News archive

Juliette Foucher, a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, has been selected as one of only three recipients worldwide of the 2026 ALS Scholars in Therapeutics grant. The international grant, totalling 300,000 dollars, equivalent to SEK three million, recognises promising young researchers who are shaping the future of ALS research.

Professor Gonçalo Castelo-Branco and Professor Janne Lehtiö at KI have been awarded funding under the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and SciLifeLab’s Proof-of-Concept Program. The aim of the program is to strengthen the pathway from academic research to innovation and commercial application in life science.

Helena Karlström, senior lecturer and associate professor at Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded a Pioneer Innovator Grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation worth approximately SEK 1.7 million. The project aims to develop a new antibody-based treatment for the inherited cerebrovascular disorder CADASIL, a form of cerebral small vessel disease which is a common cause of, amongst other things, stroke and eventually memory problems, for which there is currently no effective treatment.

Chronic pain affects millions of people worldwide, yet current treatments often only ease symptoms rather than addressing the underlying causes. Now, Karolinska Institutet researcher Saida Hadjab has received a second prestigious grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation to develop a new type of therapy that could help reverse the biological processes that drive persistent pain.

Anna Winther is one of three KI doctoral students to have been awarded this year’s Kerstin Hejdenberg Scholarship from the Asthma and Allergy Association’s Research Fund. She receives the scholarship for a research project on how eczema may affect school results, higher education, career choices and sick leave.

Every year, the Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association’s Research Fund awards the Kerstin Hejdenberg Scholarship to doctoral students conducting research on allergic diseases in children. This year, three of the scholarship recipients are affiliated with Karolinska Institutet.

We congratulate researchers at CNS who have been awarded CIMED project grants for the period 2027-2029.

Congratulations to the 6 researchers receiving project grants from CIMED.

Emma R. Andersson has been awarded the prestigious ERC Proof of Concept Grant to further develop her technique to create mice with specific genetic signatures. “This innovation can lead to a drastic reduction in the number of animal experiments worldwide, not just in my lab,” she says.

KI’s Internationalisation Board is pleased to announce the availability of a limited number of competitive planning grants to support collaboration with University College London (UCL).

Karolinska Institutet is leading the HELIX project, which has received SEK 10 million from the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) to build a long-term, scalable joint platform between Sweden and Brazil in life science and health.

Seven out of eight awarded grants go to researchers at Karolinska Institutet in the Swedish Research Council's spring call for international postdocs in medicine and health. In total, 8 out of 44 applications were approved.

Three assistant professors at Karolinska Institutet have been awarded funding as part of the Swedish Research Council’s new initiative on strategic recruitment. The grant aims to strengthen the development of future research leaders and create long-term conditions for research of the highest quality.

We congratulate the researchers at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology (CLINTEC) who are receiving CIMED’s project grant.

We congratulate researchers at MedH who have been awarded CIMED project grants for the period 2027-2029.

The Autism Research Network at Karolinska Institutet (AutNetKI) has awarded its 2026 Transdisciplinary Pilot Project Grants to a select group of research collaborations at Karolinska Institutet, supporting innovative projects that bridge disciplines to address key questions in autism.

Ljubica Matic, Associate Professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded a grant from the Leducq Foundation, one of the largest international grants in the field of cardiovascular research. The grant, 9 million USD for totally 5 years, will be used within the international network ATHENA, which brings together researchers from the USA and Europe, and is coordinated by Prof Thomas Quertermous, Stanford and Helle Jørgensen, Cambridge.

Leo Kowalski has been awarded a grant from the Lennander Foundation.

Mikael Rydén, professor at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded a grant of USD 9 million from the Leducq Foundation.

Okan Gültekin, a postdoctoral researcher at Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded an international grant from the Cancer Foundation to develop an AI-based tool for the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer. The project brings together expertise from Sweden, Finland and the UK.

An estimated 500,000 to 700,000 people in Sweden live with the lung disease COPD. Research is currently being done on developing an inhalation therapy for such patients by examining how antibodies can protect the body from disease-related inflammation and infections. KI researcher Charlotte Thålin has been awarded the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation’s (HLF) major research grant of SEK 20 million for the project.

Junior researchers are invited to apply for funding to strengthen collaboration or to establish new collaboration with partners in low- and middle-income countries in Africa.

Seven researchers affiliated with Karolinska Institutet have been awarded funding in the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund’s latest call for research positions, with a total allocation of SEK 57 million. The funded projects include initiatives aimed at improving chemotherapy for children with leukemia, as well as studies seeking to better understand relapse in acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

On 1 June, Swetrial will open the 2026 calls for applications for government grants aimed at strengthening Sweden’s capacity to conduct clinical trials. The calls are aimed at organisations involved in clinical activities that wish to develop collaboration and national initiatives in this field.

Sven Alfonsson and Agnes Elmberger are the first two to receive the KIPRIME Research Grant. The call for applications was announced in the autumn and involves a three-year research grant. Around twenty applications were received and reviewed by an international panel of researchers.

Karolinska Institutet has been invited by STINT (The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education) to nominate three candidates to participate in the exchange programme for teaching staff called Teaching Sabbatical.

Karolinska Institutet has received a grant of DKK 10 million (approximately SEK 15 million) from the Novo Nordisk Foundation for research on cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease. The project is led by Johan Ericson, professor at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, and aims to help move laboratory research closer to clinical application.

