News archive

The Encephalitis Society is a worldwide international charity with the mission of building better futures by driving research, accelerating awareness, and saving lives. In the latest issue of their newsletter which has been running since 2003, the society has chosen to highlight the research performed in Federico Iovino's group.

Creative ideas were born when the NeurotechEU alliance arranged a hackathon at Karolinska Institutet. “Activities like this highlight the value of having people from other disciplines and countries – and at different stages of their careers – engage in cross-border innovative processes with each other,” says KI president Annika Östman Wernerson.

The SiiUss project (Sustainability, Inclusiveness, Integration for University Support Services), is a collaborative initiative between Karolinska Institutet and the University of the Philippines Diliman. The project introduces the SiiUss course, a learning platform designed to enhance professional development and foster sustainability, inclusiveness, and integration within university support services. The course just started with participants from both universities.

Since attending KI’s capacity-building programme for leaders in women’s and children’s health, Tiwonge Gondwe-Mwangonde has used knowledge gained from the course to reduce the incidence of birth injuries in Malawi. She is now launching a new training programme for the region’s midwives.

Between 13 and 19 March 2023, neuroscientists around the world took the initiative to spread the word about the importance of brain science as part of the "Brain Awareness Week". The Strategic Neuroscience Research Network (StratNeuro) at Karolinska Institutet took the opportunity to initiate a recurring outreach event to spark enthusiasm and raise awareness for neuroscience research, which was also part of the global campaign.

Alone, remotely, in the middle of a pandemic – this is how life in the Brussels office of the University Alliance Stockholm Trio began for the EU veteran Dan Andrée. It went at half-speed at first, but now, two and half years later, the office in the EU’s political cradle is bursting with activities.

As part of the Swedish presidency of the EU's Council of Ministers, the health ministers of EU countries were invited to an informal meeting in Stockholm on the 4th and 5th of May. The meting concerned issues of preparedness and securing access to innovative and established medicines.

Are international field hospitals always needed? And do we always need to send medicines to disaster-stricken areas? These were two myths that Johan von Schreeb discussed in his keynote when EU’s health ministers gathered in Stockholm.

On 21 March 2023, researchers from several universities around the country, the Swedish Agency for Health and Care Services Analysis and Region Jönköping, gathered at Karolinska Institutet in Solna for a symposium on person-centred and integrated care for older people. Moreover, keynote speakers from the UK and Australia set the scene on the topics of person-centred and integrated care.

When Rebecca Furaha was looking for programmes that could help her improve maternity care in Congo-Kinshasa, she found what she was looking for at KI. Now she runs collaborative projects to increase knowledge about sexual and reproductive health among the country’s young people.

On April 26 it has been seven years since Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish citizen who received his PhD in disaster medicine at Karolinska Institutet, was arrested during a visit in Iran. Karolinska Institutet and The Human Rights Committee of Sweden’s Scientific and Literary Academies now urge in an open letter to Sweden’s prime minister, foreign minister and education minister to try all means possible to ensure the release of Djalali.

Readership of news articles written by KI researchers for The Conversation jumped 62 percent on the year in 2022. Since KI became a member two years ago, 43 researchers have penned over 42 articles, reaching around 3.8 million readers worldwide. “I have never experienced such a response to my research before,” says postdoc Filip Gedin.

Karolinska Institutet has been awarded a new EU prize for its long-term commitment to gender equality in higher education. The prize of 100,000 euro is the result of nearly 40 years of sustained activity to advance equal opportunities. The efforts have paid off and now KI is recognized as a role model for equality, a “Gender Equality Champion.”

The regulations for which categories of international students and researchers can be offered accommodation from Swedish universities have recently changed. A new ordinance gives all universities the opportunity to offer housing to selected groups of students and researchers. However, this means that KI does not have the opportunity to offer housing to the same extent as before.

Application is now open for a new global leadership programme; Leadership for Transformative Change. The programme targets leaders from all over the world who are working to contribute to transformative social development in their countries. It is offered by Uppsala University in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Business Sweden, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and SALAR International.

