Evaluation of KTH's sustainability research

Background

KTH RAE 2012 has produced a rich material. The self-assessments including the impact case studies constitute a broad description of KTH’s research. The bibliometric analysis includes important results and the reports of the experts include valuable evaluations. The resources put into the RAE are significant and it is therefore valuable that the material can be used also for broader purposes.

KTH-Sustainability sees a need for evaluating research related to environmental science and technology and sustainable development (ESD) at KTH. This is valuable for external communication of our strengths and also for future strategic work, for example in relation to the new development plans.

KTH-Sustainability has made surveys of research groups at KTH working with environmental technology and sustainable development. The surveys show that there are a number of groups working with ESD but also that they are sometimes quite small. This means that there is a risk that they will not be so visible in the RAE evaluation reports. This is because the RAE evaluation reports will focus on the Units of Assessments which are fairly large. So, although the RAE material will include material describing the ESD activities at KTH, there is risk that ESD research may not be evaluated.

Evaluation

We will invite expert(s) to evaluate the sustainability research at KTH. It should focus on the following questions:

• In an international comparison, what are the strong areas of KTH’s sustainability research?
• Given the aim that KTH should be one of Europe’s leading technical universities also within the area of environmental and sustainability research, what areas should be strengthened?
• How can KTH-Sustainability’s project plan for the period 2013-2015 be further improved?
• What advice would the panel like to give to KTH management, and also to specific schools in order to strengthen KTH’s sustainability research? These advices could relate to strategy, organization, new positions, infrastructure etc.

The basis for the evaluation will be material produced within the RAE 2012. No extra material is required. The Units if assessment that would like to make a one page summary of recent developments will however be invited to do that.

The experts will make a visit in April 15 to 17. The program is not decided yet, but everybody who believes that they should or could be involved, please keep as much of these dates as possible available. We aim to make the planning for the visit in the end of February.

Since the focus is to identify areas that are strong and areas that need to be strengthened, there is no need to explicitly evaluate all relevant groups. This is in contrast to the RAE where all UoAs are evaluated.

Information meeting

There will be an information meeting Feb 8 at 11.30-13.00 in Sydöstra Galleriet KTHB (Osquars Backe 31). A lunch sandwich will be served, so please notify your attendance in this doodle no later than Feb 4th

www.doodle.com/dyqxe3baa48u9u4x

One page update

Those units of assessment that want to produce a one-page update are invited to do so. If this opportunity is used, the update should include major changes that have occurred since the self-evaluations were written in 2012 with relevance for sustainability research. This could include major organizational changes, new important recruitments (e.g. new professors), new major research projects, centers or other initiatives. The one-page update should be written in the appended template.

Any comments and questions can be mailed to sustainability@kth.se

/Göran Finnveden, Vice President for Sustainable Development