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There is a GA (Directors of First and Second Cycle Education) meeting tomorrow (April 6) and this is probably the right time to tell you a bit about the constellation. At regular intervals (8-10 times a year) all the GA directors (10) at KTH meet with Vice Dean Per Berglund, Carina Kjörling and student union representatives to discuss a range of issues. It is an important information exchange channel for schools and one of the few real opportunities to forge a consensus on many of our education issues.
The discussions are often very productive and it has developed from being purely a KTH information channel for its schools to a working organisation. The GA directors are all extremely well-informed about their respective school’s programmes, courses, possibilities and problems. Tomorrow’s topics discussion include the cross-programme project courses and LEQ (course evaluations). Another key issue is the “special entry requirements for courses” which could be a means to manage the students’ progression through our programmes. A good new model is for two GA directors to meet with Per and Carina before each GA meeting to discuss the issues on the agenda. This will help bring everybody up to date. Maybe it’s time for the group to shoulder more responsibility, for the quality improvement work at KTH, for instance.
As members of the GA group we also have the chance to reflect over matters and decisions raised at the Education Committee (UU) meeting which, among other things, is currently tackling the introduction/wind-up of programmes at KTH. As you may already know, the School of Industrial Engineering and Management (ITM) has sent an application to launch a new university engineering programme in Södertälje with the working title ”Industriell hållbarhet och driftsäkerhet” (“Industrial sustainability and operating reliability”). We will have to wait and see the end result. Finding a suitable name for new programmes is not easy. It needs to be both “selling” and appropriate.
Another important issue is the work on the syllabuses for our programmes. Anyway, we have already made a start on it and this is where we can implement longer-term improvements and fine-tune their learning outcomes and structures.
As Hans Havtun is the new programme director of the Energy and Sustainable Environment programme I would like to take the opportunity to thank Maria Malmström who has done a tremendous job for many years and welcome Hans on-board. I know that he is extremely enthusiastic about teaching issues and we need teachers who are, trust me. Naturally we hope that Maria continues to show dedication as a teacher on the programme.
Best regards
Per Lundqvist, GA
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Open Days at KTH Royal Institute of Technology
This is an opportunity for prospective students to get answers to all their questions about KTH and to meet students, lecturers and study advisers for undergraduate programmes. KTH will be providing drop-in study advice, walking tours of the campus and seminars. There will be active participation from study advisers at ITM (School of Industrial Engineering and Management).
KTH Campus, 3rd April 12.00pm-4.00pm and 4th April 2.00pm-6.00pm, at 3-5 Lindstedtsvägen Street and 4 Drottning Kristinas Väg Street. Open Day at KTH Södertälje is on 6th April.
ITM Office of Student Affairs
During the spring term, the Office of Student Affairs has been understaffed for a variety of reasons including leave and sickness absence. We have now arranged for temporary support to help stabilise the situation while we wait for our colleagues to return full-time.
I’d like to thank all my colleagues who have had to carry a heavy burden during the first few months of the year and whose input has been over and above what would normally have been expected.
Working in an open environment where we see students on a daily basis means that we see some students who are in a very distressed state. As we sometimes find ourselves in threatening situations, we have started reviewing security in the Office. In really volatile situations we have occasionally introduced security guards.
We must of course continue to have an open door, since the whole point of our existence is to provide services and guidance to students and lecturers.
However, we will be reviewing our working environment and ensuring that we make it as safe as we possibly can.
Regards,
Christina, Head of Administration
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Two weeks ago ITM handed in our application for a new BSc in Engineering program to the Faculty council. This new program within the area of industrial maintenance and reliability is the second new program to be established as a result of our extensive developments in Södertälje. The final naming of the program is not decided yet but is investigated by an external consultancy bureau through an extensive survey to high-school students in Sweden. The idea is of course to find a name which attracts youngsters – both women and men – and which describes the program content in a fair and true way.
Another exciting development is the establishment of a new type applied research centre in cooperation with Fraunhofer in Germany and RISE – Research Institutes of Sweden. This new centre will initially be hosted by the Department of Production Engineering but is supposed to create links also to other departments of ITM. The short name is PMH Application Lab and the full name is Powertrain Manufacturing for Heavy Vehicles Application Lab. The basic idea is to engage with Fraunhofer and RISE to establish an applied research centre similar to how Fraunhofer operates in Germany with close links and extensive mobility between the institute and the hosting university. We also believe that this centre will strengthen our position as a European research partner. The particular topic of powertrain manufacturing is of course related to the fact that the Mälardalen region represents about 10% of the total world-wide production of heavy vehicle powertrains.
As announced in my last blog, ITM held last week the annual leadership conference with about 50 participants. Among a number of interesting topics the whole leadership agreed on the ITM basic values. These values are given below (in Swedish) and will soon be translated also to English and published on our intranet.
ITM:s värdegrund
ITM har en värdegrund baserad på
- demokrati, människors lika värde, mänskliga fri- och rättigheter samt en fri och öppen diskussion. Jämställdhet mellan kvinnor och män samt avståndstagande från alla former av diskriminering är både en kvalitetsfråga och en arbetsmiljöfråga, och därmed en självklar del av ITM:s värdegrund.
- likabehandling när det gäller rättigheter, villkor, möjligheter och skyldigheter oavsett etnisk tillhörighet, nationalitet, kön, könsidentitet eller könsuttryck, religion eller annan trosuppfattning, funktionsnedsättning, social bakgrund, sexuell läggning eller ålder.
