Author
Dear colleagues, I hope that all of you had a relaxing and fun time with family and friends during the holidays!
All leaders at ITM will gather at the conference center Såstaholm during January 16 to 17 for our annual leadership conference. This year the first day will focus on gender aspects under the lead of our JMLA Professor Annika Borgenstam. This is a follow-up of the four-day education for our unit leaders that took place during 2019. However, we will now begin making specific plans on how to continue the work on gender and equal treatment issues in respective department. The second day of the conference is organized by our HR manager Anna Blendow. Here, specific examples of situations leaders can bump into will be presented, and we’ll work together on how to strengthen the leadership of the ITM leaders.
I also wish to mention that I met with some of the Health and Safety representatives at ITM on January 9. It was very interesting to discuss both what they have been working with as well as how we can improve the collaboration between them and the management at the departments and at ITM. Currently, ITM lacks representatives from the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Industrial Production. However, I know that the unions at KTH are working on finding representatives here. A person having this appointment will learn a lot from being involved in systematic environmental work, reorganizations, reconstructions, etc. In fact, such an appointment is very good for a person’s curriculum for example if the person has the intention to apply for leadership positions in the future. We need engaged personnel that contributes to collaborations at ITM.
This spring, the research evaluation RAE2020 will be in focus and involve most researchers at ITM. President Sigbritt Karlsson wishes that the departments focus on their future development plans and get a specific feedback on these plans from international and national experts, mostly from academia, but also from industry. Those of us that have participated in RAE2008 and RAE2012 know that it is a lot of work, but also very fun!
Now that we all are back to work we enter a new exciting time – we are entering a new decade. We do not exactly now what will happen but only that all of us will influence what happens here at ITM. The quality of ITM’s work dependent on the engagement from each and every one of us.
/Pär Jönsson, Head of the ITM School
Author
(Blog in Swedish below)
Sustainability Manager Kristina Von Oelreich’s mail shows up in my mailbox (appropriately enough) during the Global Climate Week. President Sigbritt wants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from KTH’s travels. Considerably. Most of KTH’s activities aim to bring forward students, technology, services and products that lead to a more sustainable society, or as we say: a brighter future, it is not more than fair that we have to walk the talk.
The action plan in the mail consists of 17 points, and, pleasantly surprised, I note that ITM is ahead: we already have electric scooters, SL cards to borrow and new employees are informed about the ambitions at the introduction to the school. In addition, we have already made suggestions that travels by train can be made in first class if you work during your journey, and that working time here can be included in your work hours. Also, that more expensive alternatives are ok if it leads to significantly reduced environmental impact.
At ITM we may need the advantage, because the action plan now puts the schools in the limelight.The schools’ emissions will be measured and each school will have information on how much they need to reduce their emissions from travel to reach KTH’s sustainability goals. And all the results will be reported on the intranet.
As you already know, the president (V-2018-0956) has decided to set up a climate pot with the aim of reducing KTH’s carbon dioxide emissions. The consequence for ITM is that we allocate SEK 372,800 for our 2020 funds to the climate pot.
But it’s also important that it’s made easy to choose sustainable alternatives. Now KTH will facilitate choosing trains, making it easier to have digital meetings, even at dissertations. KTH also wants to encourage traveling to work in a sustainable way. And according to the President’s action plan, anyone who uses an electric car or bicycle to KTH will soon meet a brighter future. Stay tuned.
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Hållbarhetschef Kristina Von Oelreichs mail landar lämpligt nog i min brevlåda under den globala klimatveckan. Rektor vill minska koldioxidutsläppen från KTH:s resor, och det rejält. Med tanke på att hela KTH:s verksamhet handlar om att få fram studenter, teknik, tjänster och produkter som alla ska leder till ett hållbarare samhälle, eller som vi säger: en ljusare framtid, är det inte så märkligt att vi måste börja leva som vi lär.
Jag läser handlingsplanen som är i 17 punkter och inser – glatt överraskad – att ITM redan har elsparkcyklar, lånekort på SL, nyanställda informeras om ambitionerna i introduktionen på skolan. Dessutom har vi redan tagit fram förslag på att tågresor kan göras i första klass om man arbetar på tåget, att arbetstiden här ska räknas som arbetstid och att dyrare alternativ får väljas om det leder till rejält minskad miljöpåverkan.
Vi på ITM kan behöva försprånget, för handlingsplanen riktar nu strålkastarljuset på skolorna.Skolornas utsläpp ska mätas och varje skola ska få beting som beskriver hur mycket de behöver minska sina utsläpp från resor för att nå KTH:s hållbarhetsmål. Och allas resultat ska redovisas på intranätet.
Som ni redan vet har rektor (V-2018-0956) beslutat att inrätta en klimatpott i syfte att minska KTHs koldioxidutsläpp. Konsekvensen för ITM är att vi från våra anslagsmedel avsätter 372 800 kronor för år 2020 till klimatpotten.
