Merry, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
/ Christina Carlsson & Deans office
In week five next year KTH inaugurates together with Södertälje Science Park a brand new campus for our Department of Sustainable Production. 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
Every year during the fall there is a process of “negotiations” between the KTH schools and the KTH president. This year it has been a bit different from previous years, the reason being that we have a new president and after 1st of January we have a new organisation with five instead of ten schools. Based on this ITM has analysed how we perform and how we are funded in comparison to the other four schools. This has led to the following conclusion which we have submitted together with a comprehensive analysis and more concrete areas where we need more resources:
“The ITM School has the lowest base funding (fofu-medel) of all schools. ITM performs better than the KTH average in terms of PhD graduation. ITM performs as good as the KTH average in terms of attracting external funding (where we now see an increasing trend and expect to perform better than the KTH average from this year on). ITM succeeds in this despite the fact that we deliver a huge education volume in relation to our limited base funding. The conclusion is that our base funding (fofu-medel) must increase substantially through a specific president’s strategy in order for the current School management to take continued responsibility for the Schools positive development on par with the other schools”.
On Wednesday, December 13, we have the next negotiation meeting with our president. If the meeting is successful we will be close to a finalized activity contract, if not the discussions will continue….
Finally, I wish all personnel, guests and scholarship holders a very nice and rewarding Christmas holiday!
Jan Wikander, Dean of School
We are in the middle of the second period of this academic year, the days are filled with teaching and research activities at the same time as the daylight is becoming shorter and shorter. But luckily the advent season is coming up, which means that we are allowed to start hanging up advent candelabra and some Christmas decorations. This is something at least I enjoy very much.
When it comes to educational issues I attended a very interesting seminar yesterday arranged by vice dean Per Berglund. The focus for the seminar was on the work that is being done to develop KTH’s quality assurance system according to national and international requirements. We all got a brief overview of national requirements and European guidelines for quality assurance of higher education as well as an overview of how the Sci-school works to develop KTH’s systematic quality work in a collegial and efficient manner. This was very interesting and gave good insights for the work that we all have to do next year. We will discuss this from a ITM-school perspective on the faculty club on December 18th, so I hope you all can participate then.
Finally as part of the public debate that has been ongoing, I hope you all read the blog of our President Sigbritt Karlsson where she shares these words with us, and I will let them be the final saying in this weeks blogg:
At KTH a good work environment is something we need to protect on a daily basis. This particularly concerns harassment, for which there is zero tolerance. In its Diversity Policy, KTH has stated that all forms of discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment and victimisation are subject to zero tolerance. This is what is applicable, and all deviations from this must be dealt with. In this way, we can maintain an attractive environment for both work and study that encourages creativity in education, research and collaboration.
/ Anna Jerbrant, GA
On November 17 KTH held its annual celebration with respect to the conferment of new doctors and inauguration of new professors. All PhD students that had defended their thesis during the period of October 1, 2016 to September 29, 2017 were invited to the celebration. In total, 198! persons defended their theses at KTH during that time period, whereof 42 were from the ITM school. This is an impressive number of PhD students. As many of you, KTH is among the top three universities in Western Europe when it comes to the number of students receiving a PhD. Thus, KTH and ITM truly have an impact on the higher education in our nearest region. For those of you that currently are studying for a PhD you should look forward to this celebration. When I have talk to doctors throughout the years they often mention this celebration. I have heard words such as “I was happy when I defended my thesis but it did not sink in to me that I actually had become a doctor until I stepped up to the stage to receive a diploma. I was nervous to enter in front of the audience at that moment, but standing there to receive applauses from the audience made me feel warm and proud inside”. I think that most former PhD students finishing a PhD can recognize themselves in those words.
History was also made at KTH and ITM during this ceremony. KTH inaugurated the first to professors at the Department of Sustainable Production Development. Monica Bellgran has obtained the position The Leif Östling professorship in Industrial Production Management and Magnus
Wiktorsson has become a professor in Production Logistics. We welcome both of these new professors to ITM and we are looking forward to follow your future progress.
The formal part of the celebration started at the concert hall in Stockholm. Thereafter, buses took the participants to the city hall. Here, more than 900 people enjoyed a fantastic dinner in the blue hall. Afterwards, a live band played in the golden hall. It was both traditional waltz as well as more modern dance music. Overall, I am convinced that the new doctors and professors will remember this evening for the rest of their lives!
Those of you that are interested in reading more about this and former year’s celebrations can read more here.
As I write this blog the snow is falling outside the window. This is a sign that the fall has left and that we have entered the last season of the year, namely the winter. During this period people like us living close to the “north pole” enters a calmer stage of our lives. It feels so nice to light candles at home and snuggle up in your favorite sofa to read a book. Of course, those of you with young children will be chased outside to enjoy winter activities. Myself, I enjoy to light a fire in my stove and then sit and try to solve a cross word puzzle.
/Pär Jönsson, Vice Dean
Harassment
With the “metoo movement”, there should no longer be any doubts that sexual harassment occurs in all types of organisation and that there is an organisational issue.
At KTH, a case management system is currently under development. KTH intends to implement a major knowledge enhancement initiative on sexual harassment as part of its gender integration effort.
Education
The examination period is coming to an end for period 1. Exams have been held, exam papers scanned, and grade registration in LADOK is underway. We are now preparing for the re-examination period in December and exam period 2 at the beginning of January.
Financial news
The school is bringing in an additional resource in connection with EU accounting. It is mainly within the EU that external funds are increasing, and this requires specific skills and experience to maintain quality in the accounting area.
Plan Edit
The school has acquired a planning tool for all the organisation’s resources, teachers, classes, subjects, groups, etc. This will give us an opportunity to obtain an overview of planned and used resources. The purpose is mainly to be able to use this in a work environment perspective. What does our employees’ work situation really look like?
Plan Edit allows real-time monitoring of scheduled resources, which gives a comprehensive overview of budgeted and used resources. The school has decided to test-run Plan Edit for 2018/19. The school will then conduct a follow-up/analysis.
Sincerely,
Christina Carlsson, Head of Administration