Moving from words to deeds
The research evaluation (RAE) is over, summarized and even printed. Now the work of sharpening research and organizations begins. We asked ITM's six heads of departments how they deal with the RAE results.
Cali Nuur, Indek
“One conclusion in the RAE report was about us working more with the industry since our education is relevant. For that we have created an Advisory Board at Indek. We have formed a working group that will develop an action plan ready in May. The working group is led by Mats Engwall and consists of heads of division Frauke Urban and Anders Broström, and their work has been established with colleagues at Indek. Based on that, we are developing a strategic action plan that we will use to develop Indek.”
Martin Edin Grimheden, MMK
“Our expert group made four fairly clear suggestions. The first was to take advantage of successes from our competence centers and develop the business towards systems technology, towards a more holistic approach to product development with sustainability, socio-technical systems, and design. We are now working with three or four profiles on new faculty positions. Proposal two is about infrastructure, going from "monumental infrastructure" to smaller experiments. We have already closed down our internal combustion engine laboratory and look forward to school-level discussions about the common use of other labs. Proposal three was to improve our international visibility, for example, we are encouraged to participate in more international conferences. Here we want to establish an inter-institutional role for a person who will lead us in this by taking advantage of our competence centers, industrial networks, investments in lifelong learning, and trying to create an impact based on this. The fourth and most difficult proposal was to change the department's name to better align with our activities, but we will save that challenge until last.”
Magnus Wiktorsson, HPU+IIP
“At HPU and IIP, we are in the middle of joint work on future research and postgraduate education. With the merger between the two departments, we have workshops and discussions about how to create stronger production research together. The RAE report provides excellent input on many issues. It emphasized the need to look up and think new in these times when the industry has to change in many ways.”
Arnold Pears, LES
“Our department has had a number of workshops with employees with research interests and ambitions. The idea is to create a critical mass within the research clusters and increase transparency in funding and our strategic direction. The result will be a consolidation of research and better collegial support in developing research and research applications.”
Björn Laumert, EGI
“EGI has worked with internal workshops within the three units to learn from the RAE's feedback and has since had a workshop at EGI level. We have identified a number of strengths and areas for improvement that we will bring to ITM's leadership seminar in June.
Most important to improve are the research areas that we have identified within EGI. These need to have enough critical mass to have vitality over time. We need to work more with some who have too little activity. But we have also identified areas of strength at EGI where the entire department should be integrated. This is about, for example, digitization and AI in energy technology; energy models and connections from component model to system model; material technology for energy, to name a few.”
Annika Borgenstam, MSE
“At MSE, we have started from our own RAE report and the experts' report and developed an action plan. We have prioritized what we consider to be most important, there is a lot we can do but we can not do everything. It is now discussed and established internally so that we get a common plan of what we are working towards.”