News archive

Karolinska Institutet and Makerere University in Uganda have been working together for over 20 years. In 2021 they established a Centre based on their strong partnership to bring people together, recognize their health challenges and mobilize actions towards well-being. Today the Centre provides tools, resources and training programs for researchers, students, professionals and policy makers globally.

The EU Horizon Changemaker project, led by Kristi Sidney Annerstedt, on sustainable adolescent nutrition in Kenya, Tanzania and Burkina Faso, successfully completed the first Consortium meeting.

Nina Viberg and Tobias Alfvén have received funding from the Swedish Institute for a one year project to support Ukrainian PhD students and young researchers. The aim of the project is to build capacity for PhD student and young researcher so that they can effectively contribute to health systems strengthening especially for children and adolescents in deoccupied territories in Ukraine.

KTH, SU, and KI, also called the Stockholm Trio, have joined forces for climate action. Part of this collaboration has been a student competition with the overarching theme ”Climate and Health.” Over a two-week period, teams of students have collaborated to tackle challenges on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make the city more resilient to the effects of climate change.

In February, Vice President Martin Bergö visited Makerere University in Uganda, a long-term partner of Karolinska Institutet. As the chairman of the steering committee for the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health (CESH), a collaborative initiative between Karolinska Institutet and Makerere University, he met his counterparts at the university and the college of health sciences, toured research sites, discussed global health challenges, and met with alumni and partners.

Both programs have been running since 2020 at the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health - a collaboration between Karolinska Institutet and Makerere University in Uganda.

Starting next year, all employees of Karolinska Institutet will be entitled to a higher wellness allowance. The wellness allowance is a tax-free grant that staff can use for different kinds of exercise and is set to be increased from SEK 1,500 to SEK 3,000 per year.

The authors of KI's first Planetary Health Report Card (PHRC) are twelve students from KI's various educational programmes. The commitment comes from a common interest and concern for the environment, climate, and planetary health.

Counting down to Christmas, a calendar of delight,
Each day's a surprise, keeping you active and bright.
Jump, walk, dance - a festive move to unfold,
In this active calendar, warmth and wellness to hold!

With only six years left until 2030 when the Sustainable Development Goals are to be achieved, this year's Sustainability Forum was organised with a focus on the role of universities in sustainability work. The organisers were the University Alliance Stockholm Trio. 

Karolinska Institutet invites researchers and doctoral students to apply for participation in the SASUF Research and Innovation week that takes place in Sweden May 13-17, 2024.

To start with, new bins, cleaning routines and staff information channels will be trialled over the coming weeks in Aula Medica and the administration building in Solna. The aim is for food waste to be recycled effectively throughout KI by the end of the year.

Stockholm Trio for Sustainable Actions is pleased to announce calls for funding for 2024 within interdisciplinary collaboration in education and research.

The Inspiration Day 2023 had the theme "Brain, heart, body - how to equip ourselves to face a changing and challenging world". The purpose of the day was to strengthen the feeling of "One KI" and provide insights into some of the exciting research and education of KI. Hopefully the event will become annual.

Hanna Karlsson and Sara Widén are the first ever recipients of KI’s new Sustainability Award, which they have earned in recognition of their efforts to support the KI faculty on issues of sustainability.

Now it is easier for staff to advertise equipment within KI. You can create ads to buy, sell, rent or donate lab or office equipment.

We asked three managers at KI Biobank about the main lessons they take away from last year.

Vice President Anders Gustafsson shares his thoughts on leadership and working methods based on lessons learned from the pandemic.

Representatives from centres within Stockholm trio met at KI for a breakfast meeting and a chance to engage in conversations about activities and collaborations within the topic of climate and health. The collaboration group on climate and health creates spaces and opportunities for interdisciplinary cooperation in this wide and complex field.

Karolinska Institutet signs an agreement on collaboration with Huddinge municipality – the focus will be on equity in health and prevention, for a healthy life. On Tuesday, October 25, KI's President Ole Petter Ottersen and Huddinge municipality’s Director Camilla Broo signed the agreement.

Through the Horizon Europe programme, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been granted large financial grants for approximately 20 different projects aimed at solving various societal challenges in health. One of the projects will explore the possibility of creating a common system for the reuse of already approved medicines to treat various diseases.

“Our planet, our health – an intergenerational dialogue” – the title of this year’s Rosling Seminar at Karolinska Institutet. The seminar, which was held 5 October, was jointly arranged by KI and the WHO with participants attending on site and online.

The students' association IFMSA runs the Vår hälsa brinner (Our health is on fire) campaign to raise awareness and educate about the health impacts of climate change. Students see a need to work concretely on the issue, not least during their medical training. They have made an alphabet series illustrating the impact of climate change on public health and hold educational workshops. During Politician's Week in Almedalen, they held a workshop and distributed posters with the alphabet.

