You announced last year that you wouldn’t be seeking a second term as the university’s rector. What prompted that decision?

When we came here [from Quebec], four and a half years ago, we intended to go home very often to see the children. When we left, the youngest one was 17. Today he is 21. They are grown-ups, but covid somehow completely changed the game. It’s been hard to travel to Canada in the past two years. And the idea of not having the option to jump on a plane if something went wrong over there, that somehow was disturbing. We were very happy here, my wife and I; we’ve been really welcomed by everyone in the country.

When you took this job, the university was coming out of a leadership and budget crisis. Your predecessor had stepped down after just two years. How do you remember that time?

I did not personally live a crisis when I arrived. I was really welcomed. The staff were very enthusiastic. We were starting a four-year plan; we had received substantial endowment from the state. The prospects were really good. And we accomplished the plan. In four years, we grew by almost 30% in terms of funding and by 26% in terms of staff. That’s completely unheard of in other countries.

Under the next four-year plan with the government, the university is set to receive €908m. That’s a 17% increase in budget. What will these extra funds allow you to do? 

Plenty. The covid crisis has had a very large impact on public finances across the world. Here, the government chose to reinvest, to invest even more in higher education and research. That is very rare. We are fortunate. Universities that I know very well from abroad have to cut their budgets. And they’ve had to do that for the past two to three years.

The plan is not the vision of the rector. It’s a vision of the community. It was designed with a lot of wisdom, a lot of collaboration by everyone and input from entities, faculties and centres. A lot of things are on the agenda. Medicine and health clearly will be taken to a new height. We will introduce [in 2022] the third year of medical education at the bachelor level. We are introducing a new bachelor’s in nursing science. On the research side, we have a new director of the LCSB [Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine].

Computer science, HPC, data science and machine learning will all be very important in the next four years

Stéphane Pallage, Rector, University of Luxembourg

You also have substantial developments in computer science, all that deals with the digital transformation. And it’s not limited to computer science. It’s transversal across the university. You have developments in the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance, with professors in digital finance, for example, or in law related to new technologies. You have developments in the Faculty of Humanities, in which we will have a centre for digital ethics. And of course, in the science faculty, you will have a lot of developments. Computer science, HPC, data science and machine learning will all be very important in the next four years.

The other development, which is going to change the face of the university, is all that is related to sustainable development. We have the ambition to start a new interdisciplinary centre in the coming years.

With all these new fields that the university is embarking on, you rely on public funding. But how difficult is it to attract private sector and other external funding?

We’ve managed to attract substantial external funding from the European Commission, the FNR [National Research Fund] but also private partners. And I would also put other ministries in the equation. The ministry of finance has, for example, funded several things related to digital finance. There is a new finnovation hub. We have a lot of funding from the ministry of finance and the ministry of the environment, climate and sustainable development for the chair in sustainable finance. Over the years, external funding has grown very strongly, by 76% since 2016.

Reputation is a factor in attracting this funding but also in attracting staff. But, for example, in the Times Higher Education young universities ranking, the university has dropped from 12th to 25th place in two years. How do you explain that result?

It’s easy to explain. There are many new schools every year in the ranking. Just for this year, there were 64 new universities. Among them, you see a lot of Asian schools. You will also find a lot of very old schools that have somehow been rejuvenated by mergers. Even if you keep the same score, you drop. You have to increase in all dimensions if you want to stay in the same spot. Now, we have increased substantially in research, which, to me, is absolutely a great result. The university has to be excellent in research. We achieved our top score in 2022. The same is true for industry funding. We see a record in terms of achievement for the university. We have dropped a little bit when it comes to education and also citations.

On education we have already taken action. We underwent an external evaluation of education within the university. Prior to this evaluation, there was a self-evaluation. It mobilised the entire body of professors and teachers but also students. We were very self-critical. All the recommendations we had in our self-evaluation were essentially the same as those by the external committee, which is a very good sign.

We have introduced an office of the quality of education. It’s a central office, and we will standardise procedures for all faculties and programmes so that students anywhere in the university know what to expect from the programme. And we will make sure that all professors and teachers also receive adequate support in terms of pedagogical help when needed. Training will also be part of the plan.

Universities are a weapon to protect democracy

Stéphane Pallage, Rector, University of Luxembourg

Part of that university experience is student life. How do you see that as having evolved over the last four years that you’ve been here?

A lot of things have happened, but among those things was the covid crisis. We have done three studies on the satisfaction of students and staff. In the last survey, which is very recent and was done during the covid crisis, more than 80% of our students said they would recommend the university to others.

Life on campus has improved a lot since I arrived. A lot of restaurants are opening, new buildings. The students have access to the house of arts and students. The library has completely changed their lives. They come to campus not just for classes. They stay for much of the day.

Speaking of students, you issued a statement in February to the university’s community in solidarity with Ukraine. What is the university’s role in a crisis like this one?