En viktig utgångspunkt för ITM:s fortsatta utveckling är
- övertygelsen att mångfald, jämställdhet och likabehandling är viktigt för att utveckla ITM till en attraktiv och framgångsrik arbetsplats där alla ges förutsättningar att utvecklas och bidra till goda resultat.
- övertygelsen att utbildning och forskning kan och ska bidra till bättre levnadsbetingelser och till en fredlig samhällsutveckling som uppfyller kraven om ekologisk, social och ekonomisk hållbarhet. Som ingående i ett tekniskt universitet har ITM ett särskilt ansvar för att utveckla kunskap som behövs för att främja en sådan hållbar utveckling.
/Jan Wikander, Dean of School
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As you know from my previous blogs, the recruitment of new faculty members is a time consuming task that needs good planning. Here, it is clear that most of us think that everybody knows a lot more about what we do, than is true in the reality. Thus, it is extremely important that we prepare applications for the recruitment of new faculty that clearly describes their place in the organization as well as their tasks in a pedagogic manner. We are not fully there yet but we have taken some major steps towards that direction. For example, we have defined some key numbers of estimating how many faculty members we can “afford to have” in different departments.
I also want to give you an update on the recruitments of new faculty members. On March 8 the ITM school presented 8 new faculty positions at the KTH faculty council. As a comparison, the remaining schools at KTH presented three positions all together. So it is clear that we have a larger demand for finding new faculty compared to the rest of KTH. The following new positions were presented for the Faculty Council:
- Lecturer in leadership and business development (TMT)
- Assistant Professor in Industrial Dynamics with focus on innovation and business models for a circular economy (INDEK)
- Industrial Marketing with Specialization in E-Commerce (INDEK)
- Associate Professor in Crystallization Processes (MSE)
- Assistant Professor in Powder Metallurgy (MSE)
- Assistant Professor in Materials Design with Focus on Additive Manufacturing (MSE)
- Assistant Professor in Mechatronics with a focus on robotic design (MMK)
- Assistant Professor in Renewable Energy (EGI)
Next the employment profiles of these positions will be scrutinized carefully, before they will be advertised. Here, we hope for a large number of applications from talented candidates.
This week an important survey was sent out to all employees at ITM. In Swedish it is called “medarbetarundersökning (MUS)”, which it is a survey regarding how you as an employee can express your individual opinions regarding your situation at work. I would strongly encourage you all to fill out this survey form, since this is an excellent way for you to give a feedback to the management. We look very seriously on these results. Specifically, we try to analyze good and bad parts. The bad parts we will initiate task groups to start improvements. As you know, as a result of previous surveys we have initiated many groups focusing on improving the working environment in the school with respect to chemicals, fire prevention etc. I should also mention that we are preparing a survey for scholarship students to be distributed separately.
So before you take your break to enjoy the sunny spring weather this weekend, please spend 10-20 minutes to fill out the employee survey. It is very important for us to know YOUR opinion !!!!!!
/Pär Jönsson, Vice Dean
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Some weeks are livelier and more enjoyable than others – like last week! Running from one meeting to the other like a squirrel is not always that fun but last week was actually very rewarding in that respect. Sometimes it just feels like a giant jig-saw puzzle that needs to be put together but without the “nice picture” meaning that there is very little guidance to figure out how to put the pieces together, if you get the metaphor.
Last week started with a good and productive steering group meeting for Energy and Environmental engineering program (W) with ABE, CHE and EES schools held together by Sissi Rizko and after lunch, Monday, I participated in a wonderfully creative workshop in one of our energy courses, MJ2410 Energy Management, where 130 students worked intensively on a plan for a Net-zero Energy Campus for KTH. It was an amazing activity and a topic that obviously really engaged the students. In four hours they came up with so many good ideas that we really could try to implement as a part of our Sustainability work. Great fun and very inspiring. Thanks to Hatef and Nelson for involving me!
Tuesday held the “first shovelling of sand event” for the new campus in Södertälje. It was a great event with around 300 people present and a great interest for the project with good and inspiring speeches from our folks; Prefect Kristina Palm and pro-rector Eva Malmström but also from the city from Scania and Astra Zeneca and from Mikael Damberg representing the Swedish Government as Minister for Enterprise. The same day we also had a small a “celebration dinner” in the evening for the team that has created the project KTH Live-in-lab so far.
Wednesday we again had the GA-meeting (about 8-10 per year) with all the other schools discussing several important issues, for instance the future structure of KTH education, who can supervise a M.Sc. thesis and so on. These meeting have really improved under the leadership of Per Berglund and Carina Kjörling. Last Thursday I also had the opportunity to lecture for KTH Executive School on the topic of Energy Systems and big data in the course Digital Transformation. Yes – you could imagine the preparations for that…
In between everything I had several meetings with our M.Sc students for their final projects and our Ph.D students. Friday was for some “unplanned” reason a day where all meetings were done by aid of Skype and Adobe Connect. It proved that we are able to use modern communication tools as well. We have students group on the American west coast, in Australia, in Singapore, in Hong Kong and in southern Europe along with the on-campus students all working together in groups. It´s a small world…
Yes, I was pretty tired last Friday evening…
Per Lundqvist, GA
