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Mats Johnsson from the Faculty of Learning and Society has won this year’s award for global engagement, among other things through his work to enable international mobility in sports science.

– It’s great fun to be noticed by my colleagues who have nominated me. The award has made me reflect on the journey I have made in life and how it all started.

– I grew up in Nydala in Malmö, a high-rise area where already in the sixties there were many different nationalities, so it has never been something foreign to me. In other words, multiculturalism has been a natural part of life and a red thread in Mats Johnsson’s career – previously in the school world and during the last two decades at Malmö University.

– Having a global perspective as a teacher is important regardless of the subject, because it allows you to take in new perspectives and use them in your own education. Mats Johnsson also cares for his students to reflect from a global perspective.

– In my teaching for international master’s students, I usually use an exercise where they have to close their eyes. They get to go back to how it was in school sports when they were growing up and then reflect on what it is that makes it look the way it does.

– I usually also make sure that my Swedish and international students get to meet – it becomes internationalization at home. The interaction and discussions they have in these groups is the most important thing – it gives them a greater exchange and learning than my teaching.

What is your goal in terms of global engagement?

– My goal is to give our students a broader perspective and create the conditions for them to take advantage of the international opportunities that exist. I also want to advise colleagues about going to other countries to exchange and network. I would like to see that better conditions were created for this at the highest level so that internationalization at Malmö University could get a proper boost, concludes Mats Johnsson.

JUSTIFICATION
Mats Johnsson has for many years been a driving force in the Faculty of Learning and Society's global engagement, among other things by working to enable international mobility within sports science. Through the large network of contacts he has built up over the years as international academic coordinator for the Faculty of Learning and Society, as well as as president of the European Teacher Education Network, Mats has contributed to the development of collaboration with higher education institutions around the world.
Mats takes great responsibility for the teachers and students who come to Malmö University, and works dedicatedly to engage students and teachers at home. His commitment to cooperation with South Africa has resulted in a number of South African students at undergraduate, advanced and postgraduate level coming to Malmö University through the attractive International Credit Mobility Programme.
In recent years, Mats, together with researchers from five other European universities, has been part of the Erasmus+ project MeCaMInD (The Method Cards for Movement-based Interaction Design), which explores how to create a toolbox of method cards in the fields of interaction design and sports and movement.

By: Emma Danielsson

Categories: News, Portraits, The history of ETEN