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Research studies under unusual circumstances

It’s now been over two months since we all started working mostly from home. Everything is very different now, and I myself would have organized a conference last week. To still “meet” some of those who would have been here from all over the world, we had a Swedish fika via Zoom Friday afternoon. Everyone had promised to make really strong Swedish coffee to drink in front of the computer.

While some like the new working situation, others feel lonely. It is perhaps most difficult for those who are far from their home country, especially many doctoral students. Therefore it is important for us supervisors to keep in close contact with our doctoral students, not only for the research to continue as well as possible, but perhaps primarily for the human contact.

The research studies that can go on more or less as usual are the ones that are mostly performed in front of a computer. It’s more difficult when experiments are required and worst of all if the planned experiments were intended to take place outside Sweden. Hopefully we can return to more normal research studies this fall.

PhD defences and licentiate seminars have since March 25th, when we had the first digital defence with the respondent on link from South Africa, been held on Zoom. We have so far managed about ten PhD defences and one licentiate seminar and have another 15 to look forward to before the summer break begins. It has overall worked out very well and I see ahead that we, post-corona, will make sure to broadcast our events – we can then certainly expect a larger and more international audience. But clearly it will be nice when we can celebrate the new doctors IRL as well.

I will take the opportunity to give an update of the responsible persons for our doctoral programmes, DAs:

  • Luca Urciuoli new DA for Industrial Economics and Management
  • Stefan Hrastinski new DA for Education and Communication Studies
  • Lyuba Belova new DA for Education and Communication Studies

Find all DAs at ITM here

/ Malin Selleby, Director of Third Cycle Education at ITM

An ITM sustainability course for PhD students

There is for obvious reasons a lot of focus on sustainability. Within the Postgraduate education committee (Forskarutbildningsutskottet), consisting of the professors responsible for our six doctoral programmes and myself, an idea has emerged: to develop a course in sustainability for doctoral students. The intention is to do the course as collaborative effort between all our departments. I presented the idea at the Faculty Club and have since then been contacted by teachers interested in such a course. Shortly we’ll form a group to discuss how to proceed. If you are interested – please send me an email!

On the same theme – I hope that all supervisor and PhD students are aware of that they need to comment on the coupling between their own research and the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals in each individual study plan – tab 10 under C2.

As many of you already know, all managers at ITM are now taking part in a course – Leadership development from a gender perspective. Maybe you have been asked to go out on “Culture reconnaissance” (kulturspaning) in your own working environment? To work towards, and focus on gender equality, is also part of developing a sustainable future. So, please – go out and “kulturspana”!

/Malin Selleby, Director of Third Cycle Education at the ITM School

ITM PhD Student Conference

Last Wednesday and Thursday (on April 10-11) we had the annual ITM PhD student conference at Skogshem and Wijk on Lindingö. The theme this year was equality (JML) and sustainability. Alice Marshall gave an introduction to “one KTH” followed by several group exercises/discussions. In one of them we were all supposed to stand in different corners divided in how equal we think our working environment is on a scale between 1 and 10, 10 being perfect in terms of gender equality. The choice of “environment” could be the closest group or even the whole of KTH. It was interesting to see that we were spread out between 8-9 to 2-3.

Sara Linderson shortly presented the new platform, Industrial Transformation, a platform that will coordinate all KTH researchers that in different ways support the transformation to a sustainable CO2-neutral industry. The manager of the platform is Monica Bellgran, KTH Södertälje.

In the evening, beforea very nice dinner, there was a poster session with the goal to bridge the gap between different research fields i.e. find a PhD student colleague in another area where there is some overlap of interest.

In the morning of the second day Ulf Sandström gave a lecture about the Vancouver Rules on Publishing. The rules discuss “Who Is an Author?” and the following four criteria must be fulfilled for any author:

  1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

This is something for the students to discuss in their respective research environments and with their supervisors. It think that it is important not to be too interested in the ranking lists but to make sure that authorship and citations are treated in a correct way.

After a coffee break Hélène Hermansson gave a talk about sustainability and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG:s) and asked the participants to think and discuss how these goals can connect to their own research, both in a positive and negative ways.

The SDG:s can be found here.

Thank you all lecturers, DAs and participants!

ITM PhD student conference

A Wednesday and Thursday in April we had the annual ITM PhD student conference at Skogshem and Wijk on Lindingö. The theme this year was Research skills from different perspectives. Linda Söderlindh gave a very inspiring combined lecture/workshop on Presentation skills (see picture). Greta Quesada Richardson & Margareta Fathli informed us about Open Access publishing. In the evening before a very nice dinner, there was a poster session with the goal to bridge the gap between different research fields i.e. find a PhD student colleague in another area where there is some overlap in interest. This year Linda gave feedback on the posters to as many students as she could.

The second day started with an open-air quiz led by Andrea de Giorgio from the THS PhD Chapter. On the picture below the participants try to form a square of a string that they all hold on to. Not so easy since they have to keep their eyes shut and only orally communicate how the problem should be solved.

After the outdoor activity Mats Magnusson (PA for the Machine Design Doctoral Program) gave a short presentation about the recent survey, the result was quite similar to last year´s. We will now look into the result in more detail. The last lecture was given by Sven Ove Hansson, Ethics in research, a subject that is always highly relevant and interesting.

Thank you all lecturers, PAs and participants!

/ Malin Selleby, FA

ITM PhD student conference

The invitation and agenda for the annual ITM PhD student conference has just been sent out to all PhD students. The topic of this year’s conference is Research skills from different perspectives and includes a lecture/workshop on Presentation skills by Linda Söderlindh. We will also hear about Open Access publishing, get information from THS, and a lecture on Ethics in research – a subject that is always highly relevant. In the evening there is a poster session with the goal to bridge the gap between different research fields i.e. find a PhD student colleague in another area where there is some overlap in interest. The conference takes place April 18-19 at Skogshem and Wijk in Lindingö.

If you are a PhD student and didn’t receive the invitation – please contact Gülten Baysal.

/ Malin Selleby, FA