Almost daily the media tell us about more shootings, more gun deaths, more bombings. It is awful, and it affects us all in one way or another.
It can engender feelings of unease, incomprehension and suspicion. A sense of fear in the pit of the stomach.
The other day, the ever-escalating violence even hit KTH’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science after a building in Kista was bombed. No one was physically injured, but the entrance and some of the offices in the building need to be repaired and restored.
But I would also like to focus for a moment on how powerfully and skilfully the situation was handled in terms of crisis management, communication, and consideration for those who were directly affected. KTH acted swiftly and efficiently to ensure that as many people as possible knew about what had happened, what action to take, and could then get back to work. Once the police had given the all-clear, scheduled teaching and lab work at our Electrum Laboratory could resume.
Security has been tightened up, some areas are still cordoned off, and it is certainly something that will remain on many people’s minds – for a while at least.
For me personally, though, I will also remember our ability to meet devastating violence with a caring and professional response.
Technological progress, curiosity, research. Which comes first? They are all closely interlinked and interdependent – especially in the life sciences.
This was really brought home to me on a visit to the national research resource SciLifeLab, run jointly by KTH, the Karolinska Institute, and Stockholm and Uppsala Universities.
This laboratory for the life sciences comprises several vital components: advanced expertise, far-reaching data collection, and a specific research infrastructure to produce large volumes of data in molecular biosciences, with the aim of identifying and developing methods in fields such as medicine, health, the climate and environment, forestry and agriculture.
As a visitor, it’s hard not to be impressed by all the collective knowledge housed in SciLifeLab and its advanced technical equipment. It has everything from large, unique, sophisticated microscopes to commercial equipment, a portable test lab for Covid that can be used in countries where medical equipment is scarce, and much more
It is quite magic to see this collection of equipment and the huge databases that are needed to build knowledge and analyses that can form the basis of the future of medicine, for example. SciLifeLab is also attracting international attention along with applications from many successful researchers.
As new questions arise and new challenges need solutions, the need for even more advanced equipment and technological progress increases. In happy symbiosis, the research and technological solutions strengthen and develop one another. So technological progress is fundamental to advanced research, but is also its own field of research, one that paves the way for new knowledge in the life sciences.
SciLifeLab came about as the result of a concerted effort around a strategic research area, and it has since been awarded additional funding and major external grants, particularly via the Wallenberg Foundations. KTH has been an important partner throughout – and will remain so as SciLifeLab expands in Solna, and through several national nodes within the framework of the national infrastructure for life sciences.
Visiting KTH’s various research environments can be quite a breathtaking experience. The fields of research span such huge distances, from the minuscule nanometre – that’s one-billionth of a metre or 0.000 000 001 metres – to the truly vast light-year at 9.46 trillion kilometres, or 9,460,730,472,580,800 metres to be precise. And the fields of research themselves cover aviation and railways and med tech, and everything in between.
While the global situation may feel gloomy with war, climate crisis, energy crisis and economic outlook, a browse through KTH’s research brings hope – and also a conviction that the solutions, or parts of the solutions, to the major societal challenges of our age can be found here, whether thanks to new materials, new ways of producing and generating energy, or developing existing technical systems.
It is also pleasing to see that our students have access to, and indeed do access, our experimental environments and study a range of phenomena. I think that anyone in proximity to KTH cannot miss the concentration and thirst for discovery that exist here.
The learning environments, where students can put their theoretical knowledge into practice and test them in laboratory conditions, are something we will always protect. And that too is breathtaking.
As the new president of KTH, last week I received a comprehensive wish list from THS, the KTH Student Union. Like Santa, I can’t promise that everything they asked for will be underneath the tree this year. But some of them are already planned and under way.
Student influence is fundamental to a university’s development, and important in driving development issues at KTH. We take it very seriously – and not only because we have to in accordance with Sweden’s Higher Education Act, but because it helps to improve overall quality. Student influence is also key in driving and achieving change.
Students are a natural barometer at a university, and also a kind of touchstone for finding out what’s happening in modern society. In other words, students provide important insights into where the future is headed.
Wish list from KTH Student Union.
But back to the list, which contains 33 different wishes, from greater student influence to stronger links with the business community, broader empowerment, sustainability in teaching, and higher integration of gender equality, diversity and equal conditions (JML). These are just some of the wishes that can roughly be categorised as pertaining to the social study environment, the actual content of the education, and the relationship with the future labour market. I will of course be looking at the entire list in detail, but I can already see that a lot of it is already in progress, particularly in our work on the education of the future.
One thing I can guarantee is that we and the students will be working together to shape the agenda for KTH’s development over the years to come – and strong, dynamic student influence will of course be a major factor in this process. That much I can promise ahead of the festive season.
One of the most pivotal issues right now – in homes, in business and in industry, in Sweden, in Europe and globally – is energy. How can we ensure there’s enough? What should it cost? Where should we get it from? There are many questions, and KTH has a whole lot of answers to offer.
Just two days into my first whole week as president, I have already built up a good idea of the sheer scope of KTH’s research in this field. This is thanks partly to a day of networking and dialogue organised by the Energy Platform on the theme of future competence for a sustainable energy system. And also to the launch of a new collaboration between KTH, Novatron och EIT InnoEnergy and a joining of forces to try to make fusion a large-scale energy source for the future. Fusion technology could revolutionise energy supply.
One of our six strategic research platforms focuses specifically on Energy, the aim being to bring together knowledge and multidisciplinary collaborations under one roof. The others are Digitalisation, Industrial Transformation, Life Science, Materials and Transport.
Energy research at KTH encompasses all stages, in production and distribution, and also user behaviour. In other words, it spans the development of everything from the heavy-duty technology to digitalised solutions for energy consumers. Each of these stages involves a great many players, and the need for the latest knowledge in the field is yet another area where KTH can help out, with education in the form of lifelong learning as new energy solutions also impose demands on further education.
In the transition to a more sustainable society, the development of new, safe energy sources is of critical importance.
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