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Let me introduce IRIS

Dear colleagues,

During spring 2019 I was contacted by the ITM management group, asking if I was interested in taking on the role as acting deputy head of the ITM School during the fall 2019.
The role involved a new ingredient. Added to the duties, there was a need for an explicit management role for coordinating research. Finding this a very interesting opportunity I accepted.

Under the leadership of Jan Wikander, the ITM management paved the way for a new overarching Research Initiative on Sustainable industry and society, raising funding in the order of 20 MSEK/year up to and including 2022. This initiative has as a main goal to create strong research environments at the ITM school, focused on achieving the mission stated in the ITM development plan. A key aspect of that is to stimulate and create new cross-department collaborations. The main goals, and the four areas part of this initiative, were set out in the ITM development plan.

One of the first things I did was to give the initiative a name – we now call it IRIS – the ITM school overarching Research Initiative on Sustainable industry and society.

IRIS represents a unique and probably unprecedented opportunity to proactively establish the ITM school at the forefront in addressing research on sustainable industry and society.

At the same time it’s important to coordinate and interact with other initiatives, for example the new KTH Industrial transformation platform led by Monica Bellgran. How can we leverage and create synergies between these multiple efforts.

Communication and involvement regarding IRIS is extremely important, and shortly we will create a web page that describes the IRIS initiative and how you can engage.

In the short term, do not hesitate to contact me, or one of the area coordinators as follows:

– Area 1: Industrial transformation through digitalization, renewable energy and circular economy; Antonio Maffei, IIP/Elena Fersman, MMK

– Area 2: Integrated mechanics, components and materials design, including additive manufacturing; Greta Lindwall, MSE/Raquel Lizarraga, MSE

– Area 3: Sustainable energy systems, infrastructure and business; Andrew Martin, EGI/Frauke Urban, Indek,

– Area 4: Innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems and infrastructure; Jennie Björk, MMK/Anders Broström, Indek

And I very much encourage you to read the ITM development plan. You find it here:
https://intra.kth.se/en/itm/om-itm-skolan/itm-utvecklingsplan-1.916587

Martin Törngren, acting deputy head of school