New positions at K2

Despite the tight financial situation at the institute, we must steadily work with future recruitment of staff.  Good recruitment is extremely important for the long-term development of the institute.  This spring, K2 will start working on the framework for future recruitment.

It will be important to single out and weigh the criteria to be used in the recruitment process. Key words are teaching needs and skills, research, cooperation abilities, and leadership.

Unanswered questions are whether or not new positions should be allocated the academic sections or if we should follow the model: “We don’t care what you do as long as you are a leader in your field”.  What weight should the university clinics’ wish for specialized skills be given?  Likewise, we must discuss what positions are most suitable given the tasks we have – should we aim for more 50 and 100 % positions at the expense of 20 % positions?  Should the division of principal positions into multiple 20% positions as has been the case in recent years be reversed? Should we now hire more people to technical positions at the expense of scientific personnel?

We will begin by collecting background information about the present employment situation, expected budget resources for new positions, teaching needs (undervisningsregnskap) and scientific production (Cristin). Next we will ask for input from you regarding the principles for prioritization, as well as well-founded requests for new positions.  I hope many of you will engage actively in this.

Welcome to an important and a most certainly, demanding process. A detailed plan for the recruitment process will be published in K2’s weekly newsletter during April.

Eystein Husebye

With focus on education and research

The Solberg government is referring to knowledge as “the new oil” for Norway. Focus is on the university and college sector as the key to the knowledge society.  In January, the Minister of Education and Research, Torbjørn Røe Isaksen, presented 7 main points for how the government will proceed in its examination of the issue. The University and college sector will have both its funding and structure reviewed, and a course of action will be presented in a Government report in 2015.  The government will also consider how changes in funding may strengthen both education and research, while also focusing on how scientific employees are looked after.  A central point that was highlighted was the need for developing a strategy in order to motivate researchers to apply for EU funding.  In addition, the government will look at recruitment, employment structure and career development.  It is great that we have these floodlights shining upon us!

However, does K2 or MOF have a strategy for input to this important process?  Here it is important to get involved.  You can read more via this link.

Eva

Centre for Pharmacy 10 years
Centre for Pharmacy celebrates its 10th anniversary at UiB. The center is interdisciplinary between MatNat and MOF while administratively located at K2 with Svein Haavik as director of the center. Today 24 students are annually accepted at the master program in pharmacy. It has become a popular program and has the highest admission requirements among the pharmaceutical schools in Norway.
It is a healthy 10 year old we are talking about. At the same time there is no reason to hide the challenges the center is facing. The study in Pharmacy is not fully funded by the government. It is a clear goal to achieve this. There is a great need for pharmacists in Norway and another goal is to increase the educational capacity to 35 students per year. The teaching of pharmaceutics is currently being held at the University of East Anglia. From 2015 it will be moved to Bergen and the teaching capacity within this subject must be developed at MatNat and MOF. There is a need for more pharmacists with research expertise and work is being done to establish a research school in pharmacy. Centre for Pharmacy also provides opportunities. Master Students in Pharmacy represents a great resource that many of K2 ‘s research groups should take advantage of .

More about the Center for Pharmacy here (in Norwegian).

There is reason to congratulate the Centre for Pharmacy with the first 10 years and wish good luck with the next!

Per

Offices at K2

There is a great need for office space at K2, and we have a limited area available. At the same time disagreement over space may cause high temperatures. It is therefore important to have proper rules for access to office space. K2 is responsible to provide office to the permanent staff and to the preliminary scientific staff on projects administered at K2. II-positions having their main engagement at the hospital, is the responsibility of Helse-Bergen.

Among the scientific staff the following order of priority to office space: professor, associate professor, researcher, post-doc, PhD candidate and finally master grade and medical students during their year of research. We will also try to help the emerities as far as possible.

Irene Hjelmås has now mapped all office space at K2, who is sitting where, and that people are allowed to do so according to the above rules. Any need for office should be sent to Irene. Space will then be provided by the administration. It is not allowed to just sit down at a vacant office.

K2 has access to offices at Haraldsplass. It is easy to understand that people would prefer to sit in the Labbygget or at the Haukeland campus. But in some cases there might be necessary to place people at Haraldplass. This might for instance be PhD candidates about to finish their thesis.

A transparent system for providing offices where everybody sticks to the rules will be beneficial to all of us.

Per