Newsmail #43, 2022-12-07

Dear all,

Today we received two unannounced guests at MMK; the new president of KTH showed up in the morning, guided by our own Sofia Ritzén. I ran into them mostly by accident and was happy to see the interest from the new president of our activities. He has said that he intends to make a formal visit to all departments during 2023, so we will plan for that, so that everyone gets the chance to meet and greet in person. On Wednesday, Dec 21, the ITM mgmt. group have a three hour session with the rector to discuss the school needs, plans and challenges. I’ll come back to that later on, after the meeting.

During lunch, the head of the school showed up, with a very nice holiday gift for the entire department. It’s something that needs to be experienced on site, personally. I will put the gift in the lunch area on the fourth floor at the end of this week. Knowing my colleagues, it might be consumed fast, so keep your eyes open.

Talking about gifts, Erika has arranged holiday gifts for all employees, to be handed over by your unit manager.

Yesterday, we discussed in the ITM mgmt. group how to handle the financial inflation and the increased costs. It seems worse than we anticipated earlier, the rental costs for example are now expected to increase up to 50% over 6 years, instead of the usual increase of 2% per year (which would be more like 13% over 6 years). The only feasible solution is to reduce the rental space over KTH, but with the current rental contracts, it’s difficult to release spaces within a few years, so the change will take time. The ITM strategy is that we try to embrace flexibility; if there is a suggestion to reduce costs overall that requires us to do something, move, change, then we embrace that. If the overall solution requires that other groups move into our building for example, then we make space and welcome them.

Yesterday, the annual bake-off competition was held at ITRL. I contributed with something I made last weekend, and, to my surprise I was awarded a second place in the entire competition. It’s probably the highest ranking I have received in an academic environment, which make me very proud. I will try to give the non-ITRL people a taste sample later.

Best,

Martin