First of all I would like to thank all of you for all the good work during my years as the Head of ITM – it has been a very interesting period, challenging at times, but overall very rewarding. I was overwhelmed by the celebration on May 14, all the participants, all the presents, all the songs, all the speeches and poems, and last but not least, the toastmaster. And the movie, what a remarkable production: the overall orchestration, the comfortable storyteller, the rejoicing chorus of happy administrators, and all the nice words from colleagues. Thank you all!

On the research side, coordinator pairs have now been appointed to lead the four new School overarching research initiatives for which the School has allocated dedicated research funding. The overall effort will be supervised by our new Deputy Head of School Martin Törngren. The areas and the coordinator teams are:

• Industrial transformation through digitalisation, renewable energy and circular economy.
  Coordinated by Antonio Maffei, IIP and Elena Fersman, MMK.
• Integrated mechanics, components and materials design including additive manufacturing.
  Coordinated by Greta Lindwall, MSE and Raquel Lizarraga, MSE.
• Sustainable energy systems: Technical and business perspectives.
  Coordinated by Andrew Martin, EGI and Frauke Urban, Indek.
• Innovation eco-systems, innovation management and entrepreneurship.
  Coordinated by Jennie Björk, MMK and Anders Broström, Indek.

I am sure that Martin Törngren will come back soon with a blog post with more details and strategies for these efforts.

Finally, I am convinced that the new School head team, Pär and Martin, will continue in a spirit of engagement, collaboration, innovation, equality, inclusion, good working climate, and most importantly environmental sustainability. In case the new management team runs into unforeseen challenges, I will leave some literature on my office desk that might be of help in tricky situations. A few example titles are:

• Crisis management, Public Leadership under Pressure
• Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions
• Organisatorisk resiliens – Vad är det som gör företag och organisationer livskraftiga?

Good luck Pär and Martin! And Pär, the gavel I handed over at the festivities, and which was once handed over to me by Bengt, might come in handy in critical situations.

I wish all the best for ITM in the future!

/Jan Wikander, retiring Head of the ITM School

I hope that you all have had a relaxing summer vacation “despite” the nice weather.

It is clear that weather and climate are very different things but according to Professor Johan Rockström, SU and Stockholm Resilience Centre: “The warmest summer ever can only be explained by understanding that climate changes interact with weather” (my translation from svd.se/larmet-extremsommaren-konsekvens-av-uppvarmningen/om/johan-rockstrom). Further from the same article Professor Rockström responds to a question:

“Do we still have chance to alter the development?

• Yes, we have. We are probably already now foreseeing an unavoidable 1.5 degree increase. But if we bend the global emission curve by 2020 at the latest and reach ZERO emission by 2050 we have a chance keep us below 2 degrees. But the only chance to succeed is that the world becomes fossil free by 2050 and that we manage all our eco-systems on the globe such that the planet maintains its resilience” ……”We have more and more evidence that a fossil free development is not only possible but also economically competitive compared to oil, coal and natural gas, and that it would give large benefits for societies in terms of economy, health, justice, democracy and safety.”

To meet these very clear objectives on emission reduction and finally elimination will require a lot of new solutions, approaches, products, systems, industries and behavioural patterns where industrial engineering is both a necessity and an enabler. Therefore it is my hope that you will now take the opportunity to read, or at least have a glance at the ITM Development plan 2018-2023.

Looking forward to a fruitful fall semester!

Jan Wikander, Head of School