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!
When I started as a new investigator at the Swedish Higher Education Authority (HSV) in 2001, I received a briefing from the then University Chancellor Sigbrit Franke. One sentence stuck out very clearly. ‘Working to scrutinize higher education will never make you appreciated, but you will always be respected.”
Respect, but not love – that’s what awaited us new civil servants.
Working with operational support at a higher education institution is very similar to my previous work at HSV. Sometimes we are seen as costing too much and sometimes we do too rigorous controls that do not favor either education or research. But we are recognized for our expertise, our willingness to provide a high level of service and our personal care. My approach has always been that we are two sides of the same coin – in symbiosis.
Now the University Administration at KTH is undergoing an extensive change that has not been tried at any other higher education institution. It is of utmost importance that in this process we are responsive, dare to reconsider and motivate our employees to make their voices heard. Because without employees, there is no organization.
I personally believe very much in the new Faculty Boards at KTH´s schools. A collegial forum for and by KTH’s creative and driven teachers and researchers. The University Administration also has an important role to play here. There are great opportunities for genuine co-operation between the faculty and support.
We make each other better by showing sensitivity, curiosity and mutual respect. Think of the coin and never stop giving each other appreciation. If anything, this drives a good working environment and valuable insights that can lead us forward in the scientific puzzle that is academia.
Digitalisation means that an organisation integrates digital technologies into social or organisational processes in order to improve and streamline its operations.
It is not just about automating and improving existing processes and ways of working, but about completely changing or dismantling existing processes and ways of working with the help of technology. To address these challenges, we need to move from the traditional infrastructure perspective on IT investments to see how we can best use the organisation’s data and the skills of its staff.
We are currently undergoing the most extensive development of our systems support since the late 1990s. We are building better support for research data, collaboration tools, planning and budgeting, HR, examinations, study administration and much more. It is my ambition that we establish a close dialogue on the implementation of these projects. We have established a systematic way of working where we do so-called user journeys that are based on describing the work, needs and experiences of different roles such as teachers, researchers and students.
This enables us to identify what actually makes our work more efficient, without simply shifting the workload to someone else. It also enables us to focus our solutions on challenges and capabilities that can provide significant benefits and competitive advantages for KTH’s education and research. All this is based on both the University Administration and academia finding each other and collaborating.
What gives me energy at KTH is that as soon as we know the goals and direction, and tackle conditions and obstacles together, I know that we can implement changes both quickly and qualitatively, like no other organisation I know of.
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