organisational developments 22 16
pErSONNEl aNd OrgaNISatION Halfway through the year, there was a change in leadership at the Institute. After six years of dedicated service as Rector of the Institute, Prof. Richard Meganck retired. Prof. András Szöllösi-Nagy succeeded him as Rector. Prior to his appointment at UNESCO-IHE, Prof. Szöllösi-Nagy was Director of the Division of Water, Secretary of the International Hydrological Programme and Deputy DirectorGeneral of the Natural Sciences Sector of UNESCO. In November, Prof. Szöllösi-Nagy presented his Inaugural Address entitled: âLearn from your errors - if you can! Reflections on the value of hydrological forecasting models.â During this special academic session, he was formally installed as the new Rector. On 31 December 2009, staff equalling 157 full-time equivalents (FTE) were employed by UNESCO-IHE, of whom 53% were academic and 47% supporting staff. Sickness levels at the Institute in 2009 were below the national average for most departments, and lower than the previous years. Staff development activities in 2009 included the commencement of the Basic Teacher Qualification (BTQ) training programmes. Six junior and nine senior academic staff members took part in the programme. It is expected that the first staff members will receive their BTQ in 2010. The Institute was involved in the project team âExpatsâ of the Economical Agenda of Delft, instituted by the cityâs Mayor. The project team consists of larger international employers, and advises the city of Delft on measures and investments to take to strengthen the appeal of the city for expats. Policies in the field of employee benefits worked on and developed in 2009 include the commuting policy, the missions abroad policy, incidents response policy, and emeritus and departing staff policies. StUdENt aNd EdUCatIONal affaIrS In October 2009, a new batch of participants in the 18-month Master of Science programme started their studies. The number of new MSc participants was 15% higher than in 2008. The number of non-degree course participants more than doubled as compared to last year. In 2009, the Library started various projects to increase accessibility to its collections. The entire collection of PhD dissertations became electronically available on the Instituteâs open access repository, hosted by the Delft University of Technology Library at http://repository.tudelft.nl/ihe. After an extensive evaluation of available cataloguing software packages, the Library started migrating to new cataloguing software from OCLC, due to be completed in 2010. From then on, the Institute will be able to present its collections to a worldwide audience on the Instituteâs library web pages, and through WorldCat at http://www.worldcat.org. This will increase traffic on the UNESCO-IHE website and promote the UNESCOIHE brand to an international audience of scholars. 23