Travel Approval
Comment - I checked with NYU, Stanford, ETH, and Oxford - none of these universities require approvals for travel abroad. Those who wish to ensure they have the funds for travel can do so, while others may take the risk. The faculty member is responsible for finding a substitute in case they miss a class, and there are rules regarding how many classes can be missed in a year.
Proposal: to eliminate the need for the dean's approval for faculty travel.
Answer - Public institutions of higher education in Israel, funded by public funds, operate under governmental regulations and are subject to scrutiny and supervision by the Ministry of Finance and tax authorities. The travel approval process includes the dean's approval (required for faculty management and teaching task planning), deputy EVPAA approval (academic approval), and budget approval. All three approval stages are important.
Travel Form for Postdoctoral Fellows
Comment - Currently, there is no digital travel form available on the portal for postdoctoral fellows. They submit their requests in writing, with no way to track the status of their request, approvals, etc. Such a form though already exists for teaching fellows. Why not adapt it for postdoctoral fellows, granting them access and the ability to track it through various stages?
Answer - The postdoctoral fellows at the Technion do not receive SAP licenses due to the associated costs and the high dynamics of this sector. Consideration is currently being given to defining a portal form that would be filled out by departmental coordinators, based on the manual form (as currently done for teaching fellows travels). This entails a significant administrative burden, and it is uncertain whether the benefit of this solution (ability to track the form) outweighs its drawbacks (administrative load).
Short-Term Visiting Scholars Requests
Comment - Requests for short-term visiting scholars undergo a lengthy approval process that extends up to the dean. It is proposed to eliminate the need for the dean's approval. Alternatively, the requirement for orderly reporting could eliminate the need for approval.
Answer - Following the comment, the Office for Academic Staff reviewed the approval chain for these requests. The approval chain in the faculty includes the following parties: the staff coordinator, the head of administration, and the dean. We intend to make the approvals of the head of administration and the dean optional, to be activated only if the faculty chooses. This way, a faculty could suffice with approval from the staff coordinator and streamline the approval process. Faculties may need to update their working procedures to accommodate this change. Adopting the change will be at the discretion of each department.
Registration and Approval of Postdoctoral Fellows and Data Accessibility
Comment - The process is manual and not computerized. There is no way to know where things stand. Generally, handling postdocs' issues (such as travel, salary, etc.) is manual and not transparent to the postdoc, supervisor, or department. It is proposed to include postdocs in a computerized system of any kind, with their information being transparent and accessible.
Proposal: computing all postdoctoral data including new entries, travels, extensions of appointments, and completion of fellowship.
Answer - Following the comment, the Office for Academic Staff began characterizing computerized intake forms for postdoctoral fellows and is establishing a computerized system for form completion. Expected completion and activation: September 2024. Upon intake, postdoctoral data will be entered into the SAP system and accessible to the department. This data includes start and end dates (including extensions).
Promotion Committees
Comment - Faculty members undergo too many committees that review their cases.
Proposal: abolish the Senate Preparatory Committee. The Department Preparatory Committee will decide whether to refer cases directly to a professional committee. From there, it will proceed directly to the Standing Committee for Appointment and Promotion of Academic Staff.
Answer - The Senate Preparatory Committee plays a crucial role in the thorough review of cases before the Standing Committee. Its role is defined in academic regulations, and it operates accordingly. Thanks to the Senate Preparatory Committee's work, the Standing Committee receives well-prepared case files, preventing delays. In our estimation, abolishing the Senate Preparatory Committee not only compromises the quality of the files but also greatly burdens the Standing Committee, leading to prolonged processes rather than shortening them.
Duration of Promotion Processes
Comment - Promotion processes for faculty members take a very long time, often spanning months and sometimes more than a year.
Proposed Solution:
- Define a timeline for the promotion process and its various stages, and schedule the relevant committee meetings at a reasonable pace.
- Create transparency by providing updates on the candidates' progress at each stage of the process in real-time.
- Transparency and feedback at each stage, with a summary of discussions, even when the outcomes are positive.
- Define the effective date of promotion retrospectively from the start of the promotion process rather than at its conclusion, and update salary accordingly, as done in other universities.
Answer - The handling of promotion cases includes two (2) main stages: within the department: from the initiation of procedures to file submission and within the Office for Academic Staff: from file submission to completion of the process.
Flowcharts of academic processes can be found on the Academic Staff Office website.
Analysis of promotion and tenure timelines from the Academic Staff Office database reveals that department processes typically take about five (5) months, while the duration in the Academic Staff Office varies based on case complexity and preparation quality, with an average processing time of three (3) months. Handling times in the Academic Staff Office were shortened in recent years and are currently considered relatively fast.
- Technion promotion committees meet every week, and operate under significant workloads but efficiently. Reducing academic staff office handling time significantly without compromising committee work quality is challenging. It may be beneficial to engage certain departments in optimizing their stages, although the bottleneck of recommendation letters remains outside their complete control.
- At each stage in the Academic Staff Office process, the dean receives immediate written and oral updates. Updating the candidate is the Dean’s responsibility.
- We are working towards increasing transparency by direct feedback to those interested, at the end of the process.
- When a promotion decision takes effect, the rank is updated in the computer systems at the beginning of the academic year in which the decision was made, and salary adjustments are made accordingly. This practice is implemented by the agreement with the Technion Faculty Association.
Forms and Information in English
Comment - The Technion is increasingly welcoming non-Hebrew speakers, such as faculty members, advanced degree students, research fellows, long-term visitors, and postdoctoral researchers. Much of the information is not available in English, requiring significant time for translations by administrative staff.
Proposal: provide materials and forms in English. It is unacceptable that some insurance forms do not exist in English. At the very least, a translation should be provided to help fill out the Hebrew form.
Answer - Following this comment, the insurance form was translated into English. It should be emphasized that the English version is intended for assistance only, and signatures will still be required on the form in Hebrew, according to the insurance company's requirements. Other documents and forms are already translated into English and accessible on the Academic Staff Office website. https://segelweb.technion.ac.il/en/
Research Fellow Track for Non-PI Researchers
Comment - There is no satisfactory solution for scientists who do not wish to become PIs (Principal Investigators) but still want to pursue a scientific career with a reasonable salary.
Proposal: adopt the research fellow model from the Weizmann Institute.
Answer - At the Technion there is a research fellows track on a part-time basis for industry researchers, which has recently been expanded to include outstanding researchers who are not PIs under the VATAT open call. Additionally, the Technion Research & Development Foundation employs full-time researchers, who are not PIs according to the accepted salary standards.