I looked through the cases that have come in since I started at KTH in April 2023. A lot of expected events such as theft, burglary and vandalism. This is not unusual, we are a large authority in several geographical locations.
Threats, demonstrations, fire and hatred on various platforms against both employees and students are also matters that I have handled during the year.
I have worked with security for many years and know that it is a world that exists in most places where many people interact together. There are also great values, both economically and academically, and many lives are at stake. It sometimes brings out the less favourable sides of people. My job, together with my co-workers, is to ensure that we have a safer, more secure and more conscious place, that KTH will be strong in that. There are many things we can do to raise the level of what I call safety culture. The first is to talk about the fact that it exists and is needed for us to have a good study environment and work environment. In addition to talking about safety culture, we need a few more people to solve the events that occur at KTH. Therefore, since January this year, there is now a department where most people have been recruited and are in place. This means that we can be present in more places and work more broadly to achieve a safer, more secure and more aware KTH.
It really feels like we’re in a new phase in the University Administration. After a few years of “waiting for the change”, things are starting to fall into place and it is becoming clearer how we should work together in order to provide good support for the activities of our institutions.
Issues are being sorted into different areas of responsibility and hopefully we will soon see more effective co-operation in more areas.
For example, we are starting exciting work with the schools’ new faculty boards where the first steps are to build the management offices and where we support and learn from each other before planning the first meetings. It is clear that we must continue to develop working methods for the preparation of issues and decisions so that our decision-makers at both school and departmental level feel confident about the basis on which important decisions are to be made.
In a time of change and when it can feel like everything is being questioned, it is good to have some perspective and thought about our mission. It is important for us to feel that we are contributing and that we are focusing on the right things so that our teachers and researchers get the support they need in their everyday lives. I attended the farewell of a much appreciated colleague who has worked for a long time in the administration.
In a speech, her contribution was summarized as the art of doing just enough. It is potentially easy to do too little and it is always easy to do too much. Just the right amount is the challenge and this is where we should aim for an efficient and smooth administration.
There was an email. “Hi RSO! We have a cooperation agreement with a German research centre for a joint professorship where KTH will fund two doctoral students. The centre has fulfilled all of its commitments, but who will provide the funding at KTH?”
The answer to the question was simple in this case. The agreement was signed and registered and the terms and conditions clearly stated what was involved. This is just one example of why it is important to have co-operation agreements in place.
Research projects can last several years, and consortia consist of international partners from both academia and industry. Often there has been no problem in previous projects, they see each other as colleagues, and the projects seem simple and straightforward.
But it is when the unexpected happens that the agreement is most needed.
When the result you helped create becomes the next big innovation and you, perhaps unintentionally, gave it away. The Austrian partner in your EU project breaches the contract and KTH has to pay damages that are far higher than the grant component.
Preparing for the unexpected is what KTH’s business lawyers help with. As a government agency, KTH has different legal conditions than private actors and must make its risk assessment based on applicable law. But at the same time, we must ensure that KTH’s researchers can continue to research the results that are generated, and ensure that individual researchers who want to commercialise their results can do so.
When it feels like negotiations are taking a long time, remember that it can pay off several years ahead!
Plans are all well and good, but nothing beats getting started on the real work. Every time, it’s just as nice to get started on implementation. Now that policy decisions have been taken and budgets set, we are preparing to co-organise the HR, finance and communication functions for 2024.
I hope that the development of the entire support in these areas will engage both employees in the UA and recipients of the support.
I am looking forward to many meetings in all possible contexts where we can discuss how we can best develop our operations, and not just the areas that are now being co-organised. Change certainly involves uncertainty and anxiety, but it is also a chance to let ideas emerge, open up for development and suggestions and set new goals for our operations and work environment. It may be a tired expression, but I like to remind you that we are each other’s work environment. How the people and the parts work together is crucial for the results and ability, and we must have a working and study environment that is attractive, inclusive and equal, to quote KTH’s vision and overall goals.
Since I now got the last word for the year on the UA blog, I take the opportunity to thank you for this eventful year and at the same time look forward and thank you in advance for the activity that starts immediately in the new year. The Christmas and New Year holidays are approaching, and I’m looking forward to an active and energetic spring term, but first a good holiday. I can only hope that you get some much-needed rest.
Best wishes for the Christmas and New Year holidays
Helene Rune, Head of Administration at SCI. (Photo: Marta Marko Tisch)
Before the RE-exam period in December, the usual administrative preparation work is underway with a BIG DIFFERENCE … for the first time we are trying to coordinate the management in a uniform way for the WHOLE of KTH, within the framework of TENTAPILOTEN!
It may seem trivial, but before all exam periods, there is a large administrative machinery that starts and operationally prepares all hall writings.
The main purpose is to test a digital booking system that means that we avoid double and overbooking of guards and can optimize the use of the halls by placing exams with fewer students in the same hall. At the same time, legal certainty and equal treatment for both examinees and invigilators is strengthened when we use standardized procedures, documentation and create the possibility of redundancy within the “machinery”.
December’s RE-exam period is the smallest exam period in terms of volume during the academic year. Approximately 200 different hall exams are to be conducted, which means that about 6,000 students are placed in a hall, 200 guards are booked, exam papers are printed and packed together with attendance lists, rules of order, formula collections, etc. and delivered to the writing rooms.
The work is normally done by a large number of employees at each school, but for December’s RE exam period, this is handled by a smaller number of employees from all schools for the entire KTH.
To our great joy, we get to use the “old Presidents’s house” at Valhallavägen 79. The premises are fantastic and the people who work there never want to go home.
If the pilot study is successful, a KTH-wide examination centre is at the top of the wish list, where we can provide the faculty with ongoing service and support to manage different forms of examination and thus practically enable continuous examination.
…and perhaps save on premises costs through more efficient use!
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