At the start of next year, a centralized storage of biomaterial at -80C and colder is planned in Marie Joys House (MJH). Here remote freezers needs be placed, and the majority of the biomaterial should be stored here.
The remaining biomaterial may be stored in local freezers, especially material which is in frequent use. Since the need for freezer capacity is increasing and soon increasing beyond the present capacity, we will now be starting the process of establishing local freezers and remote freezers. We will work through the established Floor responsible people (Etasjekontakter) in the Lab building and in the Obstetrics Department and Pediatrics Department to assemble an overview of freezers (-80C and colder including liquid nitrogen storage) including number and owners and users of each freezer.

We encourage the owners of freezers/biobanks already now to begin sorting their material based on storage in either local freezers or in remote freezers. There are several ways to solve this, for example by redefining the ownership to the freezers in each floor so that the owners jointly manage both local freezers and remote freezers, but we welcome alternative suggestions. The goal is that some of freezers in in Lab building and in the Obstetrics Department and Pediatrics Department must be moved to MJH to operate as remote freezers there.

Helge

There is an increasing focus in both the EU and the Norwegian authorities on innovation and commercialization of research results. Increased cooperation between academia and industry are in demand, particularly cooperation with the so-called SMEs (Small Medium sized Enterprises), ie small and medium enterprises. The reason is increased activity among small and medium-sized enterprises are a mainstay to relaunch the economy.
For many in academia are collaborating with industry a somewhat strange idea. People have  come to me and said that this threatens the free research. I think that we should look at this as an opportunity, not only to think in new research projects and implementation of studies, but also financing the research. Also Norwegian industry is increasingly interested in research. The number of companies that has applied NFR for research funding has doubled in two years, and the increase is strongest in Rogaland and Hordaland.
They are many Research environments in K2 that should be of interest to the industry, not only because of the topics we are researching, but also because of the expertise we sit on when it comes to doing research.
One challenge is to create contact with small and medium enterprises. Kine Gregersen from BTO will be on K2 every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month and will help contact as recently featured in an email. Maybe K2 in addition would create a meeting place with the industri?
As an example of the Norwegian authorities’ interest in innovation will eventually mentioned that NFR “will stimulate health industry”

Per

Emphasis new guidelines for research grants funded by both Samarbeidsorganet and The Recearch Council of Norway. Scientific quality is still an important criterion in the evaluation of the applications, but now the patent shall benefit and health services added as much weight. The last point demonstrate the need and importance of new knowledge and innovation potential in the short and long term. In other words, high quality or high benefit alone is not enough to reach the competition for funds.

The desire for patients to initiate research and that research results quickly, will be implemented in the clinic is understandable, but a unilateral focus on this may have negative aspects. Applicants may steer away from ambitious high-risk projects that aim to address the more fundamental issues at the expense of the “low-hanging fruits” that investigate whether diet A gives slightly lower long-term blood sugar than diet B. Persistence is important. It takes a long time to build up good Research environments, and establishing infrastructure such as patient records, equipment platforms and a powerful Research Group.

Nevertheless, this trend is something we have to deal with. When we write applications it is  important to think in an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional way to attack a problem from many different angles. Here are user intervention, regional and national cooperatives important points. To help our recearchers, we now strengthen the  Research advice on K2. MOFs research advisor Itane Sloper-Krivokapić will have office hours four days a week at K2 on the 8th floor. In addition, we will also employ a researchadvisor this fall. . Bergen technology transfer (BTO) will be present at K2 every other Tuesday, and will be able to advise on how to write innovation into applications. In addition, Samarbeidsorganet has established a resource center for innovation that can help to implement research findings in the clinic.

All of this will hopefully lead to New excellent research projects With good fundings at K2.

Eystein

On Tuesday this week MOF  had a visit by Dr. Hiroshi Matsumoto who is UiB’s representative in Japan and associated Innovation Norway Tokyo at the Norwegian embassy in Japan. He will work to promote research cooperation between Norway and Japan. He held a presentation for the head of the deparments at MOF and the Faculty management. The presentation can be found here. Matsumoto indicated that Japan is interested in a research collaboration with the Nordic countries. One of the reasons for Japan to focus on the Nordic countries is the combination of different population registries and biobanks that exist here. He drew particular highlight to three areas. One is geriatric research. Japan is among the countries that have come furthest on geriatric and investing heavily in this field especially connected with informasjonssteknologi and robotics. The second is generation studies and the third field he particularly pointed out is stem cell research.

On all three of these areas is the research on K2.

For research groups that would be interested in the above can be cited SIU’s Explore program for cooperation with countries outside the EU: Current project can be supported by up to 300 000 NOK spread over two (2) years. Overall framework for the program is NOK 5 million. Deadline October 17, 2016. See more information here.

Per

With the new curriculum (Medicine 2015) entering into full bloom, we may notice some pain during this transition.

