News archive

At its meeting of 22 June, the government made the decision to stop all grants disbursed by the Swedish Research Council itemised as development research, effectively pulling the plug on a great deal of planned research in the field. Researchers in the sector have protested publicly against the decision, which has also been condemned by KI president Annika Östman Wernerson.

Five researchers at Karolinska Institutet are awarded 30 million Swedish kronor from the Swedish Research Council (VR) to establish a so-called centre of excellence for further development of cell-based cancer treatments. The funds will be distributed over five years, with the potential for another five years of funding after evaluation.

Forte is allocating SEK 160 million to research on the health and well-being of older people. The funds are divided into three programme grants and 19 project grants and the research will begin in 2023 and continue until 2029. Two researchers at the Aging Research Center (ARC), Karolinska Institutet, have been granted funding for their important research within the ageing research area.

The Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte) is allocating over SEK 91 million to KI research on elderly wellbeing and future working life. One of the researchers, who is to receive SEK 24 million, is Associate Professor Carin Håkansta at Karolinska Institutet and Karlstad University, who will be examining how the working environment is affected when some managerial tasks are taken over by algorithms.

The European University of Brain and Technology, NeurotechEU, of which Karolinska Institutet is one of nine partners, is pleased to announce the availability of ten competitive funds for short-term travel for faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows, students and/or trainees between the partner institutions to plan or conduct collaborative projects.

Professor Magnus Ingelman-Sundberg has been awarded an ERC Proof of Concept Grant, which is aimed at researchers who have previously been funded by the European Research Council and now want to explore the innovation potential of their previous project. The grant will be used to further develop a hepatic model for liver disease and identify potential new drugs and drug targets.

The StratNeuro Start-up Grant is intended to support outstanding Neuroscience researchers at the beginning of their careers, who have received a Vetenskapsrådet (VR) starting grant or a Karolinska Institutet faculty-funded assistant professor grant.

Three professors at Karolinska Institutet – Gonçalo Castelo-Branco, Maria Eriksson and Björn Högberg – have been awarded ERC Advanced Grants, one of the most prestigious and competitive EU funding schemes. The funds, totaling more than 8 million euros, will support the use of innovative basic research methods to further our understanding of disease mechanisms and the tiniest building blocks of DNA.

Thirteen researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been awarded 54.9 million Swedish kronor from the Swedish Cancer Society. The foundation is distributing a total of SEK 124.3 million to 31 cancer researchers in Sweden.

Eighteen kidney researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been allocated grants totaling 3.2 million Swedish kronor from the Swedish Kidney Foundation, an announcement made in connection with World Kidney Day on March 9.

Several KI researchers are part of an international project that has been awarded nearly $15 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with $1 million co-funding from the Swedish government. The project involves a multi-country study to better understand the burden of Human papillomavirus (HPV) among girls and women in low and lower middle-income countries.

Mats Hallgren receives a grant of 3 930 000 SEK for the project “Post covid-19 as a threat to healthy ageing: a randomized controlled trial of yoga to improve quality of life”.

KI Professor Rickard Sandberg has been awarded the Torsten Söderberg Academy Professorship in Medicine by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, a donation of 10 million Swedish kronor for a five-year period. Rickard Sandberg has developed methods that make it possible to deeply penetrate the human genome by studying genes in individual cells.

Zarina Kabir, docent at the Division of Nursing, has been awarded 4 250 000 SEK from Forte for the project "m-Health based intervention by community workers to support family caregivers to persons with dementia living at home".

Jenny Mjösberg, Professor of Tissue Immunology at Karolinska Institutet, is one of five researchers to be awarded the Göran Gustafsson Prize this year. The prize is intended for young researchers in medicine, molecular biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics and is awarded by the Göran Gustafsson Foundations in collaboration with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

A team of researchers at Karolinska Institutet, SciLifeLab and Karolinska University Hospital will receive a total of 14.7 million Swedish kronor from the Swedish Research Council (VR). The four-year grant is part of the council’s push to increase accessibility to research infrastructure and will involve making available new technologies for clinical studies in precision medicine.

StratNeuro announces grants for Collaborative Neuroscience Research Projects.

The StratNeuro Visiting Scholars funding aims to attract outstanding scholars from non-Swedish universities for short-term visits (1-6 months long). This call aims to support new international collaborations and scientific exchange within the Karolinska Institutet Neuroscience community. We encourage applications for Visiting Scholars from our NeurotechEU partner universities. For the Visiting Scholar this is an opportunity to engage with neuroscientists at the Karolinska Institutet.

Professor Molly Stevens at Karolinska Institutet and Imperial College London has been awarded the 2023 Novo Nordisk Prize for her pioneering work in innovative bioengineering approaches. One of her goals is to democratise access to healthcare using nanotechnologies.

The StratNeuro Bridging Grant at the consolidator level is a funding initiative where StratNeuro awards outstanding researchers in the field of neuroscience at Karolinsk Institutet, who have not been awarded the KI consolidator grant or equivalent, giving them the opportunity to consolidate their research.

Two KI researchers – Simon Elsässer and Magda Bienko – have been awarded 2022 European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grants totaling four million euro (nearly 45 million Swedish kronor). The funds will support two ambitious basic research projects that aim to further our understanding of the complex nature of our cells.

Congratulations to Professor Marie Löf at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition who has received MSEK 4.9 from the Kamprad Family Foundation for Entrepreneurship, Research & Charity. Her research project is on "Promoting positive mental health during pregnancy with a digital tool (HealthyMoms4MentalHealth-app): Effectiveness and implementation in maternity health care".

