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Candidate to the University Board - Group A

Hakan Gurcan Sicakkan

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I have been a permanent academic employee at UiB since 2009. I have extensive experience from international academic leadership and interdisciplinary research. I initiated and directed large-scale EU projects and devised courses based on these. I served as the chairman of the boards of international research consortia, where I learned to navigate through local, national, European, and international regulations for research. This has led to an extensive international network of universities, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. I learned different ways of organizing research and teaching from partners as well as during long research stays in Berlin, Florence, Copenhagen, Oxford, and Paris. I have been a Department Council member (UiB), member of the Academic Board of The National Competence Unit for Minority Health (UiO), founder of the Nordic Journal for Migration Research, and deputy member of the Regional Board of the Norwegian Humanist Association (Hordaland). I wish to contribute to UiB with this experience.

My motivation for standing for election is my ideal of university as a knowledge provider based on freedom of research, research-based interdisciplinary teaching, targeted dissemination, democracy, and equal opportunities for employees. I will work for change at UiB based on these values:

  • Requirements for societal relevance may be a challenge for freedom of research, contingent upon who has the power to define. Research should primarily serve science's own development and human needs. Curiosity-driven basic research has doubtlessly the greatest utility value for all actors in society. I will support initiatives to allocate more resources to basic research at UiB and encourage the university leadership to work nationally to obtain sufficient resources for basic research.
  • Offering education based on self-produced, research-based, cutting-edge knowledge is the most important characteristic that distinguishes universities from other educational institutions. This can be achieved by developing, identifying, and rewarding the best ideas and practices and transferring them. I will support good measures for model development on research-based teaching.
  • Technological development opens for new ways of producing knowledge. I will support good initiatives for digitization and establishment of groundbreaking hybrid disciplines such as "computational social science" at UiB.
  • Dissemination to citizens is just as important as dissemination to decision-makers. UiB produces knowledge about health, environment, climate, technology, politics, rights, equity, and social life that can benefit different social groups. I will support good initiatives to develop communication strategies for different social groups.
  • Democracy at UiB operates on the basis of legitimacy and the right of representation achieved through elections. In cases of violation of power, the lack of democratic procedures between elections can weaken democracy. I will urge the university leadership to develop guidelines and procedures for dealing with abuse of power at various leadership levels. I will support initiatives for decentralization of decision-making on academic priorities and resource use.
  • UiB is internationalized. Colleagues recruited from abroad have so far had little opportunity to work in our decision bodies. With their diverse experiences, they have a lot to contribute. I will support initiatives to include all UiB colleagues in our democratic processes. This also applies to my female colleagues.