Newsmail #92, 2024-04-26

Dear all,

This week we have hosted an external evaluation of our environment. KTH is certified according to the ISO 14001-standard, which means that we have an environmental management system to ensure that we meet legal targets and contribute to a sustainable environment. In reality, an external reviewer visits a randomly selected department and/or research group annually to check that the specific group fulfils all requirements. The unit of System and Component Design was selected for this year’s review. The evaluator together with KTH’s sustainability manager held talks with the unit manager and our lab managers, with a lot of tricky questions, and then scrutinized the laboratory facilities to check that all chemicals were properly tagged, that all rules were followed etc. I can honestly say that the evaluators were impressed by the responses and the status of the lab, we came out with the highest possible results, thanks to the leadership of the unit and the efforts by the lab engineer and all unit members to clean up the spaces and organize all equipment.

This week we have also submitted a number of plans to KTH; a faculty development plan, arguing for the numbers of positions we intend to open up during the next five years, from junior positions to full professorships. We have also submitted a plan on how to improve our financial situation, which states that we need to be extremely restrictive in short-term hiring. These plans contradict each other slightly, it’s difficult to keep short-term planning and long-term planning together. Still, we argue that the long-term vision is as bright as usual and that we should be able to open up both assistant professorships and other positions during this next period, even though it’s a bit rough at the moment.

Next week I plan to visit the Technical University in Valencia Monday to Tuesday. It seems that the weather there is better than here.

Best,

Martin