SEK 29.2m for research into the role of music
[NEWS 21 October 2011] Why does music make us feel good? The Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Foundation has decided to award a grant of SEK 29.2 million over seven years to professor Fredrik Ullén at Karolinska Institutet for the research project "Humans making music: an interplay between culture and nature".
Most people put a lot of time and resources into music. It brings us joy, but it also has positive effects on, among other things, our cognitive abilities and health. We do not know why this is, or what determines peoples interest in music, and this is what the project aims to find out.
"Humans making music" is a collaboration with the Swedish Twin Registry and comprises a number of subsidiary projects looking at the relationship between musical interest and a wide variety of other variables.
The results could provide important information on how we as a society can best stimulate musical activity, organise musical training and harness music's positive knock-on effects on cognition and health.
As well as Fredrik Ullén's research group, Nancy Pedersen at Karolinska Institutet, Töres Theorell at Stockholm University and Guy Madison at Umeå University will be participating as collaborative partners.