Basic funding resources for faculty appointments

KTH’s major dependence on external research grants makes it difficult for us to offer teachers and researchers good long-term terms. This is an area where we need to improve.

In simple terms, KTH’s income can be divided into four equal-sized portions: 1. Basic higher education funding, 2. Research and innovation grants, 3. Income from research councils and other government authorities and 4. Other income from the EU, industry and other private funding sources. Some of the education and research funding can be used for the long-term funding of faculty, but not all.

There are certain environments at KTH where the existing long-term funding for faculty is simply too low. But finding a good solution in the short-term is a challenge. It is the responsibility of the schools to ensure reasonable terms in the long-term.

In many cases, the requests for new faculty appointments that are submitted to the faculty council, and which subsequently end up on my desk, are encumbered by weak long-term funding. It is sometimes also difficult to evaluate the calculations presented.

The internal requirements on securing long-term funding for new faculty appointments have been tightened in the last few years, but I believe that we nevertheless need to raise our standards even higher if we are to attract the most desirable candidates to KTH. I have therefore initiated a discussion with dean of faculty Sophia Hober to see how this can be achieved. We are working on a proposal that is to be processed by the faculty council’s research allocation committee.

The top candidates for tenure track appointments as assistant professor generally receive offers from several universities. It is vital that KTH can offer good long-term terms and an attractive starting package to be an attractive alternative in the international competition.

When it comes to international professorship recruitments, I have witnessed several cases of appointments that have been scuppered by the issue of long-term funding.

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