Dear everyone!

Time flies, and there are not too many days left until Christmas! In addition to all the exams that are taking place now, it also means that there is not that long left until the deadline of the RCN evaluation. Just a quick reminder that although your research group might not be evaluated separately, K2 will be evaluated in its entirety, so that the web pages of all research groups should be updated. And as I wrote already a few weeks ago, EVERYONE should update their personal pages, and remember to include a photo.

And I would like to remind you that the deadline for submitting nominations for the faculty’s working environment award is December 8. Do you have a colleague who makes an extra effort for the working environment? Not only in terms of HSE, but also well-being, inclusion and the “we” feeling? Don’t hesitate to suggest them for the prize! The form can be found here.

Have a great weekend!

Help build medical research in Western Norway

On Tuesday this week, a joint research day was organized between the Faculty of Medicine and Stavanger University Hospital. Many projects were presented illustrating what we can achieve together.The papers presented by a representative from each campus emphasized the utility of registries and the strength of large patient cohorts. Including both Bergen and Stavanger in a study means that the number of participants can be doubled, which can be the difference between a mediocre study and excellent study as it is easier to obtain statistically significant findings. Camilla Krakstad also highlighted the opportunities that lie in a research stay abroad and how good registers and biobanks make us attractive collaborators. The K2 management is now actively working to improve collaborations between Stavanger and Bergen and encourage colleagues to build research groups together. Many of the groups in Bergen are larger than in Stavanger and it can therefore be a good idea to include colleagues in the groups where it is natural to collaborate. How this is solved in practical terms is up to each group, but joint research meetings digitally and physically are a good place to start. To invite each other to university tasks such as committee work is a way to facilitate interactions. Building joint projects should strengthen competitiveness when applying for research grants. There are also good synergies to be gained on the teaching side, where we should collaborate more, coordinate teaching plans, share teaching materials and exams. If subjects and exams come at the same time, we can use the same assignments. In other words, there are many possibilities to collaborate here. The next time we organize such a meeting, it would also be good if those who do not have ongoing collaborative projects between our campuses to participate, it could pay off.

Have a good weekend when time comes,

Eystein Husebye

Vice Head of Department

Area in the Laboratory Building

The Faculty of Medicine has a substantial amount of space available at Campus Haukeland. Some of these areas are dedicated university spaces, such as the Building for Basic Biological sciences (BBB), while others are leased by Helse Bergen. These areas are, of course, central to teaching and research.

In recent years, the leasing costs have significantly increased. It is, therefore, necessary to assess whether the use of these spaces is optimal. K2 has access to a lot of research space in the Laboratory Building. Many of these spaces are more or less free, as part of the old Haukeland agreement, while some of the areas come with a price that is substantial. Since research activity related to “wet lab” is less today than before due to a shift in research activities towards more “dry lab” and the use of core facilities, we are now investigating the possibility of managing with somewhat less laboratory space. Any savings in leasing costs will benefit K2 and be positive for K2’s tight budget. This could provide us with more flexibility to reduce the number of positions that currently need to be frozen. A committee led by Silke Appel is examining this possibility.

We will return to the matter in an open process with comprehensive information and an opportunity for input and discussion if it turns out that this becomes relevant.

Have a great weekend!

Dear all,

Towards the end of the autumn break, I would like to encourage everyone to update their UiB profile pages. As most people will hopefully have been informed about, we are in the process of RCN’s evaluation for medicine and health, EVALMEDHELSE. In connection with this, it is important that our web pages are up to date. And by that I mean not only the pages of K2 and all our research groups (which in most cases need some updating), but also the personal page that all UiB employees have. This is something everyone can and should update (which, by the way, also applies to myself, I’m working on it)! In addition to contact information, where you can add a link to MazeMap so that visitors can more easily find you, you can inform about your expertise, ongoing research projects, teaching, dissemination, you can upload a CV and provide a link to social media. And not least: I encourage everyone to upload a photo!

Here you will find everything you need to make it happen (although unfortunately it does not give you more time to do so):

            https://manual.uib.no/en/brand-guide/personal-page/

            https://it.uib.no/en/MazeMap

Have a great weekend!

