“Our career ladder will play a very important part”

“There’s a serious lack of mid-level positions at KI,” says Dean of Research Professor Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren commenting on the initiative decided at the end of last year. “This is a problem we really need to address, and one that our new career ladder will play a very important part in solving.”

On 18 December, the Board of Research decided to establish a career ladder for junior researchers, with the idea to advertise mid-level positions at the university every year. The first advertisement will appear early this spring, and the finishing touches are now being made to the announcements advertising funding.

“What we hope is that the adverts will be out in the second half of February and that we get in a lot of strong applications during the spring so that we can take the necessary decisions in the autumn,” says Professor Ljunggren.

In this latest initiative, the Board of Research will be advertising funding for posts at three different levels: 4-year research associateships, 2-year “extended research associateships”, and 5-year senior research fellowships. Advertisements will be placed internally and in the international press. Applicants will be assessed on a competitive basis and the most qualified candidates will be offered funding.

Professor Ljunggren hopes that the career ladder will show junior researchers at KI that it is possible to move on and make a career as a research scientist. In that people will also be recruited from outside KI, it is hoped that the initiative will encourage leading researchers from other countries and universities to work at KI.

“We sincerely hope that departments and other strategic research programmes will eventually add new positions to the programme to help it grow bigger than it currently is,” he says.

Text: Karin Söderlund Leifler