Teamwork is the keyword
It’s a pleasure to hand over the “School of Industrial Engineering at
glance” or “ITM at a glance” covering some key statistics and happenings
of the years 2017-2018, while highlighting a few important activities
relating to the KTH president’s keywords for the future: Sustainability,
Equality, Internationalisation and Digitalisation.
Each year, about 10% of all new MSc engineers in Sweden graduate from the itm School. These graduates constitute our most direct and powerful impact on society. No other Swedish educational establishment has such a large opportunity for impact through industrial engineering. With this comes a large responsibility to ensure that our graduates possess the right knowledge, skills and capabilities for a sustainable future. This is why we in our development plan for the period 2018 to 2023 state that our main mission is to lead the transition towards a zero-emission, adaptable industry for a sustainable society. This is characterized by new product and service designs, new materials, new business models, sustainable energy systems, recycling, reuse and remanufacture.
How to do this? How to lead by example? Well, we believe (and we have said it before) that the major challenges ahead can only be approached and solved through cross-border collaborations and by fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. For the coming four-year period the itm School will launch four large department-overarching research initiatives defined to support the transition towards a zero-emission, adaptable industry for a sustainable society. This means focused efforts on industrial transformation through digitalisation, renewable energy and circular economy. It also means stronger integration between materials design, components design and additive manufacturing.
The efforts also cover research on sustainable energy systems, with both technical and business perspectives. Last but not least we increase our research on innovation eco-systems, innovation management and entrepreneurship. Teamwork across departmental boarders is the keyword for these efforts to be successful!
The societal impact through itm large number of graduates leaves us with a huge responsibility to provide excellent engineering programs supported by up-to-date pedagogics. From January 2018, the Department of Learning belongs to the itm School. This gives us a strong base in research and development on the pedagogical side which corresponds well with our commitment to educational quality and content.
/Jan Wikander Head of the ITM School