News archive

The end of August and the beginning of September marks the start of the academic year and Karolinska Institute’s (KI) campuses are once again filled with students. KI welcomed more than 2,000 new students to the undergraduate and global master's programmes starting this autumn semester 2023. This year, the new students were not only welcomed during the welcome days in Aula Medica as the introduction programme for new students has been extend.

KI’s only Erasmus Mundus Master programme, the Master programme Public Health in Disasters, will continue, following a renewed agreement between the three collaborating partners; KI, Universidad de Oviedo and the University of Nicosia. Course leaders look forward to continuing to provide students with the latest tools to work with public health in disasters and advance research in the field. And the new format of the programme allows for all students to come to KI.

On 17 August the Swedish Security Service raised the terrorist threat level from 3 (elevated) to 4 (high) on a five-point scale on account of the increased threat of terrorism in the country. The Security Service believes that the threat will remain for the foreseeable future, and has raised the level as a signal to all public bodies that they must continue their efforts to reduce the risk of an attack.

KI is working on developing a university wide language policy and we are looking for people who want to be part of a reference 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.

KI is invited by the National Research Foundation (NRF) in Singapore to nominate participants to the Global Young Scientists Summit in Singapore 8 – 12 January 2024.

Graduation time at Karolinska Institutet. At KI, more than a thousand students graduate this summer. We asked some of them what they are going to do after graduation and, of course, asked them to share some of their favourite memories from their time as a KI-student.

We would like to remind you never to leave your belongings out of sight.

Terese Stenfors and Lena Engqvist Boman are awarded the 2023 prize in recognition of their many years of contribution to excellent educational leadership in KI's educational activities. The prize will be officially awarded at KI’s installation ceremony, which is to be held in Aula Medica in October 2023.

Movement and physical activity were in focus when the KI Impact Challenge event was arranged for the first time after the pandemic. About 45 students from Karolinska Institutet were tasked to come up with what is needed to make young people become more physically active. To help them, they had 30 high school students and the various steps in design thinking, a systematic problem-solving method.

350 cardamom buns awaited KI’s students as they gathered for a coffee and chat with the new president Annika Östman Wernerson, who had arranged the informal meeting with the student unions to encourage a closer dialogue with the university management.

KI bachelor, master’s and doctoral students of KI within the fields of biomedicine and life sciences are invited to apply to the 6th International BonnBrain³ Conference hosted by the University of Bonn with the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behavior – caesar.

Karolinska Institutets former President Ole Petter Ottersen has received two nice recognitions: the 2023 Friend of Stockholm's students award from the Stockholm Federation of Student Unions (SSCO) and the "Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star" from the Japanese government. Sten Lindahl, former professor at Karolinska Institutet, is also recognized with the Japanese order in the class "Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon."

Same support, different name. The Student Health Centre at Karolinska Institutet has been renamed Student Wellbeing Centre to better reflect the services they provide.

Congratulations to all our newly admitted master students at KI.

On 1 April, a coordinated exam service will be introduced at KI, which means changed routines for how you as a student register for written examinations on-site. It applies to all examinations given from 1 April onwards. This means that the new routines come into effect from mid-March.

A new routine is also introduced on how you get your placement in the examination room.

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.

The earthquake in Turkey and Syria has left many thousands dead and injured, and caused widespread devastation. Relatives, colleagues and friends elsewhere are also greatly affected.

A new semester means new plans for the student unions at Karolinska Institutet. The focus will, among other things, be to renovate the premises, expand the introduction weeks, and continue their work to make members feel at home.

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.

Minister for Education Mats Persson met researchers and students when he visited Karolinska Institutet on 1 February. Topics of discussion with the students included the conditions relating to clinical placements, student funding rules and the situation for overseas students and doctoral students. The researchers, for their part, talked about the progress being made in areas such as precision medicine and about KI’s preparedness for new health crises.

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.

On January 26th, the Centre for Health Crises welcomed a distinguished panel of both national and international researchers and civil servants to the second KI Contributes seminar. The seminar featured short presentations and discussions around the complex issue of extreme heat, with a focus on how to shape and evaluate heat adaptation plans.

Memories to cherish, new friends, and a fantastic experience. Aurora Hirvonen and Lorete Krasniqi are two KI students who went on exchange during their studies at KI. Their description of their respective exchange experience is inspiring and also award-winning. They recently got chosen for KI's best travel report 2021/2022.

KI follows the national trend of more applicants to 2023 year’s international master’s educations compared to 2022.

