ITM Management blogs

Gender equality a quality issue

Jenni Hollbrink

, 2020-02-12

This is your new, well fairly new, JMLA blogging. What JMLA is? It’s the person responsible for Gender Equality – Diversity – Equal treatment issues at ITM. I took on this role after Sofia Ritzén since I feel very strongly for these issues, especially gender equality.

The JML work at KTH is led by Anna Wahl, who brings together all the schools’ JLMAs. She organizes and develops the work at a KTH level. At the ITM school, we have a newly established JML group, led by me, consisting of all the head of the departments, the administrative head, GA, and JMLA’s partner from HR, a role that Helena Lundqvist very pleasantly has taken on. We will meet regularly to plan activities and lead the work on these issues at ITM.

There will be JML-groups at each department, some are already established, to work with more specific department related issues. These groups will interact across the departments and have contact with JMLA. That was just a brief description how we intend to organize the work.

What else has been done? Everyone with a management position has during the fall taken a course on gender equality led by Näringslivets Ledarskapsakademi. Here we have learnt a lot about equal treatment, we have had interesting discussions and given time to reflect on these issues. Many of you have attended workshops at the departments that was a part of this course. How to proceed this work was discussed at ITM’s annual leadership conference January 16th to 17th at Såstaholm. “What can I, as a manager at ITM, do to improve gender equality at ITM?” It resulted in a long list of useful ideas, at school level as well as at the department level. However (and this is important), this is a joint effort – no one is responsible for improving every single task on the list, but we are all good at something and together we can make a change. Gender equality is a prioritized area at KTH and mainstreaming is our government’s main strategy to reach gender quality. So working with gender equality is actually not a choice, and last but not least: it is a quality issue.

Last, I would like to share some reflections from the ITM’s annual leadership conference where Christer Olsson gave a very inspiring lecture on leadership. He said that gender equality is not a numerology but a feeling. I think it’s important to keep that in mind. The number is indeed very important, but we must not hide behind activities to improve the numbers. We must also improve the working environment so that everyone feels included, especially women. It is important that we can convey the feeling of being excluded to those who have not experienced it. We need to collect and share stories to reflect on. I would also like to point out that equality work is not at all just a benefit for women. Many men are also affected by the non-inclusive structure that many times prevail at KTH.

And further on we will also focus on the M and the L.

Annika

New course plans, new guidelines and a new role

Anna Jerbrant

, 2020-01-28

New year, new semester and time for me as dean of education to write my first blog of the decade. As usual we have several important ongoing educational issues to communicate:

Now we have finished the first semester with the new course plans since the changes of ILOs and examination due to the implementation of goal-oriented grading criteria. I know these changes was challenging for both how we design the exams as well as how we grade them, but it is beneficial for the educational quality, so good work!

At ITM we need to improve the publishing of course analyzes so that they are available for students, teachers and other employees at KTH. According to KTH’s guidelines (Riktlinje om kursvärdering och kursanalys) we are obliged to publish course analyzes after the end of the course and the course syllabus before the course starts. All course analyzes need to be made available at the ”Kursens utveckling och historik” page, which is a sub-page to the course page in the Course and Program Catalog. The easiest way to find this function is through links on the page “Course development and history” or on the course page. You can find more information and instructions on how to publish course analyzes here: Användarmanual – Om kursen. For the time being the number of course analyzes being published from ITM is very low so we really need to improve.

Also, I hope that you all noticed that KTH’s Vice-Presidents are blogging? Leif Kari (Vice-rektor för Utbildning) latest post had the headline Research + Education = True and is worth reading.

Conclusively, the president recently decided, based on the ITM school’s proposal, to appoint me as Deputy Head of the school. I’m very honored by this appointment and I think it will enable me to increase my efforts for an even stronger alignment between our educational development and the school’s overall strategic plans. And I’m looking forward to working even closer with the head of the school, the director of third cycle education, the head of administration and the responsible for faculty development at the ITM school with the help of both of these roles. I hope that being dep head of the school as well as director of first and second cycle education will enable me to intensify my strive for a high educational quality, increased process efficiency, sustainable engineering and added integration of gender, diversity and equality perspectives in our program and courses.

