Newsmail #9, 2021-11-19
Dear all,
With 23 working days left until most of Stockholm closes for the holiday season, I feel that many people are more stressed than ever. There are many things to finish before the holidays, courses to wrap up, grading, final reporting in research projects, research applications etc. In the MMK building, we are also struggling with the re-organizing of our office spaces and the release of parts of our building back to KTH at the end of this year.
PhD students in the internal combustion engines lab are working around the clock to finish experiments before the closing of the lab. With the high cost of operations, and very strict requirements from KTH for keeping our finances under control, the decision to close the lab from 2022 is steadfast.
On the other hand, I see now that very interesting plans on how we will use our third floor (in the A-building) for HK rooms etc are emerging. These plans open up new possibilities for cross-collaboration between HK teams and courses. They open up new possibilities for new ideas and new ways of working together between programs and tracks. I also see very interesting ideas of how the prototyping center can develop further now with access to new facilities on the 2nd floor and how we start to get a holistic view of what we can do when we merge our workshops, electronics labs, design workshops etc etc.
I also see very interesting discussions and ideas in our various working groups for our future development. The working group assigned the task to define our future MSc program portfolio are discussing new ways of collaborating between the MSc programs, new ideas of how we can introduce new topics and develop according to the grand challenges. I see discussions among the professors on how we can utilize the results from the RAE, how we can move into new areas. I see very interesting ideas from our unit managers on how we can reorganize our office spaces (based on the discussions we had with the interior architects) that would make MMK into a fantastic working environment in the future.
I just wanted to share these thoughts.
Best,
Martin