This week last year’s “greenhorns” (read: first-year medical students who had stayed two days at the department during spring term), started to bloom, now with orange name-tags. During this stay their main goal was to follow at least two patients through the treatment chain; from referral from primary care throughout their examinations /treatment during hospital-stay, which personnel were involved and how was the collaboration between primary and secondary health-care? These students have been present in their respective departments throughout four days and this time possibly in addition to older students who by the “old” curriculum are supposed to learn the explicit technical diagnostics and procedures taught in their specific semester. We all need to keep track of which of these students could / should attend what.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to providing all categories of students with good learning opportunities!

More changes: The Skills Centre (Ferdighetssenteret) which has been spread at three different locations in Sentralblokken is almost finalized, now located at the 1st floor of BBB. This centre will be a great venue for our students to practice skill training; from blood pressure measurement and bladder catheterization, via cardiopulmonary resuscitation to complex emergency courses. We are upgrading the equipment and now it is the responsibility of the different semester boards to plan the teaching that should be implemented at the Skills Centre.

The centre is also designed to accommodate OSCE examination (Objective Structured Clinical Exam), where students are tested in practical skills (procedures or patient communication). Such examination takes place at the end of the third and sixth year of their medical study. All the practice students receive at different departments will prepare them for these exams!

Integrated education, where basic medicine and specific medical specialty teachers contribute together will be an exciting challenge in the new curriculum. TBL (team based learning) is a student activating teaching method which among others will be demonstrated during the Teaching Day 2016 on 12^th of October. There, we also will be given the opportunity to learn how to develop proper multiple choice questions (MCQs) aiming to test the students’ theoretical knowledge in an appropriate manner.

All teachers are welcomed to attend the Teaching Day 12.10! A final reminder: we all want to meet tidy, clean classrooms, especially when we bring patients along. We will (via the faculty study section) remind the students of their responsibility to tidy up after lectures. (Empty coffee mugs or water bottles should be removed and drinking is never a student activity when a patient is present, whether in the auditorium or consulting rooms). Maybe we need to define a specific student from each class as the “busboy”? But we as lecturers should aid by removing excess teaching materials such as surplus handouts when we leave the auditorium or classroom.

And please; do not use a permanent marker on anything else than whiteboards, they cannot be removed from projector screens…

It is time for the annual employee appraisal. All employees at K2 have the right to have an annual appraisal with a supervisor at the department. The appraisal is important, primarily for the individual who has the opportunity to take up current issues related to his/her work situation as well as topics such as skills upgrading and career. The supervisor has the opportunity to follow up on the individual’s work and matters relating to it. Hopefully the appraisal will help enhancing the working environment at K2. In practical terms, I will have appraisals with all the leaders of the research groups at K2 and all scientists engaged in full positions. Each research group leader will not necessarily personally have an appraisal with every member of his/her group, but should make sure that the members of the group are offered an appraisal. The plan is that everybody at K2 should have been offered an appraisal during the autumn.

Per

It is common to think that the end product of a research project are the publications that come out of the project. Many would add that the popular scientific dissemination of the project results is also part the end product: dissemination provides added value of the project results by demonstrating their utility to the society.

Innovation may also contribute to added value and increased society benefit. Commercialization of a research project is to move from possibility to reality: to offer new diagnostics and therapies to the society, not only lay the their foundation. Innovation is like research a creative process, but with a slightly different focus more geared towards market-oriented application. Both the Western Norway Regional Health Authority (Helse Vest) and the ERC funding institutions evaluate the innovation potential of a project in the funding application processes, and the Western Norway Regional Health Authority also awards an Innovation Prize.

The Department of Clinical Science (K2) wants to strengthen innovation at the Department by setting goals for innovation in the strategic plan, but also through an established partnership with Bergen Technology Transfer Office (BTO) where a counselor from BTO, Kine Gregersen, will be available in the K2 expedition in the 8th floor every 2. and 4th Tuesday of the month. We hope you find an opportunity to reach out to her. Conversely, she will actively try to find an opportunity to consult with someone in your research group. Please embrace such an initiative if you do not take action yourself, it can pay off!

Helge Ræder

Well belated summer! I hope everyone got to recharge their batteries and are now ready for the autumn. The editorial that was issued just before the summer dealt with K2’s new strategy document and it stated that we would use it actively in our efforts to enhance K2. The strategy document concerns us all and you can find it here if you need to freshen it up. The K2 management will have a particular focus on the following issues in the strategy document this fall: Recruitment, publication activity, use of MittUiB, Canvas and Inspera and financial reporting. We will come back to these issues in future editorials. When it comes to recruitment, the following should be noted: The K2 economy is now balanced, and in the next few years there are some natural age retirements. This opens opportunities for strategic recruitment.

Øystein Bruserud was the head of the Recruitment committee, who recommended that when recruiting after retirement we should check first that the teaching requirements within that particular field is covered. Then the vacant position should be advertised as broad as possible to ensure the best possible recruitment. I think these are good thoughts.

To be continued.

Per