Monthly Archives: June 2014

Thank you for this spring’s efforts

Exams are over, public defenses completed, and a long summer vacation is awaiting most of us. On behalf of the leader group, I would like to thank the institute’s employees for their continuous efforts to teach, publish and develop the academic disciplines they represent. For all of this to run smoothly, we must have daily routines that functioning. Both the administration and the study section are continuously working to improve these routines to make life easier for you. Klaus and Lars in the K2-reception are acknowledged for always helping out with all kinds of small and big jobs.

We can now report half way into 2014 that the K2 budget is in balance, although still very tight as we have to set aside funds pay debts from 2013. Despite these difficulties we will be able to allocate more funds to the PhD and postdocs. If the current situation prevails, we will be able to renew about 50% of vacant positions. The recruitment process we have had this spring will provide the priorities for future recruitment.

The basis of our existence is the teaching of students enrolled in the professional studies and in the bachelor and master programs. We now have a special focus on teaching and will propose several actions in order to enhance teaching quality. One such action is K2’s teaching award, which is announced in this issue of K2nytt. Other efforts will be presented and discussed at the teaching seminar scheduled for September 17, where all K2-lecturers are expected to participate.
However, first and foremost I hope everyone enjoys a nice summer vacation

Link to statutes for education award (in norwegian)

Warm regards

Eystein

Cource in clinical practice for PhD-candidates autumn 2014 (GCP901)

The Bergen Postgraduate School of Clinical Medical Research will arrange a new course in clinical practice for PhD-candidates (GCP901) autumn 2014.
Course schedule is:
23.06, at 08.30 – 12.00
25.09, at 08.30 – 16.00
03.10, at 09.00 – 11.00
On 25.09 the lectures are joint with Helse-Bergen’s GCP-course.
Completed course will yield one course credit.
Sign up in StudentWeb by September 1.
Click here to read more about the course.

The CCBIO Research School will officially open on September 11

“CCBIO Research School for Cancer Studies” will officially open on 11.9 at 1 pm in Auditorium 2, BB-Building.

Cancer researcher Anne-Lise Børresen-Dale will give a talk.

Mark your calendars right away, more details will follow.

Follow us on the CCBIO website.

Library courses autumn 2014

The library offers courses in literature searching and handling of references

The courses are aimed at employees and students at University of Bergen and Haukeland University Hopsital. The courses are free of charge.

Autumn 2014 courses are offered in:

– PubMed & EMBASE

– Literature searching within knowledge based practice

– EndNote – course for beginners and refresher course

Click here for complete course programme with dates and information on how to sign up (In Norwegian).

If other seminars or courses are desired at the section, the library may be contacted. Click here for more information (In Norwegian).

Network maintenance in the lab-buidling August 14

On Thursday August 14, the network in the lab-building will be unavailable in periods between 6 am and 8 am due to replacement and upgrade of network-switcher.

The work will begin on floors 1-2-3 at 6 am, then floors 4-5-6, and finally there will be a new shut down off the network for one of the four switches serving floors 7-8-9 for installment of the correct part.

This last task will affect the same systems which suffered the longest shut down last time. All work will be completed by 8 am.

Article in Bergens Tidende

Lise Gundersen, senior scientist at K2, and Ingvild Aukrust, postdoc at K2, have written an article which is published in Bergens Tidende. The article discusses diabetes in Latino Americans. Click here to read the article (In Norwegian).

New Publications

Weeks 25 and 26/2014.

Continue reading →

Policies for future recruitment by Department of Clinical Sience

The Management of the institute has asked a working group consisting of Professor Øystein Bruserud (Chairman), Associate Professor Jørn Sagen, Professor Harald G. Wiker, Professor Lise Øvreås (vice-dean faculty of mathematics and natural sciences) and Chief Engineer Marianne Enger to prepare a report about the policies for future recruitment of scientific staff. Secretarial function was attended by head of administration, Synnøve Myhre. The basis for this is stated in the institute’s strategy document: “K2 will by the end of 2014 develop a long-term, structured plan for strategic recruitment and hiring of personnel in permanent faculty I and II positions.” Another important factor was that K2 in the next five years (2014-2018) will have a natural turnover of at least 12.1 FTEs (considering retirement at 70 years).

