At SCI, we believe that fostering an inclusive and diverse academic environment is essential for innovation and growth. With that in mind, we are excited to announce the launch of new web pages designed to create a more inclusive and informative platform for our community: Inclusion@SCI

Our school has a rich history of attracting a diverse range of international students and faculty, creating a unique blend of cultures and perspectives. In fact, around 50 percent of our academic staff at SCI come from foreign backgrounds, underscoring our commitment to fostering diversity. This trend is also reflected across KTH, where the total number of students with a foreign background has increased from 25-29 percent in the early 2000s to around 35 percent of all newly admitted students over the past five years. In 2023, foreign doctoral students made up 65 percent of the first-year cohort, while in 2022, 46 percent of the newly admitted students consisted of individuals with a foreign background.

This cultural diversity is not only part of our culture but also a key strength in our academic and research excellence. Rather than viewing it as a challenge, we see it as an opportunity to build a more dynamic and creative academic environment where everyone’s contributions are valued.

While we believe the launch of these new web pages is a step in the right direction, we know there is always room for improvement. Your feedback will be invaluable as we continue to enhance our platforms.

Together, we can continue building a more inclusive and vibrant academic community.

As KTH embarks on a period of more collegial management, with increased involvement from school management and faculty boards, I’d like to share my views on what this shift means for us. This new approach emphasizes that while management provides overall direction, we as faculty members will take on significant roles, blending our academic expertise with collaborative decision-making.
Effective management decisions depend on open, two-way communication. Our collegial approach involves more than just receiving information; it requires us to actively seek it out, engage in meaningful discussions, and balance our critical perspectives with trust in those leading the process. 

In this context, the school’s implementation plan for KTH’s action plan for 2024-2026 is now available [Download the document (SWE)]. This document outlines the strategic actions we will undertake and provides a framework for our work. I encourage you to review it thoroughly.
Our upcoming school-faculty breakfast on September 11 will provide an opportunity to discuss these implementation points. I will also give an overview of the ongoing actions at both the central and school levels, which will be subjects of discussion during the fall. I invite you to attend, ask questions, and share your insights. Your participation is crucial for ensuring that we align our efforts and move forward effectively.

Balancing open dialogue with trust in our leadership is not always straightforward, but it is a necessary part of building a responsive and effective academic community. While achieving this balance can be challenging, it is essential for our success and worth striving for.

As we begin the new academic year at KTH, I’m pleased to welcome everyone back. 

After the summer break, it’s refreshing to see our community come together again, ready to engage with the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

This year, we are particularly excited to welcome 513 new undergraduate students who are beginning their studies in our four engineering programs (155 in Engineering Physics, 147 in Open Entrance, 131 in Vehicle Engineering  and 80 in Engineering Mathematics).  Their arrival brings fresh energy to our campus, and we look forward to the contributions they will make as they embark on their academic journey with us.

I would also like to extend a warm welcome to our new staff members and Ph.D. students. We are eager to see the new ideas and insights you will bring to our ongoing research and educational initiatives.

As we move into the 2024-2025 academic year, I encourage all of us to continue fostering an environment of collaboration, innovation, and excellence.

This coming year will also offer us the opportunity to shape further reforms at KTH. The School Faculty Board will broaden its scope to include recruitment processes, and a report on the “career system at KTH” will soon be available for discussion.

At the school level, departments will soon deliver a report on our master’s and Ph.D. programs, which will be discussed to prepare an action plan. Additionally, ongoing discussions on financial models and faculty volume will continue, ensuring that we are well-positioned to meet the needs of our growing academic community.

 Welcome back, and let’s make even this academic year a successful and impactful one!

As we conclude our series on the school’s reform agenda, Read more in KTH’s Business Plan (in Swedish), I want to focus on two critical areas: improving our work and study environments, and promoting sustainable faculty renewal. We have already made significant progress in recruiting top-tier faculty members, thanks to our increasingly high reputation. Now is the time to work towards even more sustainable and stable working conditions and work environment, while continuing our commitment to diversity and gender balance.

Our next steps involve making better use of our available resources, which might include optimizing our faculty size and introducing renewed faculty support mechanisms. This process will be carefully analyzed and planned throughout the fall of 2024 and spring of 2025. We will work closely with the departments and the faculty board to ensure that every decision is informed, collaborative, and in the best interest of our school community.

So, what is our strategy? At its core, our strategy is about providing a stable and reassuring workload and work conditions for our faculty. We believe that by doing so, we enable our faculty to plan their long-term research and teaching development effectively. This stability is essential for fostering an environment where academic excellence can thrive.

Currently, a considerable number of our faculty members hold prestigious grants, such as Wallenberg Fellowships, Scholars and ERC grants, which allow them the freedom to pursue ambitious research projects and develop their academic careers. While this is a fantastic achievement, I believe that stable and supportive work conditions should be the norm for all faculty members, not just those with additional grant funding. Every faculty member recruited through our highly competitive international process expects to work in an environment that supports their long-term goals and aspirations. Having access to prestigious grants should provide additional funding for expanding one’s research group and cover research initiatives.

