Tenure Track - rationale
KTH's work with the recruitment and development of its faculty is based upon certain standpoints and preconditions.
The first of these is that KTH will strive to recruit younger persons with a significant potential for development and then offer them good prospects for long-term career development. This also includes offering competitive terms of employment.
Secondly, the work with faculty development is based upon excellent research and teaching being increasingly conducted in larger environments. For example, this may involve research in a large, co-ordinated project, or an environment having a size enabling a vigorous schedule of seminars. At KTH, this finds expression, among other things, via the research being organised into strategic areas taking a common responsibility for a broad area of research and development, while at the same time it gives a creative environment and needed space in which to develop for the individual researchers. Such a group needs persons with different competencies and interests.
Thirdly, it is of crucial significance to the university that its research areas are constantly being changed and renewed. One precondition for attaining this is for faculty members to be given an independent position and their own responsibilities quite early. This is necessary in order for them to develop into excellent researchers who have the ability to create their own research challenges and start new directions in research.
It is also of the utmost importance that KTH's teaching be of good quality and that the content of the instruction be continually changed and developed, both to reflect the relevant research as well as the new requirements that the labour market imposes on the students who graduate from KTH. It thus is an important fundamental principle that all faculty who are following the academic career path at KTH be engaged in both research as well as teaching. In order to raise the quality of the teaching, KTH invests in giving training in teaching and learning in higher education to its entire faculty.
In addition to persons in the academic career paths of assistant professors (tenure), associate professors and professors, KTH also needs highly qualified specialists of different types. Such may involve project research, development and the management of advanced equipment, enterprises of a developmental nature or advanced administrative research support. This category is a very important and valuable complement to long-term motivated researchers.
Similarly, KTH also needs employees who are primarily focused on teaching. This could involve occupational continuing or supplement professional development, contract education or educational development and program development.
In order to renew the faculty and retain excellent teachers and researchers, KTH is developing a clear leadership on all levels. Active and far-sighted equal opportunity work is included in this work. The purpose of the equal opportunity work is to create equal career conditions for everyone on the faculty, which also contributes to KTH becoming a more attractive place for both men and women to study and work. Deficiencies in equal opportunity involve KTH not making use of the full potential of its faculty.