Some of the working group comments / conclusions are the following:

It is preferable that the department to a greater extent than previously should emphasize research and quality rather than traditional academic affiliation.
Calls of positions within a broader field will make the Department’s employment practices more flexible and may improve recruitment of women and external applicants.
The committee would like to have broader calls rather than limiting internal priorities before the announcement (this should also protect the strong academic groups‘ interests in that they can be expected to create stronger candidates who can compete better in such broader calls)
However, one must first ensure that the educational needs within a given subject is appropriate before broader calls are announced.
The committee recommend that the outlined guidelines should be followed for a period of 4-5 years and that there should be a reassessment and an evaluation completed during 2018.

In addition, it’s important that knowledge and expertise is transferred within the professions we represent without preventing recruitment. One can also suggest different distributions of the tasks which the University imposes the employees – research, teaching, communication and innovation. High standards for the basis of our function, i.e. teaching and research, is required. The full report can be read here and this week it has been discussed among the research group leaders, subject leaders, the Research Committee and the Institute Council at K2. A good tool for the future!

Happy summer from the research management

Roland

Organisational development project UoB

The Rectorate has as one of its goals for the election period to make sure the university’s organizational, administrative services and support at any time are appropriate and adapted to the university’s core activities. In the autumn of 2013 it was decided to initiate an organizational development project, aiming to develop the central administrative services so that they best support the university’s tasks in research, education and outreach.

A management committee has been appointed with responsibility for implementing the project, and a project group has been created to coordinate efforts. The first meeting of the management committee for the project is Friday 20 June. The management committee will decide which areas should be prioritized and approve a communication plan and a progress plan.

To keep all employees informed about the project, information about the organization and the framework of the work will be published on the project webpage (in Norwegian).The webpage is under development and will be continuously updated with status updates and project progress.

All units will be invited to an open information meeting in Egget August 27. During the autumn there will also be regular information meetings. Invitiation to these meetings will come later.

Publication of external work

UoB is working on the publication of external work. At the moment the following will be published:
– Name of employee
– Main category of external work – 4 categories; adjunct, secondary occupation, assignment, office
– Name of organisation/enterprise

It is important that these data are complete and correct. E-mail has been sent to employees where it has been reported missing data in these fields. The external work is believed to be underreported. The Personell- and organisation department has sent an e-mail asking the employees to again register their external work as soon as possible.
The publication of the external work is planned for week 34, and before that there will be a round of quality assurance.
Guidelines for registration of external work (in Norwegian).

Chemical Storage closed days in the summer

The Chemical Storage is closed the following days this summer: 23/6; 26/6 – 1/7; 7/7 – 1/8.

This message is also on the Chemical Storage’s webpage (in Norwegian).

The Nordic Cancer Union’s 2014 call

The Nordic Cancer Union (NCU) provides funding to support and stimulate collaborative cancer research within the Nordic countries. Researchers working in two Nordic countries or more must be involved in the project. Deadline September 1st.
For more information.

EPINOR – National research school in epidemiology

The research school is relevant for all PhD-candidates working on research within epidemiology. Click here for more information

Call from the Blix Family Fund

The Blix Family Fund gives support to medical research, especially in the fields cardiovascular disease and cancer, including diagnostics. The support will mostly go to operational cost of research projects that combine basic and clinical science, with special emphasis on applications from young researchers. No support is given to salary or
conferences.

The application must be sent by June 25. It must be written on a form which will be sent to you by inquiry by e-mail, and must be sent by post to the Fund board via attorney Erik Keiserus, Advokatfirmaet Hjort DA, postboks 471 Sentrum, 0105 Oslo.

New Publications

Week 25/2014

No publications this week due to vacation.

This week’s editorial

I recently observed how the final OSCE exam for medical students at the University of Oslo (UiO). An impressive organization in which the students were tested in communication skills, physical examination skills, cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, palpation of mamma, and interpretation of preparations, ECG and medical radiological images. An impressive testing battery, which appears to be superior to the final examinations that we do at our institute. To this year’s K2 Exam and Teaching seminar which takes place at Hotel Terminus on Wednesday September 17, we have invited professor Kristian Bjøro who is in charge of logistics and practical organization of the final OSCE exam for medical students at UiO. He will talk about his experience and organize a practical workshop on how to plan an OSCE station. The Board at Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry will in autumn 2014 decide upon the types of exams to be used in the new study program for medicine. It is very likely that OSCE will be introduced also at our faculty for medicine. You should therefor reserve the date, so that you do not miss this opportunity to learn about OSCE.