Men det måste också vara enkelt att välja hållbara alternativ. Och nu ska det bli lättare att välja tåg, lättare att välja digitala mötesformer, även vid disputationstillfällen. Det handlar också om att resa till jobbet på ett hållbart sätt. Den som tar elbil eller cykel till KTH går enligt rektors handlingsplan snart en ljusare framtid till mötes.
Hälsningar Christina
Author
Dear colleagues,
The fall semester has gone fast and we are already at the end of November, soon reaching the New Year! During the fall, the ITM management has worked on many issues as you probably have seen in different blogs and newsletters.
As all of you know, we have worked with salary negotiations during the fall. From the managements side we have identified groups or departments where large imbalances exist and tried to take measures to decrease these differences. Here, it is very important that we compare individual salaries with the salaries on a KTH level. We believe that this approach will lead to more equal salaries for all individuals and functions based on the performance in connection to the task of the function and independently of in which unit they are active. Overall, the process has been good. Me and Anna Blendow had the last negotiations with KTH and the unions on Monday and we resolved all remaining questions with respect to the salary suggestions. Thus, all of you could expect to receive your new salary in December.
Currently we are finishing the leadership course with focus on gender aspects under the lead of our JMLA Professor Annika Borgenstam. This four–day education of all unit leaders including home work with their own organizations will by wrapped up at a meeting at the end of November at HPU in Södertälje. Thereafter, we will gather all unit leaders at our annual leadership conference, which will take place on January 16 and 17, 2020. Here we will make plans on how to continue the work on gender and equal treatment issues in our organization.
ITM has continued to work in a systematic manner with work environment and safety issues in our so-called Quality (Q) group. Here, we discuss issues such as chemicals, fire protection, inflammable goods, responsible for the laboratories, etc. As you may know, we meet four times per year. The purpose is to systematically improve our work in all these areas based on best practice. During the last meeting we discussed the necessary investments in courses to educate the personnel in fulfilling their tasks at the departments as well as investments in equipment that are necessary to improve the safety. ITM management team has a special budget to make sure that this is done in a systematic manner, which will benefit us all.
I wish to especially point out the importance of having active Health and Safety representatives, which work together with the ITM management in many issues such as the systematic environmental work, reorganizations, reconstructions, etc. Currently, the ITM school lack representatives in several departments as well as a main representative for ITM. We have had discussions with both union representatives as well as experts from KTH on how to stimulate more individuals to take these responsibilities. We will continue to discuss with the unions until we have some active and competent Health and Safety representatives in place.
/Pär Jönsson, Acting Head of School
Author
Now the first period of this academic year has passed and I hope you all consider the courses and examinations within your responsibility as successful.
When it comes to educational issues – both at an ITM School level as well as a KTH level – several important things are going on:
A new decision (v-2019-0109) clearly states that examinators and course responsible teachers are not allowed to cancel or change dates and times for the written examinations that are in the fixed schedule. So, it’s very important that we all are active in the assessment period of the schedule.
Read more about important dates for the scheduling process here
Also, the work has now begun to ensure that the software needed for the spring semester of 2020 is available in the computer rooms. During summer and winter breaks, maintenance work is carried out in the computer rooms (for instance upgrades or replacing of computers). This has affected the range of installed software in the computer rooms, so we cannot expect that a software available previous semester is still installed.
Read more about ordering of software on this IT support page
On November 9th KTH Giants 2019 is having an event on Campus Valhallavägen with several interesting and motivating speakers and several possibilities to learn more about our educations.
Read more about Giants here
KTH has decided to offer a Degree Program in Engineering Mathematics (CTMAT) starting in autumn 2020, and the ITM program “Civilingenjör & lärare” has a new program director since October 15th: Annica Hofberg.
Finally, I hope you all have read the recent post in Sigbritt Karlssons blog where she shares ideas on new ways of learning and studying in Europe.
Read President Sigbritt Karlsson’s blog here
/ Anna Jerbrant, Director of First and Second Cycle Education at ITM
Author
There is for obvious reasons a lot of focus on sustainability. Within the Postgraduate education committee (Forskarutbildningsutskottet), consisting of the professors responsible for our six doctoral programmes and myself, an idea has emerged: to develop a course in sustainability for doctoral students. The intention is to do the course as collaborative effort between all our departments. I presented the idea at the Faculty Club and have since then been contacted by teachers interested in such a course. Shortly we’ll form a group to discuss how to proceed. If you are interested – please send me an email!
On the same theme – I hope that all supervisor and PhD students are aware of that they need to comment on the coupling between their own research and the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals in each individual study plan – tab 10 under C2.
As many of you already know, all managers at ITM are now taking part in a course – Leadership development from a gender perspective. Maybe you have been asked to go out on “Culture reconnaissance” (kulturspaning) in your own working environment? To work towards, and focus on gender equality, is also part of developing a sustainable future. So, please – go out and “kulturspana”!
/Malin Selleby, Director of Third Cycle Education at the ITM School
Now that we all are back to work we enter a new exciting time – we are entering a new decade. We do not exactly now what will happen but only that all of us will influence what happens here at ITM. The quality of ITM’s work dependent on the engagement from each and every one of us.