Changes to the KTH School organisation

, 2017-02-24

The KTH Schools are rather different in size and also in balance between education and research. It might also be that some schools could benefit from more integration between subject areas. With this as a background, our rector Sigbritt Karlsson, took yesterday some important decisions about the future organisation of KTH. The dean of the BIO School will coordinate an investigation towards integration of the three schools BIO, CHE and STH. Similarly, the dean of the ICT School will coordinate an investigation towards integration of the three schools ICT, CSC and EES. The dean of the ECE School will investigate/propose how the ECE School should be organized in the future.

The three Schools ITM, SCI and ABE will not be directly affected, a fact which should be interpreted such that these schools are of reasonable size and with a good balance between education and research. The time plan is such that a new KTH organization should be effective from January 1, 2018, which also means that the period of mandate for the current school deans, vice deans and strategic councils are extended to December 31, 2017. In line with making the KTH schools more similar in size and structure, and with focusing on quality, the rector has also decided to investigate and propose new role descriptions for the posts as GA, FA and PA. For more information about the organisation changes please refer to:

Jan Wikander, Dean of School

Almost at the finish line!

Annika Lilja

, 2015-12-11

The last part of the year places big pressure on the Dean’s Office (DO) Administration often deals with aiming for the finish – the cycle must be completed before the end of the year.

In the best case scenario, the salary reviews will be complete. The financial books will close and the 2016 budget will be entered into the system. Activity reports will be finalised. All grading reports for the year will be submitted, partly so as students will have their grades registered during the correct period, but also because registration is a financial transaction.

Furthermore, it is the case that all of us want to “tidy up” a little bit before the new year. This is usually evident from the marked increase in expenses, remunerations a travel invoices throughout December.

In the spring, KTH received its environmental certification. Revisions will be conducted on an ongoing basis to make sure that we continue with our improvement work and follow the established management plans for meeting the environmental goals in place. An internal audit was carried out in November, in which ITM performed well – we only had a few small deviations that will now be rectified.

The time frame for this year’s salary reviews has been tight. Many of us have worked to pull off the “impossible” feat of having the new salaries paid out in December. It is fun being able to say that good cooperation and communication within the school and between the parties made sure that ITM was finished on time. In the best case scenario – if all of KTH has done well – payments will be made on 23 December.

We have recently seen the arrival of a new colleague, Anton Lagerbäck. Anton will mainly be working with academic appointments. There has been a huge need for support in this area. The process and working methods at KTH have been altered, which has meant a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing for completion. It is now the ambition that, with the help of Anton, we can get the ball rolling without disruptions and with shortened processing times. So a very warm welcome to Anton!

Throughout the year we have worked on creating routines for how to manage the School’s purchases of between SEK 100,000 and 500,000. The routines must follow those set by the state but also the KTH guidelines at the same time as we need smooth processing for everyone involved. But most of all we should be able to be happy with the product/service we buy, despite the bureaucracy that it entails.

Now we are heading towards the end of the year and with this, the financial books for 2015 will close. This time of year is the most intensive for our financial team. Whilst the rest of us go on Christmas vacation, the pressure is on in the “workshop”, with all systems go for finalising the year. Nevertheless, over recent years, this work has gone ahead without a hitch. Currently, our accounts maintain a high standard, which means that comprehensive work must be done, but it is managed without any surprises.

For many years there have been requests and demands from the organisation and the School’s financial team to create a project leader report – and now we’re there! Over the first quarter, each person responsible for a project will receive follow up reports each month, directly to their email. To be able to carry out this follow up, a budget is of course needed for the respective project. All new projects have one of these, as do the majority of older projects. It will be interesting to receive feedback on these reports from those of you who are project leaders.

Work to create the School’s Annual Report for 2015 is in full swing. It will be the seventh year in a row in which the School issues a report. This years’ report focuses upon “Impact –research’s cooperation/influence in society”.

During 2015, DO’s focus areas have been:

*                           Environmental certification
*                           Working environment measures
*                           Management course (returns on 16th March)
*                           Fine-tuned accounting with monthly follow ups
*                           Project leader reports (financial)
*                           Purchasing and procurement routines
*                           Information online, e.g., “information from management”
*                           Health and wellbeing initiatives
*                           Stress project (seminar for all the heads of school and lecture for all members of staff)

A big thank you to all of my colleagues for this past year! I am proud to be the Head of Administration at ITM and I am grateful to have you all as my colleagues. You always do your best, no matter what!

From everyone at DO, merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Christina

New vice FA

Annika Lilja

, 2015-11-19

Being FA (director of 3rd cycle studies) and professor means that my schedule is usually quite dense. Last week me and my PhD-student Sedi, organized a small international workshop dedicated to the development of a new generation of thermodynamic data for the elements – clearly an activity that had very little to do with being FA. Fortunately, since mid-September I have a vice FA, Rahmatollah Khodabandeh. Rahmat is an associate professor at the Department of Energy Technology and we now share the duties as FA. We have divided the work such that Rahmat takes care of the students in the doctoral programs Energy & Environmental systems (EGI), Production Engineering (IIP), Machine Design (MMK) and I take care of Industrial Economics & Management (Indek) and Engineering Materials Science (MSE). Rahmat will update the ITM home page concerning doctoral studies and I take care of the rest of the work e.g. the annual PhD-student conference.