Research day at MED – an inspiration for collaboration

The research day at MED brought together around 100 inquisitive K2 employees this week. The main theme was collaboration and new alliances, both within the institute and externally conveyed by lectures, poster presentations and informal discussions.

Two working groups presented ways to improve cooperation. The most exciting was a “matchmaker function” called Science Match, which will facilitate collaboration both at K2 and the faculty. As an app or website, Science Match is intended to help K2 employees and students to find expertise, instruments, equipment and chemicals at campus. You need not travel to California (even if that is more fun) for an expertise that can be found on the floor below. In the subsequent discussion, it was brought up that some universities apply PhD and Master’s student rotations between research groups. I think this is an exciting concept that will increase the students’ competence and stimulate collaboration – perhaps it can be implemented in the 4-year PhD program at MED? The challenge is hereby sent to the deanery.

But research and collaboration require funds. Eystein Jansen, perhaps the most merrited researcher at UiB and vice-president of the European Research Council (ERC), talked about ERC grants, both for young people (Starting Grant), those on the way (Consolidator) and seniors (Advanced). Synergy Grants can be sought for ground-breaking research where 2-4 partners join forces to create something completely new. Somewhat unique to the ERC grants is that there is only one criterion, scientific excellence! Norway does not come out very well in this competition, neither in relation to our Nordic neighbours, and especially not compared to countries such as Israel, Switzerland and The Netherlands, which are at the top of the world in terms of innovation and technology. Those who want to apply can get good support from the Research Department and positioning funds can be applied for. There is also the opportunity to register as a panel member and thus learn more about the application process and what is required.

Later in the day, we received a presentation from Ole Johan Borge, Director for Health Research and Innovation at The Research Council of Norway. He told us that we cannot expect the Research Council to receive more funds in the future and the competition is fierce, but there are opportunities and there are K2’ers who succeed. Øystein Fluge (K2) and Johan Tronstad (Biomedicine) recently received funding under the Women’s Health Program for research on ME – congratulations!

Women’s health is indeed one of the thematic umbrellas at MED with several strong groups, and where it can be expected that earmarked funds will come in the future. I believe most of K2’s groups can do have a women’s or gender perspective on their research, so work strategically.

Another thematic umbrella is bioinformatics, which is becoming an increasingly important part of research at the faculty. Here we need to build a stronger environment at the faculty and improve the service to the groups so that bioinformatic analyses do not become a major delay in projects – if it takes years to get a dataset analysed we lose in the competition.

Last but not least, the poster competition was a refreshing and interactive exercise, with many excellent presentations. In tough competition, Marianne Hannisdal and colleagues from K2 and Biomedicine won with a poster on the use of MRI and artificial intelligence to predict the growth of gliomas – congratulations!

The research day was a success and will certainly stimulate more collaboration across groups, departments and faculties – we look forward to the continuation.

Eystein Husebye
Vice Head of Department

Vestlandslegen funded – and novel practical training tested at Voss

A week ago, the good news finally came: The government parties have agreed to finance 20 new study places in Medicine at UiB, and the funding for the first stage of Vestlandslegen is landed. The first students started in Stavanger in August and will complete their studies at SUS, having had their first three years of teaching in Bergen. Long-term, good work from the faculty has thus borne fruit. K2’s Simon Dankel has now taken over from Steinar Hunskår as coordinator for Vestlandslegen. As discussed at the recent UGLE meeting, it will be important going forward that we continue the good work in the teaching groups to integrate the teaching environments.

For the first time, medical students from Bergen get practice in gynecology and obstetrics at Voss Hospital. The first student has already started, and this autumn a total of 4 students will each get a week. In the long term, the aim is that at least one student every week during the 6-week internship period will have the opportunity to have their training in Voss during one of their three-week internships. Congratulations to the teaching group in GYN/OBS for getting this in place!

The Education Award 2023 from Helse Vest will be awarded at the Education Conference in Helse Vest which will be held in Bergen 30 Nov.-1 Dec. If you think K2 should nominate you or another candidate, send the proposal to mette.vesterhus@uib.no by Monday 2 October. Read more here: Utdanningskonferansen 2023 – Helse Vest RHF (helse-vest.no)

Mette

Dear everyone!