Eva

MANDATORY DUTY WORK AUTUMN 2014

The institute encourages scientific employees who wish to use PhD-candidates in mandatory duty work autumn 2014, but who still have not obtained PhD-candidates for these tasks, to report this by August 10, 2014. A description of the work may be sent to Kristian Jensen. The description should include information on the work tasks, the amount of time required, and desired qualifications the PhD-candidate(s) preferably should have. The duty work can include teaching activities, master supervision, dissemination tasks, planning and execution of conferences/seminars, etc. The institute will do its best to accommodate the wishes.

StudentWeb is open for registration for the autumn semester

StudentWeb is now open for registration for the autumn semester 2014. Deadline is September 1st.

Light summer-meal

Jordbær Thursday 19.06.2014 at 14:00, Parkinglot at 8th floor. Labatory building.

Attend by sending e-mail to irene.hjelmaas@k2.uib.no – June 17.

Welcome 🙂

WUN Research Development Fund 2014

UoB is a member of Worldwide Universities Network (WUN). WUN is announcing funding for

Responding to Climate Change
Public Health: non-communicable disease (NCD)
Global Higher Education and Research
Understanding Cultures

Here you will find more information (in Norwegian), application form and guidelines for applicants.

K2 in the Media

Pål Njølstad and Torunn Fiskerstrand talked about future possibilities in the field of genetic testing, in BT Wednesday.
Read more here.

Fedmedagen 2014

The Obesity Day (Fedmedagen) is an interdisciplinary seminar for all who do research on obesity and metabolic diseases. This year it will be held on October 2. Program and information will be given on a later date.

Do you wish to hold a presentation? Deadline for sending in abstracts is June 15.
Registration before July 1.
Registration and abstract should be sent to Christine Haugen.
The seminar is free of charge, and lunch will be served to those who have registered.

New Publications

Week 24/2014.

Continue reading →

Have you started developing e-learning?

There is a need to implement new, student-activating teaching and learning methods. The medical faculties are collaborating on a national platform for e-learning resources (in Norwegian). It is important that we here at K2 contribute so that this website becomes a good e-learning resource for our students. There is much pre-made content already available online for medical examination techniques and methods. In order to get ideas, you may, for instance, see Oxford Medical Education or Geeky Medics or Youtube. Several producers of web content have granted MOF permission to reuse their material. Have you found something which may be used in your student teaching, and wish to have this dubbed in Norwegian language or have comments added? You may then contact Eirik Dalheim who will clarify copyright issues and other formalities. Eirik will also assist you in adjusting the contents to your needs. Remember that all course changes must be approved by the person in charge of the course.

Good luck!

Eva

Winners of the Faculty Awards

Several awards were given to K2 employees at the annual Faculty Day:

The Education Award went to Professor Harald Wiker

Publication of the Year went to Chudasama et al.

Søren Falchs Junior Award went to Camilla Krakstad (in Norwegian).

Read more about the Faculty Day here (in Norwegian).

COST – New researcher network for biomedical and health research

COST is a European network organisation of which most of the countries in Europe (including Norway and all the EU-nations) are members. An important task for COST is to improve European research cooperation by initiating scientific networks (called “COST-actions”).

General information about COST you can find here (in Norwegian) and here.
Summaries about the COST-actions you can find here.

The Norwegian Research Council is coordinating the process concerning the Norwegian participation in COST-actions. If you are interested send this form to Hans Hellebostad.

Public defence week 24

Ingvild Bruun Mikalsen will have her public defence on Friday June 13, 2014.
Trial lecture: Friday June 13, 2014, 09:15
Topic: «Design og gjennomføring av anerkjente multisenterstudier i barnepopulasjoner – styrker og svakheter»
Public defence: Friday June 13, 2014, 10:30
Place: Aula 2nd floor, South Building, Stavanger University Hospital
Title of dissertation: «Asthma, atopy and lung function at 11 years of age after bronchiolitis in infancy»
1st opponent: Professor Søren Pedersen, Syddansk Universitet, Odense
2nd opponent: Professor Britt Nakstad, Universitetet i Oslo
Poster and press release (both in Norwegian)

Seminar for the Technician Group

We wish the Technician Group at K2 welcome to a seminar on September 4-5 at Panorama Hotel. Sign up by contacting Irene Hjelmaas by July 1. NB: Registration is binding.
Program (in Norwegian).