ITM Management blogs

Communications, Salary Review, and the Review of Support Function at KTH

Christina Carlsson

, 2018-09-25

Communications

ITM is strengthening administrative support for communication. Currently, the school has two employees working in communications, communications manager Jenni Hollbrink, and Peter Waites, who is focused on web and digital communication. A third recruitment is under way, which is linked to research communication and the Södertälje initiative.

If you have ideas or are in need for support in these areas, do not hesitate to contact our communications staff. Above all, make sure you are up to date on the school’s internal website, as our ambition is to develop internal– and management communication within the school. The idea is to offer all school employees and visitors relevant and engaging content, which will hopefully increase traffic on our internal website. This requires commitment, good ideas, and persistent work.

A first step in this new initiative is to present let our Head of School and a few key members of management give short introductions into our activities, vision and strategies. The films in question were produced last spring in order to present the ITM-school to the principal’s school visit in May 2018. The first film – in which Jan Wikander, Head of School, presents ITM’s vision and strategy – has been published on our internal website as well as on our new channel at KTH Play. New short videos in which the school’s head’s of department each present their departments will be released once per week. The films’ audio is in Swedish, but English subtitles have been provided so that all employees at the school can appreciate these presentations.

Salary Review

The school is in the middle of the yearly salary review. Salary talks are being held throughout September. Our ambition is that information regarding new pay levels will be available in the first two weeks of November. Payment of the new salaries is planned for the December salary payout. At KTH, new salary criteria have been in effect since June 1, 2018. The statement is available in Swedish and in English.

Review of Support Function at KTH

In the autumn of 2017, the President decided that a review of KTH’s management– and operational support was needed, one that was based on the needs of the university’s core activities. These activities were defined as research and education conducted at KTH. The starting point for the review has been “One KTH.” KTH should provide and offer equal and unified support to everyone, regardless of where in the organisation you are operating. This is a prerequisite in order for students and employees to experience KTH as “One KTH.”

A decision on this issue is expected this week, and will be published on the KTH internal website under Organisation and Regulation.

/ Christina Carlsson, Head of Administration

SoTL conference ITM Digilab and Changed rules for written examination

Anna Jerbrant

, 2018-09-07

The autum term of 2018 has started and our P1 courses is up and running, as well as new Ladok. Another administrative news is that KTH this week released a new version of the rules for written examinations (KTHs anvisningar för tentamensregler), that mainly includes these changes (compared to the rules announces a year ago):

Lärare ska rondera i tentasal för att svara på frågor
En giltig ID-handling är ett krav enl det beslut KTH tidigare fattat.
De som inte anmält sig ska överlämna utkrivet kursregistreringsintyg (inte bara visa i t ex mobil).
Insläpp ska ske senast 10 min innan tentan börjar, men att det kan ske tidigare

Good for us all to know 🙂

Another area for discussion right now is pedagogical development by the help of digitalization. So, therefore I also want to inform you that there is resources availabe at Media Production where we all can receive coachning when it comes to developing Flipped Classroom in our courses. If you’re interested in develop your course, or learn more about this, please contact Jonas Thorén (Media Designer & Media Coach)

Finally, I also want to emphasize that KTH arranges the third SoTL (scholarship of Teaching and Learning) conference for the faculty. The conference will take place at KTH, Campus Valhallavägen in Stockholm, and will start in the afternoon March 28 and end in the afternoon on March 29, 2019. Call for abstracts begins on September 10^th.

Have a nice weekend!

/ Anna Jerbrant, GA

Evaluation of research quality

Pär Jönsson

, 2018-08-29

In the academic world all researchers work hard to discover new findings, which will lead to great improvements in the scientific world. The leadership at universities monitors the success of groups/department with respect to the research quality. At KTH, this has been done at research evaluations (RAE) in 2008 and 2012. It is not exactly clear when the next evaluation will be done, but a good guess is that it will take place in 2020.

Currently, I am in Helsinki to take part in a one week research evaluation of the materials science and metallurgy research at Aalto University, RAI2018. As a matter of fact I am also joined by our Head of School Jan Wikander, who has been invited to evaluate the mechanical engineering research at Aalto University. Overall, 45 scientist from all around the globe have been invited to this exercise. It is a very interesting experience that provides me and Jan with important input which we can share with the ITM researchers, so that they can be better prepared for a future evaluation at KTH.

One important thing with the evaluation is that each department should be compared to peers at other benchmark universities. Thus, there is not a focus on comparing department’s performances on a university level. This is very good since there exist different ways of publishing research results, having an impact on society, etc. So the focus should be on comparing how each department performs in comparison to similar departments elsewhere.

Aalto University is a fairly new university which in 2010 merged arts, business and engineering into one new school. What we have seen so far they have already been able to create new exciting collaborations. Maybe one interesting example is the production of textiles from forest-based raw material rest products that has been developed by engineers. Then, the art scientists have used these materials to produce fashion clothes that already have been shown on so called “cat walks”. Maybe later the business school will create business models on how these fashion clothes, produced based on recycled product, can be branded as a sustainable fashion!?

Overall, it seems like Aalto University has created an atmosphere which stimulates collaboration between different research groups and scientist. During the interviews it is clear that both PhD students and faculty thinks that laboratories have opened up so that basically everyone has access to all experimental equipment. Maybe something for us to think about…..

Pär Jönsson, Vice Head of School

Welcome back!

Annika Lilja

, 2018-08-13

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

Öppettider under sommaren

Christina Carlsson

, 2018-06-25

Samtliga funktioner inom stödverksamheten är bemannade under hela sommaren. Expedition Sing Sing har dock stängt under veckorna 26-31. Expedition Nord har öppet under hela sommaren, under veckorna 27-31 är expeditionen bemannad mellan 08.30-13.00.

Personalen går att nå via service@itm.kth.se under hela sommaren mellan 08.30-16.30.

Vi inom stödverksamheten hoppas att vi alla får en riktigt skön och varm sommar!

/Christina Carlsson, administrativ chef

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