The PhD-student conference is an annual lunch to lunch conference for the PhD students at ITM with priority given to new students. Every year there is a specific theme, 2015 it was Gender Equality and Diversity. Prof. Anna Wahl was invited to talk about gender and diversity in organizations and Pelle Axnäs’ theater group gave a much appreciated interactive performance on the same theme. It was entertaining but had serious undertones and both the talk and the performance initiated very interesting discussions. The students that participated seemed to appreciate the conference and its theme and it was suggested that the theme should be fixed to gender equality and diversity since it is an important issue that concerns us all. Does this seem like a good idea?

/ Malin (FA)

Recruitment of new faculty

Annika Lilja

, 2015-11-16

We have a challenging time ahead us to recruit faculty to meet the future demands in teaching, research and innovation. How do we compete with other universities to attract the “brains”, “rocket scientists”, “innovators” and “pedagocical wizards”? There are of course many parameters that we need to address to accomplish this. Personally, I think we have to start from offering an attractive working environment that allows for a diversity of competences and people. If people “love” what they do they will make a better job. This, in turn will create an impact within KTH as well as outside KTH.

It is also necessary to make sure that the leadership supports the faculty so that they can fulfil their duties at KTH such as teaching, research, administration, etc. In addition, the faculty needs to have the possibilities to maintain and develop their national and international collaborations. These external contacts are of the outmost importance, for example when we try to attract new talented faculty.

When it comes to recruit new personnel it is very important that ITM supports the departments when they wish to hire new faculty. Therefore, I am very happy to let you know that we have recruited a new administrator besides Gülten Baysal at the Deans Office working with faculty recruitments, namely Anton Lagerbäck. His work will be devoted to all kinds of faculty recruitments. Thus, I am convinced that our service to our customers, the departments, will improve in the future.

I must also say that KTH has introduced new routines on how recruitments should be handled. We are trying to learn these routines to make sure that we can cut down the handling times for our recruitments. Finally, I should mention something about our recruitments. Roughly two years ago we identified that 17 professors would be retired within five years. Therefore, all departments initiated a work to identify new areas where new assistant professors need to be hired. Currently, this is ongoing at five out of six departments.

At the sixth department in Södertälje something bigger is going on! We are preparing for a dramatic expansion to extend TMT Södertälje from being not only an excellent teaching unit to also becoming a research unit. This development is led by the department head Kristina Palm. Together with me and colleagues from Industrial Production and INDEK she is preparing for a hiring of seven! New faculty the coming six months. Be sure to follow the exciting development that is taking place in Södertälje in the future.

/Pär, vice Dean

Hello there ITM!

Annika Lilja

, 2015-11-05

There’s a first time for everything it seems, even at my age…. Together with the administrative management, I’m really looking forward to being involved in the ITM blog from now on.

We’ve recently been audited by the Swedish National Audit Office as well as the KTH internal audit unit on how we manage contracts related to commissions at the ITM school. The question itself was connected to the delegation order: Who signs different types of contract?

I’m sure all of you who have to arrange your new contract/agreement through the KTH organisation from time to time are fully aware – and frustrated – that this is far from easy, both for you and for those of us who work with administration. We are now reviewing all the processes involved in contract management at KTH, since it is vital that we make this area easier for us all!

The internal audit unit has given us prior information that the audit will take place in the spring at ITM and will relate to the taxation of benefits. That means that we at the Deans Office (DO) will go through all the procedures and check that we don’t miss anything that we are obliged to do as a public authority. With a bit of luck, you and we already manage these procedures so well that the audit will hardly be noticed!

We are now heading towards the end of the year and the annual accounts are approaching. We have worked continuously over the last two years on monitoring the departments, which has helped to maintain the high quality of ITM’s accounting. Apart from a few minor deviations, the budget presented at the beginning of 2015 has been kept. All the departments are in the margin between budget and planned outcome. Work has started on the budgets for 2016, now that we are coming to the end of 2015. The budget will be completed and posted in December. That budget will then be the basis for follow-up during the whole of 2016.

Another priority at DO are work environment issues. We have an ongoing project in 2015 and 2016 to develop the administrative unit managers’ leadership. We applied for joint financing for this project and it has been granted. I have worked with each unit manager to set out their own goals for leadership skills. The managers then have a personal coach who leads them toward the goals. In the administration management unit, we feel glad and confident about this project and we naturally hope that this initiative will have a good effect on our shared work environment.

Finally, I would just like to encourage you all to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions for improvement. Our goal is to ensure that we have an efficient and sustainable administration that will provide good service.

I look forward to hearing from you!

/Christina

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Changes to the KTH School organisation

Almost at the finish line!

New vice FA

Recruitment of new faculty

Hello there ITM!