Anita Mirijamdotter

Dr. Anita Mirijamdotter is Professor of Informatics at Linnaeus University, Sweden, since 2008. In that role she serves as Head of Subject, which involves disciplinary responsibility for Informatic’s research and education, including its development. Additionally, she leads the research group Information Management. Anita's research and teaching focus on design and management of information, communication, and decision systems in dynamic organisational settings. Her specialization include: Digital Capability including Implementation and Evaluation; Systems Thinking Methodologies and Models; Knowledge Sharing and Exchange in information intensive organizations; and Participatory Action Research in relation to change management.

Anita has extensive experience delivering higher education across the globe. During her more than twenty-five years of career progression at academic institutions, she has developed, taught, and coordinated programs and courses at Bachelor, Master and Doctoral levels and examined almost 200 Degree Projects, 15 and 30 credits. Anita has also experience in flexible education, incorporating campus and web-based distance learning courses and programs. This educational form includes international students from a variety of countries, e.g., Pakistan, India, China, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Germany, England and the USA, in addition to Sweden. Experience at research level includes supervision of eight graduate students up to completion, serving as main supervisor for five. At present, she supervises in total five PhD students and two as main supervisor. She has served as opponent at six PhD defences and as member of the exam committee at additional twenty-six PhD defences, both national and international.

Anita holds her PhD from Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, where she has served in several positions over a twenty-year period and which culminated in an appointment as Professor of Informatics and Systems Science.  She has also been in residence abroad, including a post-doc at Lancaster University, UK, in 2000-2001, U.K., and as Research Scholar at University of Colorado Denver, USA, in 2009. At present she has an appointment as guest professor at University of Business and Technology, Faculty of Information Systems, Prishtina, Kosovo. She is also active in teaching and research exchanges with University of Tirana, Albania,

Besides management, research, supervision, and teaching in the Informatics department, Anita serves as a member of the Linnaeus University Council on scientific misconduct. She also serves as a Board member of Linnaeus University Library. Her current professional service includes contributions to the project “The Usefulness of Evaluation”, a cross faculties collaboration with business, non-profit organizations, municipalities, and counties in the region of Småland in the south of Sweden, which focuses on questions of usage and relationships between clients, implementers and users of evaluation.*

During 2010-2012 Anita served as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology, Linnaeus University, and as Chair of the Faculty’s First and Second Cycles of Education, and Chair of the Faculty’s Recruitment Board. In these roles Anita participated in the further consolidation of the two university campuses into a single University system. Together with the Dean, she also led the faculty work on quality assurance and allocation of funds for research and education including recruitment of personnel. During 2013-2015 Anita served as Head of Informatics Department, which included responsibility for Informatic’s research and education, budget and staff.

Example of external assignments that Anita has held during the years in academia are expert evaluator at professors’ and senior lecturers’ appointments, and most recently as assessor of pilot projects in evaluation of Swedish research education, expert evaluator of research applications, and quality assurance of educational programs. Moreover, Anita has contributed to more than seventy publications, delivered five keynote speeches at international conferences, and served as editor and reviewer for more than twenty  international conference and journal publications. She has organized international conferences of which the latest was held in Växjö, Sept. 9-11, 2015, The 18th annual International Research Conference Dilemmas for Human Services 2015: Organizing, Designing and Managing. The conference was financed by the Swedish foundation for research in Humanities and Social Sciences (RJ) and The Marcus Wallenberg Foundation for International Scientific Collaboration.

Anita has also been granted external funding by The Knowledge Foundation and PostNord for developing and establishing the research area of Information Logistics. This project has resulted in the recruitment of a professor and subsequently the formation of an interdisciplinary research center, GBC. Other funding has been obtained by the Swedish National Research School Management and Information Technology, for part financing of six PhD students.

* The project is part of a future platform at Linnaeus University on welfare issues and is led by Professor Verner Denvall, Social Work; Professor Anita Mirijamdotter, Informatics; and Professor Göran Petersson, e-Health Institute.