Board Meeting in Espoo/Helsinki May 22-23, 2025
Informal minutes by Axel Brandenburg

I took notes for my own sake as deputy director. During the actual
board meeting on Friday 23 May, there was a zoom connection, but we
did not see participants who had their camera off or were not speaking.
I was not sure whether the faculty and/or fellows representatives were
present.

This was the last meeting of the present Nordic board with Susanne Viefers
as chair. At the actual board meeting, we had full representation from
Iceland and Finland, half representation from Denmark (Schoett-Hvidberg)
and Norway (Hansen on zoom), and zoom representation from Sweden. Elizabeth,
Jimmie, and Malin from Nordita were also present, as well as the observers
from SU, KTH, and UU.

On the preboard meeting, we had talks by scientists from Aalto U and
Helsinki U.

The actual board meeting on Friday started at 9:30 local time.
Elizabeth reviewed some practicalities of Nordita today, e.g., that
we have monthly Wednesday fikas, often with more official information,
in addition to Monday fikas that are now organized by Nordita scientists
(Watse and Florian). She described to move from floor 5 to 6, which
was celebrated with a pizza event. She mentioned the Quantum Leap event
in connection with 100 years of quantum mechanics with free-lancer Jonas
Enander as moderator. There will also be a public outreach event at
AlbaNova in the last week of September where Nordita will be involved.
To solicit feedback from Nordita programs and possibly other events,
Marie will in future actively ask individual participants for feedback.
To advertise Nordita better, Elizabeth mentioned her many connections
on LinkedIn. The Eurostrings 2025 meeting will be hosted at Nordita
in August.

Micke reviewed the WINQ status and activities, including 60 publications
so far, numerous events, and 17 visitors, as well as supervision of
graduate students. The 95 MSEK budget for 2021-2027 is expected to
be continued with another 80 MSEK for 2028-2031. It was noted that an
outdated WINQ webpage comes up on google, but it was promised that the
correct WINQ page should be advertised soon.

Micke reflected on the past activities of the Nordita board "as viewed
in the rear mirror". He described the board's main responsibilities
such as the appointment of the Nordita director and other appointments,
including the Nordic subfield committees. Due to the loss of the Nordic
fellows program, their role has become ill-defined. Their workflow was
shaped from a Nordic perspective. Now there is mandate for important
decisions.

Anders Karlhede recalled that the board was given full responsibility
and that the future board might perhaps be more like an advisory or
corporate board. As discussed previously, the future board will consist
of 7-9 members, which includes members from the 3 host universities,
who will now no longer be just observers. Some overlap with the
present board is envisaged. It is important that Nordita is not regarded
as a University department.

The anticipated 8 MSEK from the Ministry of Education gives SU the
responsibility to treat Nordita as a resource of national use.
The additional VR funding sets it apart from the Universities.

Nordita should remain flexible and not be affected by long-term
commitments. Both National and Nordic collaborations should be
emphasized. Regarding Nordicness, current involvements in quantum
technology was mentioned. It was stressed that Nordic meetings should not
be free, but should receive Nordic funding. The importance of attracting
young people to Nordita was noted.

To host external grants in future, both a topical review and a quality
review should be performed and/or is already done. Nordita should *own*
the process of deciding what is done at Nordita. It was noted that
a strongly restrictive process could lead to a significant decline
in Nordita's diversity and breadth.

Micke described the Nordic curriculum. It is targeted to Nordic PhD students.
To have some Nordic commitment, the national supervisors should sponsor
the travel expenses of their students. The current Master's courses with
Iceland would likely be discontinued.