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, the Centre for Imaging Research (CIR), SciLifeLab, and RISE have together received a grant of over SEK 100 million from the European Commission's Digital Europe programme. The project, called TEF-Health, will, among other things, promote the rapid introduction of new artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics solutions in healthcare.

Professor Nils-Göran Larsson, Roberta Filograna, Joanna Rorbach, and Annika Krüger at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics have recently been awarded research grants and fellowships for their research with the Division of molecular metabolism.

The Cancer and Allergy Fund has awarded a grant of SEK 4.2 million to 23 patient-end projects on cancer and allergies. Of these, fifteen researchers at nine departments at Karolinska Institutet are to share SEK 2.5 million.

In its recent call, the Swedish Research Council has awarded in excess of SEK 19 million for six projects at KI. The project receiving the largest grant aims to study the long-term impact of the pandemic on the lifestyle and health of young adults.

In this year's announcement of project grants from Radiumhemmets Forskningsfonder, OnkPat received a total of 33 million SEK. 32 researchers were granted funding.

Debora Rizzuto, principal researcher and research group leader at the Aging Research Center (ARC), Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society at Karolinska Institutet, has received a project grant for a project entitled "SoundMIND – effects of noise on cognition and mental health", from Forte.

Seven researchers at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics have been granted project funds from the Swedish Research Council. Together the department receives SEK 43.6 million.

On November 9, 2022, the Committee for Research at Karolinska Institutet decided on the allocation of funding for positions as Assistant Professor, Senior Research Specialist/Principal Researcher and Consolidator grants for researchers already employed by KI. One researcher at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition received funding as Senior Research Specialist.

David Marlevi, Enric Llorens and Onur Dagliyan have been awarded the 2022 ERC Starting Grant. Their projects concern multiscale imaging for cardiovascular diseases, self-repairing injured tissues in mammals and new molecular technology for cellular circuits.

Erica Zeglio, Hongji Yan, Onur Parlak and Anna Herland, researchers at the research center AIMES, Center for the Advancement of Integrated Medical and Engineering Sciences at Karolinska Institutet, are all awarded grants from The Swedish Research Council 2022.

The Swedish Research Council has awarded Georgios Belibasakis a grant on 2,4 MSEK from 2023 to 2025.

In the latest calls from the Swedish Research Council, researchers at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition were awarded grants for the years 2023-2026.

We wish to congratulate the grantees!

Congratulations to all the researchers at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition (BioNut) who received funding from Cancerfonden for the years 2023-2025.

The StratNeuro Bridging Grant at the consolidator level is a funding initiative where StratNeuro awards up to two consolidator level grants to support outstanding researchers in the field of neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet.

In the Swedish Cancer Society's latest call, research grants were awarded to seven researchers at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery. The grant refers to the period 2023-2025. Congratulations to:

In the Swedish Research Council's latest call, SEK 91 558 000 was awarded to 15 researchers at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH) for the years 2022–2027. Congratulations to:

Harmful use of, for example, alcohol and drugs in working life can lead to fatigue, increased sick leave and reduced productivity. Eight research projects are now being awarded a total of SEK 30 million by Afa Försäkring in a research programme aimed at reducing sick leave due to the harmful use of alcohol and/or drugs. Four of the researchers are from Karolinska Institutet (KI).

Ingrid Ekström, postdoctoral researcher at the Aging Research Center (ARC) at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet, has received project support for research in the humanities and social sciences from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.

Nine NVS researchers receive funding in the latest announcement in medicine and health from the Swedish Research Council.

In the Swedish Research Council's latest calls, SEK 625,904,933 was awarded to 143 KI researchers. In total, the Swedish Research Council grants just over SEK 1.2 billion for the years 2022–2027.

Professor Staffan Strömblad at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet, has received a grant from World Wide Cancer Research for a project on: "How may mechanotransduction prevent cancer?".

The LEO fundation has awarded Professor Rikard Holmdahl DKK 3.6 million for research on psoriasis and psoriasis arthritis.

Christer Halldin, Professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet, and his team have been awarded a grant of approximately 860,000 US dollars for a project up to three years, from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF).

With new digital tools in healthcare, researchers at Karolinska Institutet, with collaborators, are hoping to prevent cases of rheumatoid arthritis. They recently collected a total of 3.5 million euro (around 38 million Swedish kronor) for the so-called DigiPrevent project, most of which comes from EIT Health, a network established by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet Qiaolin Deng and Georgios Sotiriou receive the KI Research Incubator (KIRI) Fellow postdoc grant 2022. The KIRI Fellow grant finances a postdoc for a collaborative interdisciplinary project. The awarded project aims to expand the use of tailored nanoparticles as drug carriers to deliver them to a dysfunctional placenta providing treatments to improve the child’s metabolic health.

A total of eight research projects share close to SEK 50 million in the call “Lise Meitner Grants for Israeli-Swedish Research Collaboration”, a collaboration between the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, SSF, and the Israelian Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology, MOST. Two of the research projects are being conducted at Karolinska Institutet.

Through the Horizon Europe programme, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been granted large financial grants for approximately 20 different projects aimed at solving various societal challenges in health. One of the projects will explore the possibility of creating a common system for the reuse of already approved medicines to treat various diseases.

Four research projects coordinated from Karolinska Institutet have been awarded project grants by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW) in 2022. This means that, over SEK 135 million are allocated to KI research in the fields of immunology, neuroscience, and stem cell biology.