As mentioned before the summer, the Research Council’s evaluation of medicine and health sciences is  underway. K2 has registered 9 research groups. In addition to the research groups, the department as an administrative unit will also be evaluated as a whole.

The evaluation is a multi-step process:

1. Specify the Terms of Reference)
2. Data collection
3. Assessment and evaluation of data

For this we need the help of the research groups that have been registered. Contact persons in the relevant research groups will be invited to a number of workshops during the autumn.

As the entire K2 will also be evaluated, it is important that our online presence is updated. Encouragement to all research groups: look through your texts  on K2’s web pages (which also need an upgrade, we are working on it!), edit and update and send a new version to your assigned web editor (or Irene Hjelmaas and Christina Flornes who can help with the technicalities).

We also have a number of academic staff who are not members of any research group. That’s not good, everyone must belong to (at least) a research group (and by the way also a teaching group for those concerned). Not sure where you belong? Get in touch with one of us!

Happy weekend in the sun!

Susanna og Silke

Vestlandslegen is born

Last Tuesday the opening of Vestlandslegen was officially marked at Stavanger University Hospital (SUS). Vestlandslegen is now the name of The Medeical School at UiB, where some of the students receive their main clinical training in Stavanger.

Vestlandslegen’s father Professor Steinar Hunskår gave us an interesting introduction to the motivation for and the history behind Vestlandslegen. The idea is that the entire country must be used in medical education in order to increase the capacity and create connection to the region where the education takes place. The work Hunskår and his colleagues have done will not only have significance for the Western Norway, the Vestlandslegen is also a template for similar decentralized education at the other universities in Norway, emphasized by Martin Fredheim who congratulated on behalf of the Ministry of Education.

The first group consists of 7 students, but the number will quickly be increased to 20. Further expansion of the program in Stavanger and later in Haugesund and Førde will depend on funding from the Ministry of Education. It is therefore important that the Vestlandslegen is successful and there is every reason to believe that it will be. Dean Per Bakke and Hospital director Helle Schøyen at SUS emphasized the good cooperation during the pregnancy of Vestlandslegen.

Hunskår also took the opportunity to say thank you and passed the baton to Professor Simon Dankel as project manager for the Vestlandslegen. We are convinced this will ensure the newborn Vestlandslegen good nutrition so that it can grow well.

Vestlandslegen is also important in a larger perspective. The program will help spread and increase medical expertise at SUS and the rest of Western Norway, which was emphasized by Helse Vest’s director Bjørn-Egil Vikse. Vestlandslegen will contribute to bringing the region of Western Norway together even more. Can we imagine that the Universities of Stavanger and Bergen could merge, possibly also with the University College of Western Norway? Western Norway must become stronger so that we can win in competition with UiO and NTNU and not compete with each other for limited funds.

With this, we wish Vestlandslegen success, the best medical education in Norway.

Eystein Husebye
Deputy director K2

HAVE A NICE SUMMER!

As of this writing, we are submitting a draft budget for 2023. This year, too, there is an ambitious budget given the framework and which takes into account the challenges we see in the coming year when it comes to finances. The main focus in the last six months has been the economy due to the Ministry of Education’s proposals for cuts in the basic allocation to all universities related to pensions, efficiency, travel, and more. Reference is made to Dean Per Bakke’s e-mail today. The Faculty of Medicine has drawn up a budget for 2022 with a deficit of NOK 30 million, while K2 has a deficit of NOK 12 million. This makes our operations difficult. But as Per Bakke says, if we stand together in this, we will be able to get through this period. My goal is that we will even emerge stronger from it. It is often in adversity that one becomes innovative and completely new ideas are created. So here’s a challenge for all of you: Help us figure out how we can manage with a little less space, a little less people and a little less funds via K2, and how we can create more income that are visible in K2’s budgets. This can help us to remove the current requirements from the Faculty, that we are not allowed to advertise new positions for the time being and with some exceptions. It’s a bad situation we have to get out of as fast as possible!