When Harriet Nakigozi heard about the course “Managing innovation for sustainable health”, she was in the middle of her postgraduate studies. Despite that, she applied to join the course. It soon turned out to be the right decision as the two courses supported each other.

When Tewodros Seyoum wanted to improve his competence and leadership skills as a midwife, a KI education was the obvious choice. The training opened the door to a more active leadership style and knowledge that contributes to improving the Ethiopian healthcare system.

Are you interested to know what it's like to study abroad? Then you should check out the Study Abroad blog, where KI students share their lives as exchange students. New Zealand, London, and Spain are some of the places where the current KI students are spending this spring semester.

Dariia Chernovska was following her dream, studying medicine at Bogomolets National Medical University in Kyiv, when Russia invaded Ukraine and she was forced to flee. Now she is carrying out an internship at the department of physiology and pharmacology in Daniel Andersson's lab and has her sights set on studying medicine at Karolinska Institutet in the autumn.

The Swedish presidency of the EU began in the new year and so much is evident, especially when it comes to issues of healthcare. Anna Martling, chief physician and professor of surgery at Karolinska Institutet, will be leading the EU Cancer Congress, which kicks off in Stockholm on 1 February.

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.

The autumn semester of 2022 saw a new cohort of students arriving at KI to study the part of the Erasmus Mundus Master’s programme Public Health in Disasters, which is conducted by the Centre for Research on Health Care in Disasters. One of the students who came to Stockholm is Bahaa, who is really enjoying his time at KI and in Stockholm.

At its meeting of 30 September, the Karolinska Institutet University Board decided that the Ming Wai Lau Centre for Reparative Medicine (MWLC), KI’s research centre in Hong Kong, is to close at the turn of 2023/2024.

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.

Eleven Non-European Master’s students received Karolinska Institutet’s Global Masters scholarship at an annual ceremony in Aula Medica.

During a visit to Sweden this week, WHO Europe’s director Dr Hans Kluge had time for a brief, but cordial, visit to KI. Dr Kluge met with Vice President Anders Gustafsson and the director of the Centre for Health Crises, Professor Johan von Schreeb, along with the centre’s strategic process leader Dr Anna Zorzet. The quartet talked about matters of common interest and about initiatives related to health crises in particular.

Anneli Eriksson, research specialist at the Centre for Research on Health Care in Disasters and a specialised nurse with extensive field experience, was on her way to Spain when she turned on her heel and instead headed straight to Uganda, to work in a coordinator role for Médecins sans frontières (MSF) Sweden in their efforts to assist in the current and ongoing Ebola outbreak in the country.

EU-OPENSCREEN is a European network that provides infrastructure for high-capacity screening in chemical biology and early identification of drug candidates. As of July 2022, Sweden is represented in the network, through the Chemical Biology Consortium Sweden (CBCS) at Karolinska Institutet, one of two selected Swedish nodes.

Karolinska Institutet has signed a collaboration agreement with the European research infrastructure EBRAINS, which offers digital tools and services for research into the brain. The purpose of this agreement is to give KI's researchers access to new digital technology and state-of-the-art resources, as well as the opportunity to contribute to the further development of the area of neuroscience within the EU.

On 18-20 May 18 2022 we were excited to finally host the annual StratNeuro retreat at Runö in Åkersberga. This year's retreat was somewhat special. Many were eager to meet again, and the organisers worked hard to make this meeting a productive and memorable one.

Several co-workers from ARC attended the 26th Nordic Congress of Gerontology (26NKG), which took place on 8-10 June in Odense, Denmark. The theme for this year's congress was "Change& Continuity", and ARC contributed with 12 presentations, 7 posters, and with The National E-infrastructure for Aging Research (NEAR) as a sponsor.

One of KI’s largest international collaborations is with Makerere University in Uganda. In time for Makerere’s 100th anniversary, the partnership is to manifest itself in a Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health. A delegation from KI travelled in May to Uganda to cement the relationship.