Universities have an important role in democracy. Democracy is being challenged, and we have to take a position and condemn the actions that are currently taking place in Ukraine. It’s also our role to show the community that we care and that a university is a place of peace. We have many Ukrainian students, we have many Russian students, and we care about their well-being.

Beyond the conflict that’s currently taking place, universities are a weapon to protect democracy. We are in an age in which facts are being challenged. We have experts, and we have a role to play in public debates--not to tell people what they have to think, but at least to give them the information about the basic facts on which they can then base their opinion. This is something that is really important today. Democracy is being challenged by ignorance. We are able to provide knowledge and to make sure that knowledge is made available to the public.

But when it comes to democracy being challenged, the university has close ties with Fudan University in China, which has struck academic freedom from its statutes. There’s a Confucius Centre here when many universities in Europe and around the world are closing theirs. Can you have it both ways?

No, you cannot have it both ways, but you have to discuss those questions with the people in Fudan, which I did. The fact is that Fudan was one of the few universities in China that had a charter. And in this charter, there was this sentence. It was removed under pressure, and I can tell you that the people at Fudan reacted very strongly to that.

The Confucius Centre is a place of peace. We teach Chinese culture and also language. I think language is important if we want to have positive discussions with China.

How important is it that Luxembourg is enshrining academic freedom in its own constitution?

There is no university without academic freedom. It’s already enshrined in the law that governs the university. It’s a value that is important for democracy.

There is no university without academic freedom

Stéphane Pallage, Rector, University of Luxembourg

The four-year plan does set a path for the areas that the university is researching. There have been questions about how much the university is at the service of the government. How do you see that relationship?

It’s a very good relationship. We have three missions, and the missions are part of the law that built the university: the mission of research, of education and of service to society, to the cultural and economic development of Luxembourg. We take all missions very seriously.

The directions we chose in our strategic framework were not directions that were imposed on us, they were directions that directly came from the community of the university. They are transversal.

Health is clearly transversal. You can do sustainable development from all possible lenses of any discipline. And the same is true for the digital transformation. These are important challenges for society. The digital transformation is changing our lives and will change the lives of our children. Sustainable development, or the lack thereof, is a danger for the generation of our kids, and probably ours as well.

We chose challenges that are important for mankind, probably the most important ones of the century. And we ask all our researchers to have a look at them and try to provide answers and ideally work in interdisciplinary teams.

Where do you see the university in that ecosystem of the research landscape that also includes other institutions and the FNR?

Things have increased dramatically in terms of collaboration within the country because of covid. Covid, somehow, is a game changer. On the first day, all the directors and myself accorded to our community to devote their knowledge and their experience to a covid-19 task force. It was spontaneous. There was no request by the government. They had different work packages; the majority of them on the health side, but some of them in economics, in logistics, which was really crucial.

It has brought Liser [Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research], List [Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology] and the LIH [Luxembourg Institute of Health] much closer to the university and vice versa. We feel a part of a team.

With the future in mind, what are you hoping to achieve in the last year of your rectorship?

We have a lot on our plate. It’s a full year of work, and it’s good that we have that time. Some things we will already accomplish this year, some things will be put on the trail. Nursing science will not be accomplished this year; everything will be ready when the new rector arrives, and the programmes can be launched in September 2023.

But already this year, we will be hiring many professors. Professors are the most important investment a university can make. They are very strategic. Once you invest in a professor, the professor is there for a long time. He or she will have a long-term effect on the face of the university. We are in the middle of recruitments for 16 professors, 14 of whom are in the three large strategic orientations that I mentioned--medicine and health, digital transformation and sustainable development.

Looking back at the last four years, what are your top achievements?

There are so many things. Medical education is clearly a top achievement. We had to mobilise the entire medical community in Luxembourg to participate in the effort. And I think we succeeded really well.

He or she will have in his or her hands the best possible university to develop.

Stéphane Pallage, Rector, University of Luxembourg

We introduced an interdisciplinary space master. The goal was to provide something that was not existent on the academic market. We target students with a strong science background but that do not know the space sector. We fine-tune their tools, so that they will be very easily employable in the sector. And we add entrepreneurship, finance and a series of classes that will allow them to start their own business. The startup dimension is there. We created, with a series of partners, a European university. We have more than 100 different projects active in space.

What I’m really proud of, from the minute I arrived until the minute I will leave, is the sense of community. We are proud of being part of this university, and the solidarity in the past few years has been amazing. I think that is quite an achievement. Quality of life at work has also improved. We have signed our first collective bargaining agreement, and we have adopted the first-ever gender equality policy.

Any words of advice for your successor, whoever they may be?*

I would tell him or her how beautiful this university is and how much it is possible to develop the future in Luxembourg and at the University of Luxembourg. It’s not advice, but he or she will have in his or her hands the best possible university to develop.

*The University of Luxembourg on --currently vice-rector for research--has been appointed rector starting 2023. This will leave the search open for a new vice-rector.

This article first appeared in the April 2022 edition of .