Head of School striving for development and collaboration
Hello there Pär Jönsson, Head of the School of Industrial Engineering and Management since the start of the year. Tell us, how do you view the leadership and collaboration within the school?
"The school’s leaders need to be more secure in their role and be strengthened and supported in making decisions, coaching their staff and conducting collaborative dialogues. My ambition is to create a mutual understanding of how we act in our respective roles. In 2019, a leadership course was conducted focusing on gender issues. The course is now being followed up during the winter. In March, the department heads will present how far they have come with their work on gender equality, diversity and equal opportunities within their departments.
"We also need to work continuously and systematically with the psychosocial work environment issues. For the physical work environment, there are established processes and routines already in place. This is a focus area, which we will begin working on in 2020 together with the union organisations.
Challenges and opportunities with Campus Södertälje?
"The Södertälje project has taken longer to build up than predicted. It is a challenge to recruit students there. I would like to emphasise that KTH is the project owner here, which from an organisational viewpoint is placed at the ITM School.At the same time, I see a great potential at Campus Södertälje, above all in relation to the established collaboration that exists today between KTH, the municipality, Scania and AstraZeneca.
What is the role of the Department of Learning in Engineering Sciences within KTH?
"The department offers its services to all schools (e.g. within language, pedagogy, digital learning, etc.). We also see clear links between the department and Campus Södertälje, for example, in terms of lifelong learning. The department currently conducts education, research and collaboration. Of course, they need to have the same conditions as all other departments within KTH, with clear objectives, goals and delivery requirements.
And the quality work at the school?
"We are all responsible for quality management, and at ITM we want to increase that commitment among all the school staff. In this respect, communication and collaboration become important pieces of the puzzle for disseminating good examples and detecting and correcting deficiencies, which contributes to systematic and collegial learning.
Words: Marianne Norén