As we move forward, each department will work on a strategic recruiting plan during the fall to better plan and prioritize resources for the coming years. This strategic approach will enable us to align our recruitment efforts with our long-term goals and ensure that we are utilizing our resources effectively.

Additionally, the school is preparing a comprehensive document that will detail the implementation of our action plan for 2024. This document will also illustrate the use of financial resources throughout the year. We aim to provide full transparency and clarity on how we are investing in our faculty, students, and infrastructure to support our strategic goals. This plan will be made available in August.

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Improved Work Environment and Study Environment – Sustainable Faculty Renewal

The school’s reform agenda for faculty renewal will focus on streamlining employment procedures and recruitment processes to ensure a smoother and more transparent process, while promoting sustainable faculty development through investments in long-term strategies and resources for staff development and career support.

From the spring semester of 2024, each department will have a vice dean responsible for faculty renewal. A new Faculty Renewal Officer (FRO) will begin on July 1, 2024, and will work closely with the four vice deans to develop and implement strategies to improve the work environment and study environment within the school.

The school’s reform agenda will particularly focus on:

• Employment and Recruitment. The school will streamline its employment procedures and recruitment processes to ensure a smoother and more transparent process.
• Sustainable Faculty Development. Investments will be made in long-term strategies and resources for staff development and career support, including strengthening the collegial work culture through skills development and common frameworks to improve the work environment.
• Equality, Diversity, and Equal Opportunities. The school will continue to work towards achieving a balanced faculty by actively promoting diversity and inclusion.

The action plan for KTH for the period 2024-2026 is now published. KTH:s verksamhetsplan 2024–2026 This document includes the action plans for all schools. Our action plan focuses on three main areas: continuous support for research and infrastructure to maintain excellence, improved quality in undergraduate and doctoral education, and enhanced working and study environments for sustainable faculty renewal.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I will share the content and motivations behind our action plan in a series of three posts. In my previous post, I covered research and infrastructure. Today, I will focus on education. In the upcoming post before the summer break, I will reflect on faculty renewal and the work environment.

Beyond the strategic evaluation of the programs, which is an ongoing discussion at the central level, I believe two important questions should be central to our school’s education portfolio: What is the ideal profile of the educator we want for our students? How can we ensure that our resources effectively foster this educational environment?

Our students should have access to the best expertise in their field of study, which means that even for basic courses, the ideal teacher is an active researcher with strong pedagogical skills. To achieve this, we need to organize our resources so that all faculty members are involved in teaching responsibilities, including classroom contact with students, course development, course management, and program management, while also having the resources to actively pursue research. The balance between teaching and research time will, of course, depend heavily on the specific research area.

A relevant question is: do our financial resources allow for a volume of faculty actively involved in teaching while also having access to research time and grants? This has been our aim for many years, but our internal funding is not yet organized and distributed to fully sustain this model.

One quick fix could be to change our strategy to allow for personnel with only teaching duties alongside a “research-oriented tenure track system.” While I do not want to completely exclude this option, I believe there are other approaches we should try first. Instead of optimizing the volume and composition of the faculty to fit our current teaching and management roles, we could explore whether optimization is possible within our programs and courses. We need to create a sustainable work environment for our faculty, as many are currently overburdened with teaching assignments and educational management roles.  Time for pedagogical development and education renewal, the creation of new courses and examination methodologies, should be integrated into a balanced system, rather than being treated as additional tasks.

Our school currently oversees four five-year engineering programs, which are among the top at KTH in terms of student applications and the average grades of admitted students, 11 master’s programs, and seven Ph.D. programs. Our immediate goal, as outlined in the school’s decision (Beslut om direktiv för revidering av masters- och doktorsprogrammen vid SCI), is to investigate the possibility of reducing the number of our master’s and doctoral programs, optimizing our course offerings, and, in the long term, creating processes and resources for better course cooperation with Stockholm University and other nearby universities.

Here is the text regarding education contained in the school’s VP (translated from Swedish):

The school’s reform work will focus on providing the faculty with the conditions necessary to improve the quality of programs and courses. This will be achieved by optimizing the range of master’s and doctoral programs, creating more collaborations and synergies, reshaping teaching and examination methods, and streamlining administrative processes.

The main focus of the school’s reform agenda in undergraduate and doctoral education will be:

• Sustainable staffing with capacity for development. The school will prioritize ensuring a stable workforce that has the opportunity for continuous development and improvement.
• Breadth and depth. We aim to maintain subject breadth and depth while recognizing the need to reduce the number of master’s and doctoral programs as well as advanced-level courses. This will be done without reducing revenue or compromising the quality of education.
• Financial transparency. We will work towards increased clarity and openness regarding the school’s finances. This includes harmonizing compensation models between departments within undergraduate education and introducing a regulated compensation model for doctoral education.