With the arrival of fall comes our annual meeting point; the department day. This year we have chosen to change the name and some of the content. In addition to being our annual HSE-meeting, we will focus on the department’s internal life, as well as the work processes our former department management started this spring. We have invited the faculty to present a status on the evaluation of the reorganization from 2013, as well as the new law for state employees. And we will, most likely, hear from our new head of department and the new plans and expectations he or she has for us. This year we would very much like to make time for some drinks and a chat in Café Christie. Perhaps this will be your opportunity to have a talk with our new head of department or a colleague you haven’t seen in a while. I hope as many as possible will attend both the gathering and the following mingling. Link to registration form here.

With the fall comes another possibility for communication; the annual employee appraisal talk
*(the abbreviation works so much better in Norwegian). All employees, regardless of duration or percentage of employment, is to be offered appraisal talks from his or her immediate leader. In the following days, I myself will invite the administration for their annuals talks. All group leaders will be sent an overview of the employees in their groups, for whom they are responsible to offer an appraisal talk. In order to avoid nag from me, I suggest you start organizing the remaining talks already now. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any uncertainties or questions.

I look forward to seeing you all in the Aula in November.

All the best, Julie

Somewhat unfamiliar? This novel was released in 1986, with a Norwegian translation in 1987. The author Kazuo Ishiguro was awarded the Nobel prize of literature for 2017. The plot is set in the author’s country of birth Japan, and this is the connection with this editorial: the University of Bergen’s strategic partnership with Japanese research organizations. Together with NTNU and Innovation Norway, UiB have joined forces to approach potential Japanese collaborators in relation to research and innovation. During spring 2017 former Dean Langeland headed a delegation visiting Tokyo and Kyoto, where themes discussed spanned from stem cell research to geriatric medicine.

Japan is well known for technology (and labor effort). Do you have ideas/thoughts related to your research that may profit by Japanese industrial cooperation? Our Vice Dean of Innovation, Helge Raeder, is eager to convey ideas/contact/collaboration. A new Japanese visit is planned for spring 2018. Perhaps you should be joining?

Speaking of innovation and future research: Horizon 2020 hosts a kick-off seminar the 31st of October. Please sign up! Both the Head of Bergen University as well as “our” Dean Bakke is eager to encourage researchers to apply for international research funds. The institute has research advisors for helping you during such application processes; make use of them!

Another action point from the University leadership is increased digitalization: how may this be used to save resources? Are there tasks in your everyday work life better handled by a computer than by manual labor? I am unsure if the hospital’s speech recognition program is a very good example, but the principle is illustrative: instead of secretaries writing the doctors’ notes, the dictates are transcribed by a computer. And thanks to machine learning (!), the writings turn out as (a little) more understandable for every note I make. But in the beginning, there were a lot of absolutely incomprehensible phrases written in the patient files; almost as if one should be “An artist of the floating world”.

Jone