News archive

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Allan Bakesiga and Linda Atulinda are medical students at Makerere University in Uganda. They are currently doing an exchange at Karolinska Institutet through a collaboration between the two universities. It is one of the most comprehensive international collaborations at KI which has enabled students, researchers, and professors to do exchanges both ways for many years.

Virtual lab training can cater for different types of learning abilities among students and offer a variety of techniques that might not be possible to teach/learn during an on-campus course. Karolinska Institutet, through the Biomedicine programmes, is coordinating the virtual laboratory training module in a new Erasmus+ project focusing on virtual/online practical training.

Karolinska Institutet recently held its “Global Masters Scholarship Ceremony” in honor of the non-European Master’s students who receive a scholarship based on academic merit.

The February sun was glittering in the glazed facades when Karolinska Institutet welcomed Minister for Education Anna Ekström on Monday 28 February. Meanwhile, the situation grew gloomier in Ukraine, which was demonstrated by, amongst other things, a lecture in disaster medicine.

A digital 1-day meeting attended by 300 participants brought neuroscience researchers from across Europe together to reflect on both progress to date and plans for the future for the collaborative European University Initiative (EUI) focusing on neurochallenges. Karolinska Institutet is one of eight original parnters.

Alexander Klaréus and Dana Samiean are Medicinska Föreningen (medical association) and Odontologiska Föreningens (dental association) “new" presidents for the student unions. Both already served as union presidents during 2021. We asked them about the plans for the new year, 2022.

Do you want to become a student representative of the Pick-up service and help welcoming international students to KI and Stockholm? This is your opportunity!

Students choose Karolinska Institutet to receive the best education. The proportion of foreign-born students is increasing, as is the proportion of younger students and male students. KI's website is the main source of recruitment. All this and more are shown in the 2021 Student Survey.

During seven weeks in the summer, undergraduate students at Karolinska Institutet can enrol in Karolinska Institutet’s Summer School in Medical Research which is a research-preparatory school. Previous participant Victor Tollemar and supervisor Rachael Sugars both agree that it is an excellent opportunity to receive insight and get to experience a researcher’s world for a short period.

KI's education is in constant development. The international program offering is now expanding, and two additional master’s programmes have been added to the catalogue. It is The Master's Programme in Translational Physiology and Pharmacology and The Master's Program in Nutrition Science that will start during the autumn of 2022.

The experience of the rapid transition to distance learning during the pandemic has been evaluated in a new report. Here are opinions from both teachers and students which will now be used to further develop teaching methods.

This year's Skillbridge Student Case Challenge was decided in early October and in the winning team, Team Delta, was KI student Ala Abdallah.

Stina Nordinge och Caroline Lager have been named Occupational Therapy Students of the Year by the Swedish Association of Occupational Therapists. They have shown that new digital technology using virtual reality does not have to be complicated. By removing the concept of time and space, it is possible to focus on the part of the individual that is well and strengthen that part.

The Medical Association has received a donation of SEK 15 million from The Hans and Barbara Bergstrom Foundation to refurbish the old student union building. The project has been ongoing for years with the aim of creating an inspiring environment for KI's students, doctoral students, researchers and alumni.

With a tight student budget, buying course literature can feel tough. The student association STRÄVA works, among other things, to ensure that everyone has access to course literature, and they are involved in the project KI students' book donation.

Two students at Karolinska Institutet (KI) recently won first prize in The Global Undergraduate Awards 2021, an award in which some of the world's foremost students participate.

It is now possible for students and staff at Karolinska Institutet (KI) to visit the Karolinska University Hospital's vaccination clinics in Solna and Flemingsberg to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Have you noticed that more student-related content has appeared on Karolinska Institutet's official Instagram lately? KI has recruited students from the national programs to share their experience on the account @Karolinskainstitutet.

On August 27th, new international students, students at the global programs, and exchange students at Karolinska Institutet were invited to a Digital Introduction Ceremony which was broadcast live from Aula Medica in Solna.

After several years of planning and construction, 316 new apartments are now ready for researchers and students at KI to move into. Collins Santhansamy is one of the newly arrived students at KI Residence Solna.

We are looking for you, who want to coordinate the pick‐up service i.e. giving international students a good first welcome to KI!

For the spring term 2022, the alternative selection for the medical programme (PIL), which has been cancelled for the past three terms due to the corona pandemic, is being reintroduced. However, the number admitted via PIL will be lower compared to a typical admissions cycle.

Welcome to the second edition of Stockholm Skillbridge, the case competition where Sweden's top-tier schools within medicine, communication, engineering, and economics solve problems together.

As in previous years, several of Stockholm’s higher education institutions are participating under the joint Academic Pride banner to draw attention to LGBTQI-related issues. Academic Pride 2021 arranges a seminar on breaking binary gender norms with language as well as social events for students. The Pride flag will be hoisted at all participating schools throughout the festival program, including KI’s campuses in Flemingsberg and Solna.

Based on the assessment that the spread of COVID-19 is expected to decrease and that vaccinations will take place according to plan, KI is planning for a return to campus-based education during the fall semester.

On 29 May, the government announced that as of 15 June, higher education institutions may return to campus-based teaching. The recommendations issued by the Swedish Public Health Agency for containing the spread of the virus apply as much to HEIs as they do to general society, and require a responsible approach to the planning of a return to campus-based teaching.

It´s graduation time at Karolinska Institutet! On the third and fourth of June we celebrate graduating bachelor’s and masters’ students through live-streamed ceremonies from Aula Medica. We want to wish you the best of luck on your future endeavors and say great job – you did it!

More than one year ago, Inika Prasad had the idea of arranging a TEDx event when picking up a book about public speaking at an airport. Together with her classmate Lukas Lehtonen they turned the idea into reality. On May 27, TEDxKI From Mirage to Oasis takes place – the first TEDx event at KI in a decade.

Since March 2020, healthcare has acted "front line" in the fight against COVID-19. Many KI students have worked extra in healthcare during this period, and at the same time, they had to adapt to new routines with distance learning. One of the students who managed to juggle distance learning with an extra job within healthcare is the medical student Oscar Dwyer.

Regardless of what you study at Karolinska Institutet, you can turn to the student and the doctoral student ombudspersons Nazira Hammoud Shahwan and Ninna Oom on various issues concerning your student rights and study environment.

- It is very exciting to meet many different students and learn about their life stories. It is impressive what some students achieve and get through during their studies, says Nazira Hammoud Shahwan.

The pandemic has meant that courses and programmes have only had a short time to transition to distance teaching – something which has required major involvement from teachers, students and educational administrators. At the same time, these experiences have propelled the development of teaching methods.