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Our Faculty – an Environmental Trail Blazer

In April 2016, the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences was certified as a “Miljøfyrtårn” (“Environmental Beacon”). The certification includes the departments, centers and the faculty administration. The certification was part of the fact that the University of Bergen, as the first of the major university in Norway, now became a “Miljøfyrtårn”.

Being an “Miljøfyrtårn” involves systematic work on environmental measures in everyday life. The organization must meet requirements and implement measures for a more environmentally friendly operation and a healthy working environment. To be certified as a “Miljøfyrtårn”, the faculty must meet a number of requirements within systematic HSE as well as requirements for waste, procurement, transport and energy. And all these requirements must be documented. We must also meet all the requirements necessary for a good HSE system. Being a “Miljøfyrtårn” commits us as an institution and as individual employees to make environmentally conscious choices in everyday life.

BTO-day today

After a few months with less regular interaction, we are reviving the pattern of BTO presence at the Dept of Chemistry on the first Tuesday of the month, from 12 o’clock and on. Victoria and Maja are to be found in the administration section, or possibly knocking on your door. You are more than welcome to make contact to either of them, to discuss your ongoing BTO issues or to air an idea!

Brannalarm 12.10.2018 – øvelse

Brannalarmen i dag var en øvelse The fire alarm this morning was a fire drill.

Når brannalarmen går:

1. Ta med deg verdisaker og gå til nærmeste utgang
2. Trekk raskt bort fra utgangen slik at alle kommer ut
3. Gå til samlingsplassen i sør , mellom Realfagbygget og Fysikkbygget
4. På grunn av  laboratorier i Realfagbygget er det økt brann- og eksplosjonsfare, gå derfor til samlingsplassen

Les oppslag i auditoriene for å bli kjent med rømningsveier og oppmøteplass ved evaluering av bygget.

When the fire alarm sounds:

1. Take your valuables and go to the nearest exit
2. Move quickly away from the door so it dosen’t get blocked
3. Go to the assigned Meeting Place in south ,  between the Science Building and the Physics Building
4. Realfagbygget contains laboratories which gives the building increased fire- and explosion danger, it is therefore important that you go to the assigned meeting place.

Brannalarm og evakuering 12.10.2018

Dagens brannalarm og evakuering kl 0900 var en av årets to pålagte øvelser i regi av eiendomsavdelingen.

Husk at når alarmen går, er det rake veien ut som gjelder. For de fleste ved instituttet vil det si utgangen mot nord i første etasje. Der har vi og en mellombels samlingsplass.

Aiming for new infrastructure

Oct 10 is the Norwegian research council’s application deadline for national research infrastructure platforms. Only the 165 project leaders who submitted a first-stage sketch are eligible for applying. The 165 budgets sum up to 9,5 billion kroner, while the government plans to spend 600-800 million kroner. The sketches have now been published and the important process can begin of modifying, combining, and in some cases, abandoning, projects may begin.

Our department is coordinating two proposals: High-Throughput Experimentation Facility for Parallel Synthesis, and Reaction Screening and Optimisation (contact person: Giovanni) and X-ray Diffraction Instrumentation for Biostructures, Catalytic Chemistry and Functional Materials (contact person: Karl W.). We are strongly involved in the proposed National Mass Spectrometry facility for Metal Complexes, Clusters and Nanoparticles (MS-MCCN) (coordinated UiO), National Platform for NanoSafety,  and Lipidomics and Energy Metabolism Platform (both coordinated by the medical faculty, UiB).

We are hosting the NNP (National NMR platform), and experience from both the application process and the startup  will prove invaluable in the work that lies ahead.

Encouraging publication statistics for 2017

Publication statistics for 2017 has been released by the library (Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen, 2018, Publiseringsstatistikk for UiB), and the results are quite encouraging for our department. While keeping the San Fransisco declaration in mind, one is allowed to point out that we are bouncing back to one-third of our publications appearing in level-II journals, which is also the faculty average. This means breaking a three-year slide that reached a low 16% last year. The same can be said for the number of scientific papers published and also the publication points earned (62, 55 and 72 for 2015-2017). We still have a way to go, though, with 1.2 publication points per employee engaged in research (aka UFF), compared to the faculty average of 1.7 pp/UFF.