coming years.

The department recognizes a challenge regarding student culture and the students’ sense of belonging to the department. Traditionally, many CS students have jobs where they spend many hours per week. Thus, many students only come to the department when they have classes. The department strives to ensure that all classes for CS students take place in IT-parken. Furthermore, the student facilities continuously need to be developed in order to ensure that it seems attractive to the students to become a daily part of the department culture. Students are frequently encouraged to seek influence in relevant committees at the department and their participation is highly acknowledged.