After a cold and wet June, today we have finally got to taste the heat. We are now preparing for the summer holidays. For most, spring has been a busy time with applications, OSCE and all the endings at the end of the semester. So it will be good to get a few weeks off to do completely different things. It is important to charge the batteries so that we can start the autumn with new energy and a desire to work. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their great efforts this semester.

Have a really good summer vacation!

Pål

Dear everyone!

This week was the deadline for submitting research groups to the Norwegian Research Council’s evaluation of medicine and health sciences. With good help from Susanna, 10 research groups/centers from K2 were registered: Endocrine Medicine (leader: Eystein Husebye), Research Group for Infection and Microbiology (leader: Rebecca Cox), Oncology (leader: Stian Knappskog), Pharmaceutical Group (leader: Lars Herfindal), Mohn Center for diabetes precision medicine (head: Pål Njølstad), Broegelmann Research Laboratory (head: Helena Erlandsson Harris), Paediatric Follow-up Group (leader: Camilla Tøndel), Bergen Respiratory Research  Group (head: Tomas Eagan), Centre for Pharmacy (head: Reidun Kjome) and Precision Oncology (head: Karl-Henning Kalland). By June 2023, we will receive feedback from the RCN, and in September 2023, a self-evaluation form and impact cases form will be sent out with a deadline of January 2024. Thank you so much to those who take on this job!

Have a really good and sunny weekend!

Dear everyone!

There were many from both UiB and Haukeland hospitals who competed for the 4 final places in order to apply to K.G. Jebsen centers for medical research. As many as 3 out of 4 researchers who were invited to send a full application are from K2: Eva Gerdts, Bjørn Tore Gjertsen and Stian Knappskog. Congratulations! We are very proud and wish good luck!

  
Foto: ukjent                           Foto: Øystein Fykse/Haukeland universitetssykehus      Foto: Melanie Burford

May 17th is approaching with great steps, and all UiB employees are invited to participate in the main procession (departure from Museplassen at 9:30, or meeting at 10:15 at Koengen, kolonne 4). We will keep an eye on the weather forecast, but so far it looks promising 😊 With the Ascension of Christ the day after May17th, there are probably many who take a long weekend. There will therefore be no K2nytt next Friday.

Have a nice weekend!

Temporary report on RCN’s upcoming evaluation

In recent decades, RCN has carried out two evaluations of Norwegian research. Now a third round is underway. In November, two of the evaluations started: life sciences and natural sciences. In 2023, the remaining subjects are due, organized in two rounds: One evaluation for medicine and health, EVALMEDHELSE, in which the Faculty of Medicine is involved, and one for mathematics, IT and technology.

The main aim of the evaluation is to evaluate the quality and framework conditions for life science research in Norway.

Two levels are planned for evaluation: Administrative units and research groups. The administrative units for the Faculty of Medicine will be the institutes, i.e. K2 for us. When it comes to research groups, it is a big advantage for K2 that we all have defined research groups. The RCN has decided that the minimum requirements for a research group must be that there must be at least five researchers, of which at least three are permanent and as main position (at least 50%)  and they must have existed for at least three years. Here, of course, there is room for individual definitions. NFR states that it is not necessary to register everyone who is employed at an institute. It is also possible to merge groups that fit together. The division can thus be strategic, and one will naturally report on those who are good.

NFR will set up several expert panels that will report to a smaller number of evaluation committees. These in turn report to a national report committee.

The evaluation criteria include that the research must be relevant to society, be relevant for institutional purposes, work for diversity and equality and have a solid research output.

There will be more information about the evaluation at the Faculty Lunch on Wednesday 10 May.

The Department’s management will, in collaboration with the environment, define the research groups to be evaluated. A self-evaluation must be made for K2 and for each research group. Here it is important that the groups themselves come up with proposals for which research groups should be defined.

RCN will hold a webinar on 15 May 14-15. Follow here for more information.

The first deadline for schematic feedback to the faculty is 5 June. The evaluation itself will have a deadline of mid-September.

Cheers!