About half of the Swedish population feels a strong climate worry. This is normal because the climate threat is real, says researcher Fabian Lenhard, who is starting a study on climate change. The research project will be attempting to channel worry about climate change into sustainable development.

Bringing together expertise, offering attractive training and providing a hub for collaboration. This is the vision for the Stockholm Trio for Sustainable Actions - a new initiative from Karolinska Institutet, KTH and Stockholm University to further contribute to sustainable societal development.

Partnership and cooperation are necessary to accelerate the work to achieve the global goals – and this is where academia plays an important role. This emerged during the seminar "New Partnerships for Human and Planetary Health" arranged by Karolinska Institutet, KTH and Stockholm University in May.

The day before the UN’s Stockholm+50 international conference in early June, KI, Stockholm University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm Environment Institute are arranging a hybrid conference focusing on how scientists, academics and students can influence decision-makers and drive progress towards a sustainable society.

Many of society’s challenges, such as the climate issue, are too complex to be solved singlehandedly by different actors. Partnership and collaboration are necessary if the work of reaching the global goals is to be accelerated – and here academia plays an important part. This is the view of representatives of the Stockholm Trio, ahead of their May seminar showcasing how they mobilise to improve the health of people and the planet.

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.

Line Gordon and Tobias Alfvén participated in Nobel Calling Stockholm 2021 with a lecture arranged by Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm Resilience Center at Stockholm University. Focusing on the United Nations Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s latest report, the current state of knowledge about climate and environmental change and how this affects the world's children was summarized and discussed.

The COP26 agreement keeps the 1.5C goal alive and for the first time mentions the role of fossil fuels. The climate transition is about the future of humankind, but medical researchers say it can also have immediate health benefits here and now.

On 31 October, the 13-day UN climate summit COP26 began with the aim of accelerating measures to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Climate Convention. Shervin Shahnavaz, member of the climate network at KI, has in recent weeks focused intensely on climate issues as a result of the meeting.

As many as six photovoltaic power installations have now been put into operation on campus Solna. The installations are located on the roofs of, among others, Widerströmska huset, A Working Lab Innomedicum and the Berzelius Laboratory. Together, the solar cells cover an area of approximately 2,100 square metres and provide the campus area with renewable energy.

On Thursday 16 September the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health (CESH) was inaugurated. It's a digital competence center that has been established together with Makerere University in Uganda. The purpose of the center is to promote sustainable health and contribute to Agenda 2030 with the help of a long-term partnership.

Karolinska Institutet (KI) has been awarded a grant from Sida for a two and a half year capacity development project in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Somalia. The project aims to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

Karolinska Institutet has been granted renewed funding from the Swedish Institute (SI) to implement two capacity building training programmes for professionals in Sub-Saharan Africa. The training programmes will be offered online during 2021 - 2022.

Last autumn, KI announced an new internal funding for work on sustainable development initiatives. After fierce competition, five applications have now been selected to share one million SEK.

Karolinska Institutet has signed an agreement with Wellcome Leap that enabled KI to join the Leap Health Breakthrough Network. This global network comprises many leading academic and research institutions across six continents, that are committed to solving the world’s most serious global health challenges.

KI's President has decided on a climate strategy as part of KI's contribution to a more sustainable world. The strategy is to be followed up by an action plan with more concrete measures with everything from the purchasing of goods and services to reducing CO2 emissions from travel.

KI and Makerere University have signed an agreement to establish the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health (CESH), a centre to promote partnerships and develop capacity, resources and tools for researchers and policy makers globally. The agreement is the next step in the deepening of the collaboration between the institutions.

The virtual SPARKS conference held on 2-3 December will gather a network of global leaders in public policy and research to facilitate the exchange of knowledge on social protection and health. Knut Lönnroth is the founder of the SPARKS Network and Professor of Social Medicine.

An extensive workshop has been held to further the vision of creating a Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health. Karolinska Institutet is driving the development together with Makerere University in Uganda, with focus on non-communicable diseases and other high burden diseases.

At Karolinska Institutet several staff and students are deeply committed to reduce the environmental footprint. One of the many departments at KI taking an active approach to climate issues is the Department of Clinical Neuroscience.

A research and innovation conference is currently in progress in Stellenbosch, South Africa, bringing together representatives of Swedish and South Africa universities. The main topic of the week-long conference, which opened on 6 May under the STINT-financed South Africa–Sweden University Forum (SASUF) project, is Agenda 2030.

The integration of the UN’s Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals into higher education and the importance of engaging students in the process were in focus at the recent conference, “Rethinking Higher Education: Inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals”.