Category: Leader of the week

Dear everyone,
Det var veldig kjekt å se mange av dere på instituttets dag på mandag. Du kan lese og laste ned presentasjonene ved å trykke på «les mer».

The main focus was the FAMU survey, and the groups came up with many good suggestions for improvements and things worth preserving. What made me especially happy was that a recurring theme in many groups was the strong sense of collegiality that people want to maintain. I completely agree with that!There are many areas for improvement, and one that was mentioned several times was the need for shared meeting arenas across groups.

Now the groups have to organize an action meeting separately (some have already managed it on Monday!), then we will have a joint meeting for everybody to go through the results together. The summary will then be published in K2nytt.

Intense work is being done on the multi-campus model, and now a consultation has been sent out. I encourage all the academic communities to take the time to read through the documents and provide constructive input. Here it is important to think holistically, not just your own subject and your own campus.

Have a really good weekend!

Silke

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Support in career choices and applications

(NOTE - click on "Read more" for links)

In the recommendations to K2 following the Research Council's evaluation in 2024, the committee writes the following: “The committee recommends developing a leadership programme in which junior and senior staff jointly take on leadership of different organisational tasks”. This is advice we should try to follow up on in the coming year. In this context, it is relevant to recall what career support already exists for PhD candidates and early career researchers at our faculty.

UiB Ferd Career Centre for Young Researchers offers a range of services to support career development both within and outside the university. The centre targets PhD candidates, postdoctoral fellows, researchers and associate professors at UiB. Ferd organises courses and events for researcher development and career learning, and also offers individual conversations with professional career advisors. Examples of offers include externships with job shadowing in the private or public sector. Ferd also offers e-courses that can be taken at your convenience, such as: FERD100: Creating an Academic CV and Navigating the Funding Landscape.

The Postdoctoral Program at the Faculty of Medicine aims to support postdoctoral fellows in developing a successful academic career, build a community of early-career researchers, and make the faculty an attractive place to work for postdoctoral fellows. The program starts a new round every two years. It is aimed at those who are in “postdoctoral” or “researcher” positions with an affiliation to a research group at the Faculty of Medicine. The next round will start in September 2026, with space for 20 participants.

The Research and Innovation Department (FIA) at UiB is developing a range of sessions with application readings, including ERC, MSCA and collaborative projects in Horizon Europe. This can provide good insight into how such applications can be designed.

UiB also has the more competitive Momentum program, which supports the career development of selected early-career researchers. The application deadline for the 2025/26 round was in March this year. In addition to a series of seminars, each participant receives a grant of NOK 100,000 for mentoring, travel, networking, research stays, conferences and other career-enhancing activities. Marta Kaminska from K2 is participating in the current period.

Finally, I would like to welcome everyone to the Institute's Day in Bikuben, Monday, September 8, 11:30 a.m.–4:00 p.m.

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Please remember to register your vacation – Mia will send reminders. Thanks to Ingvild for stepping in, and welcome back to Mia!

K2nytt has a new design – thanks to Øyvind, Lene, and Ingri!

Department Day: September 8th, 11:30–16:00 at Bikuben.

Congratulations to Eystein Husebye – elected to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters!

Feel free to suggest honorary doctorate candidates – young, research-active individuals with strong international impact.

Have a great weekend!

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Dear everyone,

Now it has already been one year with me as head of department. It was a very exciting year with many heights, but also some headwinds. I am proud to be head of a department with so many fantastic employees who contribute to both high-level teaching and, not least, internationally excellent research, according to the committee from EVALMEDHELSE, which further concluded that «Both the research and teaching activities have been of high international standard and visibility, which has attracted researchers in basic science and clinicians to successfully collaborate on the well-defined expert areas within this administrative unit». As Eystein already mentioned last week, we are almost at the finish line with the strategic plan for 2025-2030, where we will include some of the recommendations from the committee.

The past year has been very successful in terms of allocations of external funding that covers indirect costs (ERC, NFR, various allocations from the EU, etc.) and there are many of you who have plans to lead a Center of Excellence (SFF). We have got better routines in place and most people are now familiar with the form that must be filled in for applications for external funding, so that a project economist is connected in time to help with the budget. And even though I unfortunately can’t do magic, and K2 is still running at a loss, we are on the right track! We have vacated some of the area in the lab building, which provides savings both for rent and not least operating costs.

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The leadership at K2 has now established the strategic framework for the institute’s development over the next five years. The 2025–2030 strategic plan provides a clear direction for how we will strengthen our position as a leading medical research and education institution. Research: We aim to enhance both the quality of our scientific output and the level of external funding...

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