News archive

We are now making an important change in how we allocate our government research funding. The new model aims to strengthen the university's future and ensure that resources are used where they are most beneficial.

The summer offers a valuable opportunity for recuperation – without which it is a struggle to take on the challenges of the autumn with a sharp, engaged mind. I spent the holidays with family and friends in the Stockholm archipelago and in the Jämtland fells. Hiking and sitting down for a coffee on a sun-warmed rock provides time for reflection and re-energising ahead of a new term at Karolinska Institutet.

We’re heading towards the holidays with sure signs of summer: expectation and pride at the degree ceremonies in Aula Medica, blossoming elderflower on campus and the forthcoming political week in Almedalen.

A day does not go by now without a report on the severe suffering that Israeli military strikes are causing the civilian population of Gaza. The situation is worsening by the day, as we witness the blatant and repeated abuse of international law and of the Gazans’ right to security and functioning schools, hospitals and workplaces.

When Martin Bergö and I entered office as, respectively, vice-president and president just over two years ago, we also entered an extensive dialogue with all the different parts of KI. This was a conscious strategy that gave rise, in part, to several focus areas for strengthening KI through the establishment of sustainable structures, greater collaboration, clarity and transparency.

Karolinska University Hospital has recently adopted a new RDE (research, development and education) strategy. The strategy is now firmly anchored with Karolinska Institutet. For us, collaboration with Region Stockholm is a priority – strong regional collaboration and partnerships with the private sector are essential if Sweden is to reinforce its international position in medical research and development.

The conditions under which research and education collaborations with the USA operate are in danger of being undermined by decisions announced by the country’s recently instated president. Here, Karolinska Institutet’s president Annika Östman Wernerson comments on the situation and talks about what KI can do to prepare for any changes that might come.

As always at this time of the year, KI submits its annual report and budgetary data to the government. Our university is currently enjoying an upward trend, and this is something we can feel really proud about. As one of Europe’s leading medical universities and one of the foremost in the world, we are able to attract serious research grants, top-tier researchers and highly qualified students.

What I most look forward to now, in the early days of the spring term, is the receding darkness and getting to meet all of you under various circumstances. Only last week, for instance, I and my colleagues in the university management had the privilege of meeting around fifty of our colleagues on Campus Flemingsberg in an open dialogue meeting, just like the one we held on the Solna campus just before Christmas.

As the year comes to a close and we look forward to a well-deserved holiday, let me, Vice-President Martin Bergö and University Director Veronika Sundström, share some of the highlights of the past couple of months

Vice-president Martin Bergö, University Director Veronika Sundström and I want to meet you in our open dialogue meetings in December. These meetings are important sources of perspective, knowledge and insight concerning pressing issues facing KI, such as how we can work even better together as a university and equip ourselves for a constantly changing world.

This year, Karolinska Institutet celebrates 25 years of support for visiting researchers and overseas doctoral students. Sharing knowledge and experience leads to innovation and progress, which is why we cannot do without our international collaborations. There are many support functions in place for our visiting researchers and overseas doctoral students, all to ensure their reception is as good as we can make it.

Sweet September has arrived, bringing some good news and some wait-and-sees. After the government presented its budget for 2025 on 19 September, it’s still not clear what kind of resources will be available for higher education.

Welcome to the 2024 autumn term! The new term officially kicks off on 2 September and I look forward very much to seeing all our students back on campus.

This spring, we embarked on an important and comprehensive change process to optimise our internal resources and to create even better conditions for our core activities and departments. This work is now entering a more concrete phase.

As Israel continues its military campaign in Gaza, students in Sweden and around the world have been staging protests on their university campuses, calling for all ties with Israeli universities to be severed. KI itself has seen smaller, peaceful demonstrations in which individual students have protested against Israel’s actions.

Last Friday, 12 April, the internal investigators looking into the freezer malfunction that occurred in the Neo building over the 2023 Christmas break presented their report. The researchers and personnel most affected were invited to a staff meeting where, among others, Dean of KI South Matti Sällberg and Chief Security Officer Magnus Håkansson, who led the investigation, gave an account of their findings.

The internal team investigating the freezer malfunction in Neo is entering the final phase of compiling its incident report. The report has taken time in order for it to be as complete as possible, as all aspects of the malfunction, from organisational causes to the technical failure, need to be included. The report must be ready by 27 March as IVO (amongst others) has issued a request to receive it. [Following the publication of this text, the finalisation of the report has been postponed.]

January is already turning into February, but I’d still like to take this opportunity to welcome everyone back to a new year at KI! 2024 began with our first departmental meetings with the departments of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics (LIME) and the department of Clinical Sciences, Danderyd Hospital (KI DS) on 17 January.

As the year draws to a close, I would like to join Vice President Martin Bergö and University Director Veronika Sundström in taking this opportunity to thank all our staff and students for the important work you have done in 2023.

The Ministry of Education and Research has recently tasked Bertil Lindahl with producing source material for a renegotiation of the national ALF agreement (ref. no U2022/02845). The ALF is a national agreement entered into between the government and certain regions on collaboration on medical education, clinical research and healthcare development.

KI’s residential management conference in October among deans, heads of department, administrative managers, academic vice presidents and heads of office proved as conducive to healthy debate as it was to pleasant socialising. Our discussions were based on the nine focus areas that have crystallised out of our dialogue with students, staff and managers about what KI needs to focus on in order to attain the goals and vision set out in Strategy 2030.

Last Wednesday (11 October), the Research Funding Commission presented its report to Minister of Education Mats Persson. Its findings are likely to inform a forthcoming bill reflecting the government’s research and innovation policy.

We’re now a few weeks into the term, and our students - both freshers and those who have returned after the summer break – have been welcomed to Karolinska Institutet. We were once all at the start of our student careers – we need to remember this, to inspire the coming generation and include them in an enjoyable student life.

Welcome to a new academic year! Even though many of you have already returned to work after the summer break, it’s certainly when students start returning to our campuses that Karolinska Institutet becomes the gloriously vibrant place that a university is meant to be.

I trust that many of you are already heading off on a nice, relaxing holiday and I too will soon be taking a few weeks’ break. But the spring term is an intense one even up to the last minute, and there are a few events and impressions I like to share before sun and sea take over.

The time for a welcome and well-deserved summer break is quickly approaching. It’s a welcome period of recuperation and relaxation, and I myself will be spending it with my family at home and in the Stockholm archipelago, which offers the time and space I need to relax and think creatively.

Together – and with our partners around the world – we perceive the issues that enable KI as a university to generate the most effective societal benefit in everything we do. We cannot contribute in this way alone, we the university management are now inviting all KI staff to dialogue meetings.