KTH has an amazing breadth! Last week, I attended two events that illustrate this: the inaugurations of Novatron 1 and Inspire Lab.

Inspire Lab is a new research centre focusing on innovative initiatives that address concrete gender equality challenges and improve women’s living conditions. The lab’s mission also includes disseminating knowledge and contributing to course content. Three projects have already been funded: one aims to prevent birth injuries; another aims to counter the harm caused by so-called ‘deepfake’ pornography created without consent using manipulated images or videos; and the third aims to develop AI solutions that reflect women’s living conditions.

These are important issues, particularly for a technical university, and they connect with KTH’s long-standing work on gender equality, diversity, and equal opportunities. Inspire Lab has been made possible through a donation, demonstrating how crucial philanthropy can be in enabling the university to develop new and innovative research areas.

Novatron 1 is an experimental fusion reactor operated by Novatron Fusion Group AB and located at KTH in the Alfvén Laboratory. The dream of fusion energy is an old one, and KTH has a long-standing and renowned history in plasma physics — an important part of developing a fusion reactor.Hannes Alfvén, a former KTH professor who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1970, was a pioneer and world-leading researcher in his field during his time at KTH.

The inauguration of the reactor demonstrates the need for deep tech innovations to be developed through collaboration between universities, private venture capitalists, and innovative and courageous start-ups. To maintain and develop Swedish competitiveness, models for advancing deep tech research to sustainable companies and commercial applications must be carefully supported and developed. Novatron is one such example.

For many of us, the summer holidays are not far away. Before then, however, it’s time for the annual Almedalen Week. Many KTH researchers will be present to discuss AI, quantum technology, food from the sea, housing construction, energy, cybersecurity, the humanities in professional education, innovations and life sciences, among other topics. Together with Chalmers, KTH is organising two seminars on ‘Responsible AI: a Swedish competitive advantage’ and ‘Swedish quantum technology: from strategy to global success’ on Thursday morning, 23 June.

With that said, it is also time to wish all readers of the blog, students, colleagues and friends in society and business, a really nice and relaxing summer.

KTH welcomes the proposed investments in cutting-edge research, centres of excellence, and graduate schools in the AI Commission’s Roadmap for Sweden report (SOU 2025:12). The report contains detailed proposals on how Sweden can become a leading player in artificial intelligence. In our consultation response, we essentially support the report.

We emphasise in our response that high-quality research and international collaboration are crucial for Sweden to play a relevant role in the field of AI. In particular, we highlight the potential of Cybercampus Sweden, which is set to play a pivotal role in AI and cybersecurity.

We also highlight the importance of supporting research in narrow AI — solutions adapted to specific applications — in which Swedish research and industry are well placed to compete.

We highlight education as the key to future AI competence, with which KTH agrees. However, more than just technical resources are required — didactic and pedagogical perspectives must also be included. We also recognise the need to provide computational resources for AI in undergraduate education and wish to emphasise the importance of educational initiatives that cover several scientific fields, not just engineering and science.

The roadmap sets out proposals for amending the legislation on data sharing between authorities. While we view the simplification of data exchange as a positive step, we emphasise that this must be done while safeguarding personal integrity. As stated in our consultation response, this should be a fundamental requirement, not merely an option for research purposes.

We call for a more balanced view of the EU regulatory framework. The perceived restrictiveness of the rules should be weighed against their purpose of protecting individuals’ rights and security. The report proposes public education initiatives inspired by the home PC reform. While KTH welcomes this, we note that its scope is limited compared to previous digitalisation initiatives. We suggest focusing on both technology use and citizens’ ability to understand, scrutinise, and influence AI development.

We are calling for long-term funding for software development in research and highlighting the need to build infrastructure for storing and sharing training data, as well as for computation. It is hoped that the AI Commission’s roadmap will also be translated into action, enabling the many important proposals to become a reality.

On 26 June, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Chalmers University of Technology will hold a joint seminar in Almedalen on Gotland entitled ‘Responsible AI: a Swedish competitive advantage?’  Welcome to join the seminar!

