Q and A: Professor Imre Pazsit of Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology

 

Why are you visiting AIT?

Well, I would like to strengthen contacts between Chalmers and AIT. In
particular, I’m interested in pursuing possibilities concerning my
academic field, which is nuclear engineering. From our point of view,
it is very interesting for us to keep contact with universities and
institutes in this region because Thailand and Sweden are together
assisting with many development initiatives in the region. So there’s a
lot of potential in terms of mutual cooperation. 

Do you have any hopes for collaborative initiatives with AIT’s
School of Engineering?

Yes, although at present, of course, the situation is slightly
different, or perhaps a lot of different in relation to our respective
countries. In Sweden, we have had nuclear power for over 30 years. On
the other hand, from what I understand there are plans in the region to
at least consider nuclear energy as one part of the overall energy mix.
My vision is that we can initiate fruitful cooperation by exploring the
possibility of having students come to Sweden from AIT on a
double-degree basis. The idea is to let such students from AIT get
acquainted with both the technology and education in Sweden, and then
of course import it back here for application in both academics and
probably to industry as well. 

Do you think Swedish students would be interested in studying
in Thailand at AIT? 

Yes, in general I think so. But in this specialized subject there are
no courses available here at the moment, so that would be asymmetric.
But actually it doesn’t matter so much. At the beginning we could think
about having exchange students from AIT come to Chalmers. I think that
would significantly contribute to raising the interest level of the
Swedish students at our campus. It might sound a bit paradoxical but
Swedish students are probably not as willing to travel abroad as you
might expect. This is because they don’t know what they’ll get. They
don’t know what to expect from a place that is relatively unknown to
them. So having students from AIT at our university would help them all
to get acquainted and know about AIT.

What are some specific benefits for AIT and Chalmers under such an
arrangement?

If students come to Sweden and undergo elements of the Swedish
education system, they get acquainted with Swedish society, its
technology, and they will become a good voice for the type of education
we have in Sweden. Some of them might like to stay in Sweden and
ultimately establish their careers there. In such a case, I believe it
would be of benefit to both parties. I can only speak about myself as
an example. I was born in Hungary, but I had my education and part of
my professional career in Hungary before I moved to Sweden. In the
position that I know have in Sweden, I feel I can do a lot of good
things for Hungary to promote young people to come to Sweden to study
and vice-versa. That also makes it easier for my colleagues to make
visits or start up cooperation initiatives in Hungary. I think this is
usually beneficial for both countries. Students will eventually go home
or stay, either way such a platform benefits both institutions.

Chalmers is a former university of our President, do students
there know about AIT?

I don’t think that they know to the extent they should. Of course some
of them do but I think they are at the beginning of the process of
increasing this awareness.

Why is Chalmers such a success?

I’ve been at Chalmers for twenty years but it already had a
great reputation long before I joined the university. In my own
slightly personal judgment, one reason for our success, and this may
not be applicable to AIT, is that Chalmers is located in Göteborg,
(known as Gothenburg in English) which is not the capital of Sweden.
It’s the second biggest city in the country and thus it lacks some of
the natural advantages of the capital, namely being close to the center
of things. Although this puts one in a slightly less advantageous
situation, I tend to believe it makes people more motivated. I can make
a comparison using the example of England. A lot of the
revolutionary developments that originated in that country have not
come from London, but rather from much smaller Liverpool.
Liverpool is the place where the Beatles came from, and also one
of the world’s best football teams. I believe this is because people
from that town have a strong desire to prove that they are also amongst
the best. This is of course one possible reason out of several others,
but I am sure it has some significance.

Chalmers is a world-ranked university in terms of its
technology and engineering programs.  (Top 100 in the latest QS
ranking of universities around the world.)  What’s your advice for
AIT to attain such a level?

You have very good existing conditions to achieve that goal. The
reason for me to say so is that as far as I know Asian students in
general, and also students at AIT in particular, are very motivated and
hard-working. In the case of nuclear engineering, there would be some
further reasons. Namely, if they were to build-up nuclear engineering
in Thailand, that’s something very new and very exciting for them to
begin to study and research. I think that if you make use of the
possibilities, it’s possible to realize such kinds of goals. Another
important aspect is to maintain good international contacts. This is
actually actively promoted by your current President. Other than that,
my suggestion is to strive for excellence all the time. Do your
best!