The conferment ceremony in Stockholm City Hall on 29 April celebrated Karolinska Institutet’s new doctors of medicine and honorary doctors HRH Prince Daniel, Dr Soumya Swaminathan and Professor Shinhiro Takeda. The ceremony was attended by HRH Crown Princess Victoria, the municipal council chairperson and the Indian and Japanese ambassadors, along with the proud supervisors and families of the new PhDs. The ceremony was infused with the importance of working together towards better health for al

In May, KI held a seminar on academic freedom and international collaborations. The event explored the question of how research is impacted by a world that is characterized by war, conflict and democratic decline. It is not enough to develop new guidelines; actions need to be based on personal responsibility, says KI President Ole Petter Ottersen.

Are you going to study abroad this autumn? We are looking for new students who will go on an exchange semester during the autumn of 2022 and want to blog for KI about their exchange to inspire more students to do the same.

KI has been approved continued funding from the Swedish Institute (SI) to implement two capacity building training programmes for professionals in Sub-Saharan Africa. The programmes, which have been running since 2020, will be offered online during 2022 - 2023.

Six people, members of staff or affiliated, from KI went to Moldova on short notice to support the healthcare system there by conducting mass casualty exercises and training in triage and treatment of war wounds. The work was done through KI’s Centre for Health Crises, on a request from the WHO.

The Centre for Health Crises at Karolinska Institutet is now a member of the WHO’s network GOARN – Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network. Via the network, the Centre for Health Crises can contribute with staff and resources to health emergencies and crises around the world.

Allan Bakesiga and Linda Atulinda are medical students at Makerere University in Uganda. They are currently doing an exchange at Karolinska Institutet through a collaboration between the two universities. It is one of the most comprehensive international collaborations at KI which has enabled students, researchers, and professors to do exchanges both ways for many years.

Several researchers at KI have offered to host Ukrainian colleagues. Initiatives have been launched through, among others, the organisation EMBO, which supports research and researchers in the field of life science.

His excellency the Ambassador of Japan to Sweden, Masaki Noke, visited KI on 24th November, 2022, to explore the institution and world leading research ongoing at KI.

The EU-funded research network Vaccelerate has now opened a European volunteer-registry of study participants for research on COVID-19 vaccines. The aim of this initiative is to boost the capacity for clinical studies on COVID-19 vaccines in the EU, but also to support vaccine research in future pandemics.

KI researcher Lu Yi has been awarded 1.5 million euros from the prestigious European Research Council Starting Grants. The funds will go toward research on different subtypes of depression with the goal of finding treatments that work for more people.

Three research group leaders at Karolinska Institutet receive European Research Council Proof of Concept (ERC PoC) 2022 grants, which are awarded to researchers who already have funding from the ERC and now wish to develop the innovative potential of their discoveries. Projects funded at KI include working towards commercialisation of a new sequencing method and scaling up production of artificial spider-silk textiles.

A digital 1-day meeting attended by 300 participants brought neuroscience researchers from across Europe together to reflect on both progress to date and plans for the future for the collaborative European University Initiative (EUI) focusing on neurochallenges. Karolinska Institutet is one of eight original parnters.

KI researcher Marcus Buggert has been awarded the prestigious ERC Starting Grant for his research on human cell-mediated immunity against virus diseases. In all, the European Research Council through this call will invest EUR 619 million in 397 young research leaders.

In January, Karolinska Institutet will become a member of the international news platform The Conversation. This will provide another platform for our researchers to bring their knowledge to the general public. The initiative is part of the Communications and Public Relations Office’s commitment to Strategy 2030 and includes helping researchers to write popular science articles in English. 

On November 24, H.M. Queen Letizia of Spain, H.M. Queen Silvia and H.R.H. Crown Princess Victoria Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital.

Karolinska Institutet and long-standing partner, Makerere University, have intensified their joint efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda. In partnership with several academic institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as with Tinkr, a company specializing in innovation, they have co-created and started delivering on capacity building projects for health professionals to achieve the 2030 Agenda.

Recently, the 27th Annual Research Meeting was held within the collaboration between Karolinska Institutet and Mayo Clinic.