Coming back from vacation in august is always a challenge! Prioritisation between different things is difficult. There is simply not enough time available! It is also clear, based on the urgency of matters, that we are a very international university.  We have a lot of our Swedish students coming home after studies abroad with new course portfolios to handle. Some of them look quite different from the agreed upon ones a year or more ago. The most common reason for that is the fact that many other universities seems to be able to stop their courses from being run with very short notice. Our students simply have to find something else of interest. We also have a lot of foreign students coming in for master program studies at ITM (at least 300) but also to a lesser extent for dual degree or so called dual master. Many of us are also quite confused with some of these concepts. On top of that we have paying and non-paying students from Sweden and EU.

A few years ago, if you recall, KTH had a general problem with “The Balance”.  We had too many incoming students and too few outgoing and this led to an imbalance. Several activates were initiated to mitigate this. And we have been very successful! We have now since 4-years an international “track” in the M-program, we have rearranged courses and structures in most programs to simplify for our own students to “go out”. We have also sponsored our own MFS (Minor Field Studies) for KEX and MEX students (even if this actually not helps the balance since they are registered at KTH). We have also initiated collaboration with Universities through new master programs mostly in the KIC Inno Energy. Also international collaborative PhD program are running at Energy Technology and Indek.

Do we have a problem, one might ask? On one hand we are doing relatively well at KTH but we also sense a lack of strategic direction at school level. In order to set things straight, on Tuesday this last week the ITM board gathered for a 4 hour creative meeting in Sing-Sing to discuss the strategy for the future. Where are we going from here? Should we go for even more international collaborations through master programs, should we focus on recruiting more paying students or should we further intensify our efforts to send out our own students, or all of it, at the same time?

A few things were clear: International collaboration requires resources. Several good proposals were made and among these are to better utilize already existing research collaborations. Also to investigate the possibilities to use existing networks such as Cluster in Europe. The KTH prioritized regions were also discussed. Another issue is underutilization of funding opportunities from EU Erasmus + for instance.

Stay tuned for some new working groups during the fall!

/ Per Lundqvist, GA

Sitting at Arlanda Gate 6 a Sunday morning at 8 is a rather typical example of our working life at the ITM-school.  I am on my way for two days in Wien to evaluate the energy research at AIT, Austrian Institute of Technology.  Waiting at the gate watching people come and go is a good opportunity to reflect on international collaboration in general. Based on the recent number of applications received we are likely to enrol a record number of both paying and non-paying master students this fall. It looks very good. On the other hand, it is more work for us. Then, a colleague at the ABE School Olga pops up with Victor from our Int. office. This even more proves my point that this is rather normal for a KTH employee…

This week the important GA-meeting is handled for us by vice-GA Catharina Erlich and I am back on Wednesday morning. We are all eagerly awaiting the so-called “Axelsson Report” proposing new guidelines for KTH´s educational structure. One particularly important issue I see right now is however NOT included. It seems to me that we now have the possibility to build a smart new ICT infrastructure to manage our education including course management, electronic anonymized exams, reporting credits, following up programs and so on. You all know by now that we are supposed to switch from Bilda to Canvas (very probably) and from Ladok 2 to Ladok 3 and so on. What other changes are there in the future? Is it possible to integrate the systems? Who takes the lead? We cannot let those systems evolve one more time on their own without the obvious integration!

Finally some happy notes! We have had two anniversaries recently. I-section and program (I) turned 25 y old and our newest section, Energy and environmental engineering (W), turned 5.  Congratulations!!! Who is next? Our program chair for the Material Design program Anders Eliasson claimed that a 200 y anniversary (!) was coming up soon in 2019.  And we have the Campus Valhallavägen 100 y coming up in 2017.

/Per Lundqvist, GA

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

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

What will the future structure of education at KTH look like? Will we keep the “Civilingenjörsexamen” forever? Do we need as many programs as today? Can we afford the education we give today even in the future? If not, is the problem that many of our courses are run with too few students? According to recent statistics 579 out of 1739 courses at KTH are run with less than 16 students? Do we recognize this at ITM? If not, why? Are there any problems at all, really?

These are some of the questions and issues that were discussed today when GA (myself) and vice-GA Catharina Erlich met with KTH´s special investigator Anders Axelsson and Björn Marklund together with representatives from Science, ABE and ECE schools. Axelsson, the former president of LTH, will present the results from his investigation, and associated recommendations, during the spring. One particularly interesting point of discussion was the motivation for our programs. We tried to convey the message that our programs at ITM are needed and that they all fulfil their purpose for both students and industry.

A lot of discussions will obviously follow and it will be interesting to see the final conclusions. It is a true challenge for anyone to find the “ideal concept” for KTH and the different schools. One thing is clear, gone are the days when it was enough to attract the students to KTH in the first place with a fancy program name. We also need to “keep” them and transform them into successful world class students that manage to get their degree on time and an interesting job afterwards. It is my firm belief that the difference in profile and character we have developed and refined for our programs at ITM still is a good strategy for this to happen. Another key success factor for the future is to work hard to maintain the strong and positive involvement from our academic staff in different positions as “program managers”, teachers and study counselors working together and continuing being proud of what we do in the educational field.

Another interesting topic discussed today was the employability of our students and the recent prognosis that there will be a lack of högskoleingenjörsstudenter (“Bachelor of Engineering”) in Stockholm in the near future. It seems to me that we have a lot of god things for this in the pipeline at the ITM School and maybe there is time to mention some of the activities planned for 2016 in the next blog post this week.

Per Lundqvist, GA