News archive

No rest, no creativity! Now as I welcome you back from your holidays, I hope that you’ve had a summer of recuperation and stimulation, and perhaps had some fresh insights or met interesting new people.

The KI Faculty Board and I have now decided on the first allocation of KI’s research grants for 2027, which is to say the basic and performance-based aspects. I would like to stress that it’s highly likely that additional funds will be allocated to the basic and/or performance based parts of the model at a later date. 

A university is both a place of study and a workplace where students and staff can thrive and develop. At the heart of a university is the idea that it is a place for curiosity, creativity and a strong spirit of collaboration. The staff survey recently conducted shows overall positive results, and in some areas even very positive ones.

Since 2014, the advisory board for culture at Karolinska Institutet has served as an advisory body to the university president. The members of the advisory board have managed, developed and brought to life the place of culture at KI – highlighting what unites science with artistic expressions such as art, music, dance and literature.

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.

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.

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.

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.