And I am very grateful being part of the development of the first and second cycle education at ITM. It is thrilling, sometimes frustrating, but always fun and very meaningful.

/Anna Jerbrant, Director of First and Second Cycle Education at ITM

Welcome back to a new decade!

Pär Jönsson

, 2020-01-13

Dear colleagues, I hope that all of you had a relaxing and fun time with family and friends during the holidays!

All leaders at ITM will gather at the conference center Såstaholm during January 16 to 17 for our annual leadership conference. This year the first day will focus on gender aspects under the lead of our JMLA Professor Annika Borgenstam. This is a follow-up of the four-day education for our unit leaders that took place during 2019. However, we will now begin making specific plans on how to continue the work on gender and equal treatment issues in respective department. The second day of the conference is organized by our HR manager Anna Blendow. Here, specific examples of situations leaders can bump into will be presented, and we’ll work together on how to strengthen the leadership of the ITM leaders.

I also wish to mention that I met with some of the Health and Safety representatives at ITM on January 9. It was very interesting to discuss both what they have been working with as well as how we can improve the collaboration between them and the management at the departments and at ITM. Currently, ITM lacks representatives from the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Industrial Production. However, I know that the unions at KTH are working on finding representatives here. A person having this appointment will learn a lot from being involved in systematic environmental work, reorganizations, reconstructions, etc. In fact, such an appointment is very good for a person’s curriculum for example if the person has the intention to apply for leadership positions in the future. We need engaged personnel that contributes to collaborations at ITM.

This spring, the research evaluation RAE2020 will be in focus and involve most researchers at ITM. President Sigbritt Karlsson wishes that the departments focus on their future development plans and get a specific feedback on these plans from international and national experts, mostly from academia, but also from industry. Those of us that have participated in RAE2008 and RAE2012 know that it is a lot of work, but also very fun!

Now that we all are back to work we enter a new exciting time – we are entering a new decade. We do not exactly now what will happen but only that all of us will influence what happens here at ITM. The quality of ITM’s work dependent on the engagement from each and every one of us.

/Pär Jönsson, Head of the ITM School

ITM ahead when Sigbritt introduces new guidelines /Försprång för ITM

Christina Carlsson

, 2019-12-04

(Blog in Swedish below)

Sustainability Manager Kristina Von Oelreich’s mail shows up in my mailbox (appropriately enough) during the Global Climate Week. President Sigbritt wants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from KTH’s travels. Considerably. Most of KTH’s activities aim to bring forward students, technology, services and products that lead to a more sustainable society, or as we say: a brighter future, it is not more than fair that we have to walk the talk.

The action plan in the mail consists of 17 points, and, pleasantly surprised, I note that ITM is ahead: we already have electric scooters, SL cards to borrow and new employees are informed about the ambitions at the introduction to the school. In addition, we have already made suggestions that travels by train can be made in first class if you work during your journey, and that working time here can be included in your work hours. Also, that more expensive alternatives are ok if it leads to significantly reduced environmental impact.

At ITM we may need the advantage, because the action plan now puts the schools in the limelight.The schools’ emissions will be measured and each school will have information on how much they need to reduce their emissions from travel to reach KTH’s sustainability goals. And all the results will be reported on the intranet.

As you already know, the president (V-2018-0956) has decided to set up a climate pot with the aim of reducing KTH’s carbon dioxide emissions. The consequence for ITM is that we allocate SEK 372,800 for our 2020 funds to the climate pot.

But it’s also important that it’s made easy to choose sustainable alternatives. Now KTH will facilitate choosing trains, making it easier to have digital meetings, even at dissertations. KTH also wants to encourage traveling to work in a sustainable way. And according to the President’s action plan, anyone who uses an electric car or bicycle to KTH will soon meet a brighter future. Stay tuned.

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Hållbarhetschef Kristina Von Oelreichs mail landar lämpligt nog i min brevlåda under den globala klimatveckan. Rektor vill minska koldioxidutsläppen från KTH:s resor, och det rejält. Med tanke på att hela KTH:s verksamhet handlar om att få fram studenter, teknik, tjänster och produkter som alla ska leder till ett hållbarare samhälle, eller som vi säger: en ljusare framtid, är det inte så märkligt att vi måste börja leva som vi lär.

