From 1^st of January ITM includes a seventh department (Institutionen för lärande) and our Department of Sustainable Production (HPU) has now moved to the brand new campus in Södertälje. Without these promising changes and developments we would have been the smallest of the five new Schools. Now we are next to smallest. Although growth is not a target in itself, ITM will continue to grow over the coming years. There are mainly three facts/trends behind giving this growth forecast:

• The new HPU department is now “only” in its initial state. The department has a rather aggressive and challenging growth plan including the new education programs and the build-up of research groups around the three new professorships. One could say that we now have concluded phase one, and that the growth phase now starts.
• With rather in-depth arguments we have negotiated with KTH management in order to reach a higher ratio between state funding for research and state funding for education. In this respect we are in the same league as the ABE School but very far from the other three schools. (see my last blog). These negotiations have now resulted in two things: i) Additional temporary (3-year) funding to reach a better balance and ii) partly led to the fact that KTH will investigate and redesign the principles for how the state funding is distributed between the schools.
• Thanks to a very active faculty, we see during the last four years a stable increase in external funding achieved in hard competition, both nationally and internationally.

We have now closed the books for 2017 and we conclude that out economy is in balance. Total income is 591 MSEK and total cost is 591 MSEK. Education is around -1.5 MSEK and research is around +1,5 MSEK. Although the Scholl overall is in balance some departments are in a little less fortunate situation and the School will be working hard to improve this during 2018.

Finally, please note the Science week between January 31 and February 4 in connection with the inauguration of our new campus in Södertälje. The whole week is full if exciting activities and seminars. Here are just a few examples of the more than 25 topics covered:

• Open house in the new premises – come and have look!
• Cyberphysical systems in logistics and production!
• Smart factories in Korea and Sweden!
• KTH-Lean: Leadership, holistic workflows and systematic improvements!
• On the way to heavy vehicle platooning!
• VR-glasses and GO-PRO in pharmaceutical production!
• Last but not least Kristina Palm and the undersigned will explain how we, together with colleagues, made it all happen!

You find the full program here.

I wish you all a rewarding 2018,

Jan Wikander, Head of School