We are happy to introduce LU375, a special jubilee edition of  Lund University Magazine (LUM) for 2041. It is an exploration of one possible future for Lund University. Who might the researchers, teachers and other staff at Lund University be? And what might they be working on?

Welcome to the world of LU375! Download the LU375 Magazine here
(PDF, 1,4 MB, new tab).

The jubilee issue revolves around the University’s 25-year journey since its 350th birthday in 2016.

Through interviews with a wide variety of fictional people who have been central to these developments, the jubilee issue will engage with the major occurrences and overall trends in these last three decades: from the development of education and research, to interactions with wider society; from events that reshaped the physical environment, at Lund University and Lund in general, to new policies and organizational platforms.

Against a backdrop of pandemics, social unrest, political turmoil and environmental fluctuations, and the struggles and victories of the 2020s and 30s, LU375 highlights changes in everyday life, student life and ideological climate, and describes the innovations that nurtured hope during tumultuous times.

LU375 is a sort of science fiction—albeit a science fiction whose imaginings are rooted in quality research. But it is not an act of prediction! What you find here is not the future of Lund University, but one possible future—one of many. It is an exploration, a provocation—the first proposition in a conversation.

And although this story is situated at Lund University, it raises a lot of issues relevant for Higher Education and Research further afield.

Why make a story of a future life at Lund University?

Stories about the future of universities are everywhere: in the government’s recent research bill, and the international benchmarking and ranking tools; in the internal research quality processes, and the Dean’s monthly letter. But these assessments, by necessity, often focus on quantitative measures and statistical trends.

Notable by their absence are questions relating to values and lived experience: what kind of university is LU, and what should it strive to be? Why, and how, should we prioritise one institutional form or pedagogical practice over another?

/The LU Futura Team