Thanks to the prestigious prevention grant from the Swedish Heart Lung Foundation, he will now evaluate whether digital physiotherapy delivered via an app can promote physical activity and reduce the risk of recurrent stroke.

A new research project at Karolinska Instutet has been awarded a five-year grant from FORMAS, the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development, to study how long-term exposure to air pollution and transport noise may influence the risk of developing dementia, using large population-based data from Sweden.

This year, the Swedish Rheumatism Association is awarding almost SEK 14 million in funding for research into rheumatic diseases. One third of the funded projects are being carried out at Karolinska Institutet.

Federico Iovino has been awarded a five-year consolidator grant from Karolinska Institutet for his research on bacterial infections that affect the brain. The funding will enable long-term planning in studies of conditions such as meningitis and encephalitis.

The Swedish Research Council has recommended that the Government fund a new Strategic Research Area (SFO) in climate research, with Karolinska Institutet as one of the participating universities. The initiative, known as the Stockholm Centre for Climate Transition (ClimTrio), aims to develop knowledge on how the transition to a climate-resilient society can be effective, equitable and sustainable in the long term.

Why do some people, though not all, develop several long-term illnesses and functional impairments as they get older? A new research project at Karolinska Institutet aims to find answers by looking at ageing as a connected whole, rather than a set of separate diseases.

Abigail Dove, researcher at Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded the SSMF Postdoctoral Grant 2026 for a project investigating how cardiometabolic conditions such as obesity, high blood sugar and high blood pressure are linked to brain ageing and dementia.

The Department of Oncology‑Pathology at Karolinska Institutet has announced the recipients of the 2026 Blue Sky Grant, an internal funding call aimed at supporting innovative, cross‑disciplinary research led by early‑career researchers.

Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation is allocating additional funds, in total SEK 1.6 billion, to patient oriented, clinical research. The initiative will, among other things, strengthen research at the four Wallenberg Centres for Molecular Medicine. As part of this initiative, SEK 125 million has been allocated to Karolinska Institutet.

Seven researchers at the Department of Oncology‑Pathology (OnkPat) have been awarded funding in the Swedish Cancer Society’s 2026 call. In total, 26 researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been awarded funding as part of the Swedish Cancer Society’s 2026 call, which totals SEK 135 million. The call also includes research schools, one of which is affiliated with OnkPat.

The Swedish Cancer Foundation supports young researchers early in their careers by funding research positions that make it possible to combine clinical work with research. We congratulate Christel Hedman, Mirna Abraham-Nordling and Fredrik Jäderling who receive support from the Swedish Cancer Foundation in the 2026 call.

A new research initiative at Karolinska Institutet aims to understand how chronic pain arises and how it might be switched off at its source. The project, “A Game-Changing Therapy for Lasting Pain Relief”, has now received support from the Promobilia Foundation.

AutNetKI hereby announces up to four (4) pilot project grants of SEK 100,000 each to support transdisciplinary collaborations that can generate proof-of-principle data, methods, or feasibility evidence and catalyse larger autism research projects.

Emma R Andersson, senior researcher and associate professor at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, and Joanna Rorbach, senior researcher at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, have been awarded the Göran Gustafsson Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

New funding from Region Stockholm in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet will support advanced research into cluster headache at the university. By combining genetic studies with sleep and circadian rhythm research, the project seeks to improve care for a patient group with a high disease burden and risk of misdiagnosis.

Eight young researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been awarded postdoctoral grants within the EU's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA). This means strengthened opportunities to conduct research that can contribute to future medical breakthroughs – from the role of mitochondria in disease to the brain's body experience and new strategies for allergy treatment. The competition has been particularly intense in this year's call.

The Strategic Research Area Neuroscience – StratNeuro - announces a call for applications to support postdoctoral researchers at Karolinska Institutet.

Karolinska Institutet (KI) and the University of Toronto (U of T) have announced the second cohort of Mats Sundin Fellows in Human Developmental Health for postdoctoral researchers. The two-year exchange programme offers promising young researchers the opportunity to grow and test their wings in other research environments. Behind the initiative is ice hockey legend Mats Sundin, whose engagement lays the groundwork for the next generation of leading researchers.

In the long history of the Radiumhemmet Research Funds, the largest funding allocation was awarded across several KI projects, including grants to seven cancer research projects at the Department of Laboratory Medicine. Congratulations!

Among the 102 recipients at Karolinska Institutet who received research grants in medicine and health from the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), five researchers from the Department of Neuroscience were included.

KI researcher Saida Hadjab has been awarded funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation for her project “A Game-Changing Therapeutic Target for Lasting Pain Relief”, which addresses a major unmet medical need in chronic pain and headache disorders. Designed to fast-track the commercialisation of cutting-edge research in sustainability and health, the grant aims to support bold innovations that have real-world impact.

Four innovation projects at KI in the field of life science receive funding from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and SciLifeLab's Proof-of-Concept program. The grants aim to strengthen the path from academic research to innovation and commercial application in life science.

The 2025 Karolinska Institutet (KI) Ming Wai Lau Centre for Reparative Medicine (MWLC) has been established for Postdoctoral positions in the field of Reparative Medicine, including stem cell regenerative medicine, bioengineering, reprogramming and biomanufacturing toward translation.