The safety and security unit would like to inform you that there is now a president’s decision on a mandatory course in laboratory safety for employees and students, who are active in KI's laboratory activities or other activities with corresponding risks.

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.

Conferment ceremonies, professorial installation ceremonies and degree ceremonies – the academic year is full of such formal occasions. Common to all of them are the student ushers, who help to keep the proceedings running smoothly. It is a prestigious role, say chief usher Philip Wallenius and vice-chief usher Ida Dahlgren, who will soon be graduating themselves.

Karolinska Institutet's programme of study is expanding. From autumn 2023, KI will offer a new Master's Programme in Biomedical Laboratory Science. The programme is given in Swedish and aimed at working professionals.

DATAETHICS Winter School 2023: "Ethical and Regulatory Challenges in the era of Open Science: Data Sharing in Life Sciences & Health”.

The results of the Graduation survey show that students at KI are satisfied with their education and feel prepared for their future professional life. The students' answers provide important perspectives and ideas for the development of education.

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

From course-level teaching to strategic educational work. Ewa Ehrenborg, professor of molecular cardiovascular medicine at The Department of Medicine, Solna (MedS) began teaching even before she graduated from the medical programme. Next year, she will take over as Academic Vice President of Higher Education at Karolinska Institutet.

Last week, the Swedish Council for Higher Education (UHR) released statistics on the number of applicants for education programmes starting in the spring semester of 2023 at Swedish universities and colleges. The statistics show that KI’s medical programme has the second highest number of first-choice applicants among all education programmes in Sweden.

During the beginning of the autumn semester, KI-students will receive an important survey in their inbox. It is a survey on equal opportunities for students that is sent out with the aim to further develop KI's preventive work against discrimination.

The autumn semester is in full swing and once again Karolinska Institutet's campuses are full of life. The two student unions, Medicinska Föreningen and Odontologiska Föreningen are excited to be able to meet students again.

The fall term of 2022 started 29 August and most of the accepted students have arrived in Stockholm. We are very happy to see new international students on campus!

Many participated in KI:s introduction week for new students, which was the first one to take place in person since COVID-19. Meet some of KI:s new students and read about why they chose to study at KI, and what they though about the introduction to their new University so far.

Uppsala University and Karolinska Institutet are organizing the DevRes conference which aims to promote networking and collaboration between researchers, public agencies, policy makers, organisations and practitioners, in order to find solutions for poverty and develop strategies for the future of sustainable development.

During Pride Week in Stockholm in early August, Karolinska Institutet raised the rainbow flag over campus and participated in the parade together with several other universities under the Academic Pride flag.

As in previous years, several of Stockholm's academic institutions are joining together with a united theme during Pride week to draw attention to LGBTQI issues. Academic Pride 2022 is organising a seminar on LGBTQI-inclusive work and study environments and joint participation in the Pride Parade. The Pride flag will also be flown at all participating universities throughout the week of this festive week.

We are looking for students to work at KI:s Educational Congress 28-29th of September 2022.

What is your favourite memory from your time at KI? What are your plans after graduation? At KI more than a thousand students will be graduating this summer. We asked some of them to share their memories from their time as students and plans after graduation.

KI participates in Stockholm's Pride Parade on Saturday 6 August. Together with the Student Associations Medicinska Föreningen and Odontologiska Föreningen and a number of other universities in the Stockholm area, KI participates under the slogan Academic Pride. KI is now looking for two students who want to work during the day and support our participation in the parade.

For the first time, Swedish higher education institutions have conducted a joint national survey on the prevalence of gender-based and sexual harassment in the academic sector. The responses from a total of almost 39,000 employees and students show that young people, women and students (including doctoral students) are particularly at risk.

The pandemic still effects people around the world, but as restrictions are lifted, there are new challenges. At Karolinska Institutet, teachers are faced with hybrid teaching, researchers will return to previous research and students will find their way back to routines on campus. Here, they talk about the time before and during the pandemic and after restrictions were lifted.

At midnight on April 19, the national application for university studies for the autumn semester 2022 closed. At that time, more than 22,000 had applied for Karolinska Institutet's undergraduate programmes. The most popular is the medical program followed by the undergraduate programmes in psychology, dentistry, and nursing.

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.

We are looking for students to work at the welcome ceremony for new students starting fall semester of 2022. The ceremony is on August 25 in Aula Medica. And yes, since the ceremony is in August you will have to be a student at KI also next semester. There are two different types of jobs available, read more about them below.

The organisation Climate Students recently published the report Climate Action Ranking, where they rank Sweden's higher education institutions according to their climate work. In this year’s report, KI came in third place.