Jag läser handlingsplanen som är i 17 punkter och inser – glatt överraskad – att ITM redan har elsparkcyklar, lånekort på SL, nyanställda informeras om ambitionerna i introduktionen på skolan. Dessutom har vi redan tagit fram förslag på att tågresor kan göras i första klass om man arbetar på tåget, att arbetstiden här ska räknas som arbetstid och att dyrare alternativ får väljas om det leder till rejält minskad miljöpåverkan.

Vi på ITM kan behöva försprånget, för handlingsplanen riktar nu strålkastarljuset på skolorna.Skolornas utsläpp ska mätas och varje skola ska få beting som beskriver hur mycket de behöver minska sina utsläpp från resor för att nå KTH:s hållbarhetsmål. Och allas resultat ska redovisas på intranätet.

Som ni redan vet har rektor (V-2018-0956) beslutat att inrätta en klimatpott i syfte att minska KTHs koldioxidutsläpp. Konsekvensen för ITM är att vi från våra anslagsmedel avsätter 372 800 kronor för år 2020 till klimatpotten.

Men det måste också vara enkelt att välja hållbara alternativ. Och nu ska det bli lättare att välja tåg, lättare att välja digitala mötesformer, även vid disputationstillfällen. Det handlar också om att resa till jobbet på ett hållbart sätt. Den som tar elbil eller cykel till KTH går enligt rektors handlingsplan snart en ljusare framtid till mötes.

Hälsningar Christina

Salaries, leadership and working environment

Pär Jönsson

, 2019-11-20

Dear colleagues,

The fall semester has gone fast and we are already at the end of November, soon reaching the New Year! During the fall, the ITM management has worked on many issues as you probably have seen in different blogs and newsletters.

As all of you know, we have worked with salary negotiations during the fall. From the managements side we have identified groups or departments where large imbalances exist and tried to take measures to decrease these differences. Here, it is very important that we compare individual salaries with the salaries on a KTH level. We believe that this approach will lead to more equal salaries for all individuals and functions based on the performance in connection to the task of the function and independently of in which unit they are active. Overall, the process has been good. Me and Anna Blendow had the last negotiations with KTH and the unions on Monday and we resolved all remaining questions with respect to the salary suggestions. Thus, all of you could expect to receive your new salary in December.

Currently we are finishing the leadership course with focus on gender aspects under the lead of our JMLA Professor Annika Borgenstam. This four–day education of all unit leaders including home work with their own organizations will by wrapped up at a meeting at the end of November at HPU in Södertälje. Thereafter, we will gather all unit leaders at our annual leadership conference, which will take place on January 16 and 17, 2020. Here we will make plans on how to continue the work on gender and equal treatment issues in our organization.

ITM has continued to work in a systematic manner with work environment and safety issues in our so-called Quality (Q) group. Here, we discuss issues such as chemicals, fire protection, inflammable goods, responsible for the laboratories, etc. As you may know, we meet four times per year. The purpose is to systematically improve our work in all these areas based on best practice. During the last meeting we discussed the necessary investments in courses to educate the personnel in fulfilling their tasks at the departments as well as investments in equipment that are necessary to improve the safety. ITM management team has a special budget to make sure that this is done in a systematic manner, which will benefit us all.

I wish to especially point out the importance of having active Health and Safety representatives, which work together with the ITM management in many issues such as the systematic environmental work, reorganizations, reconstructions, etc. Currently, the ITM school lack representatives in several departments as well as a main representative for ITM. We have had discussions with both union representatives as well as experts from KTH on how to stimulate more individuals to take these responsibilities. We will continue to discuss with the unions until we have some active and competent Health and Safety representatives in place.

/Pär Jönsson, Acting Head of School

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Gender equality a quality issue

New course plans, new guidelines and a new role

Welcome back to a new decade!

ITM ahead when Sigbritt introduces new guidelines /Försprång för ITM

Salaries, leadership and working environment