In what ways should universities be equipped to drive social development, technological progress and democracy? How should they be governed, organised and financed to ensure the long-term success of Swedish research and education?

These are some of the questions that need to be analyzed in the current climate. The role of universities in society has not been analysed in depth or in a comprehensive manner for a long time, focusing on issues relating to universities as a central and important social institution. While there is often debate about how universities can contribute to school problems or the provision of skills for welfare and industry competitiveness, we rarely ask how universities themselves need to be shaped for such purposes. However, we rarely ask ourselves how universities need to be fundamentally shaped for such purposes.

The major studies carried out in the 1960s and 1970s, which led to far-reaching reforms, were perhaps the last time that the big questions about the university sector were really asked and given space in studies, debates and policy proposals. Today, universities are regarded as little more than a residual societal item that must deliver for the needs of other sectors without considering how they would need to be equipped to do so.

It was therefore gratifying that the government opened the door to an investigation about the universities’ form of association in its welcomed research and innovation bill. This gave me hope that the time had come to address the important issues and regift the question of the form of association, governance, organisation and funding, which has been overlooked since several previous inquiries were carried out without yielding any significant results.

However, a parliamentary majority has now formed that is against carrying out such an inquiry. It is not at all surprising that the opposition is opposed to the government’s policy. For an inquiry into the form of association to be successful, it is important that there is a parliamentary agreement so that a majority still considers the issue important and is willing to participate in the discussion and analysis.

It is therefore disappointing for two reasons that two parties that form a majority in the parliamentary education committee are stopping the investigation. Firstly, it is worrying that there is no consensus on the need to investigate how universities should be organised to guarantee autonomy and the ability to contribute to long-term societal development. Secondly, it is disappointing that this lack of consensus has led to a parliamentary majority not wanting the issue to be investigated at all.

Let us hope that, despite its limited scope for manoeuvre, the government will nevertheless move forward with the issue and devote time to establishing a broad political consensus on the need for change!

Research at universities is largely funded through competitive calls, in which researchers compete with each other for funding. The idea is that this leads to better quality by funding the best applications and rejecting those of lesser quality. However, this has also created a system that is difficult to navigate, with significant costs and time being spent on the application and reporting process itself. Consequently, universities are finding it increasingly difficult to offer long-term conditions to employed researchers.

In 2024, SEK 55 billion was spent on research at universities, of which SEK 22 billion (40 per cent) was direct funding to higher education institutions. The remaining SEK 33 billion was channelled through competitive calls managed by government research councils and agencies, private foundations, EU programmes, and other Swedish and foreign non-governmental funders.

While we are very successful in attracting external competitive funding, working in a system with such a large proportion of external funding is also a great challenge. For KTH, approximately 64 per cent of funding is external and 36 per cent is direct. The current research and innovation bill, which is a very welcome initiative in itself, will provide an even greater proportion of funding to universities via external grants.

The large number of different funders also means that there are many different conditions regarding how the funds can be used and how they should be accounted for and requisitioned properly. As a result, the administrative burden of external funding tends to increase. One might also ask whether the additional quality that external funding brings is worth the extra costs created by the system. As economists would say, the marginal cost is probably higher than the marginal benefit today.

There are many conditions that are difficult to change, not least the question of the share of basic grants. However, this does not mean that the challenges should be overlooked. With the current research and innovation bill, the proportion of external funding will increase further. While the bill’s funding increases are welcome, they also present challenges for higher education institutions as we move towards 70 per cent external funding.

What can be done? Universities need to come together so that researchers can act jointly in slightly broader groups, sharing the financial burden and creating broader research agendas where different research groups can help each other, jointly creating financial goals and working systematically and in the long term. At KTH, we have a few such successful examples and are working to create more initiatives that foster a collaborative and cooperative climate that favours a long-term approach.

Funders can contribute by creating longer, more coherent programmes, with each funding decision being larger and more long-term. This would involve moving away from short-term project funding and towards longer programme funding. In the long term, the government could adjust the balance between external and core funding to create a more balanced relationship. The government may also need to amend the research councils’ regulations to allow for longer grants. This is essentially a reform aimed at improving the quality of research.