When I met the coordinators for the profile areas, they were all able to tell me about exciting new initiatives within research, education and external engagement. Here are a few tasters.
All the profile areas distribute seed funding for the development of promising new ideas. Often, the focus is on the ideas of early-career lecturers and researchers. Many profile areas arrange internal seminars and conferences. Light and Materials is arranging “Light & Materials Synergy Day” on 10 October at Palaestra and AF Borgen, and all the spaces are already reserved. Natural and Artificial Cognition is arranging their second annual conference during NAC week in October, and ahead of the conference they are producing short videos in which the participants present their research for one another.
Since being selected, all of the profile areas have received significantly reinforced external funding and several projects are included in the EU’s Horizon Europe programme. Daria Davitti, for example, has received an ERC grant to investigate financial instruments that are used to fund humanitarian efforts in refugee situations, which falls into the profile area Human Rights. Oskar Hansson has received a large grant from the National Institutes of Health in the USA for research into the blood markers that, when discovered early, significantly improve diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in primary care. This project will form an important part of the Proactive Ageing profile area. These researchers would probably have had their applications approved even without our profile areas, but we hope that the projects will strengthen the profile areas, and conversely that the profile areas will be able to provide the projects with greater visibility and a good environment in which to operate.
It is also important that the profile areas benefit students. All the profile areas are working to introduce the research into existing education. The Human Rights profile area has initiated research into education in that area. There are ideas and initiatives for new education in the areas in which the profile areas operate, but for these to become reality the initiatives and the needs of the faculty must coincide.
All of the profile areas also have a connection to the Agenda 2030 sustainable development goals. Now that the tagging of publications, projects and researchers in LUCRIS is complete, it is easy to see which researchers and profile areas have contributed to which sustainable development goals. You can see, for example, that in 2023 the Nature-based future solutions profile area has contributed to goals 3, 11, 13 and 15 and that the profile area’s coordinator, Henrik Smith, has contributed to eight of the seventeen sustainable development goals during his career.
There are so many exciting things going on within the profile areas, I hope that everyone has the opportunity to join in and access some of the innovative initiatives that the profile areas are undertaking.
/ Per Mickwitz
Postscript: Just as I was finalising this text, word arrived – Anne L’Huillier was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. A fantastic achievement for her and something that everyone here at Lund University is incredibly proud of. Now, a new category has been added under ‘prizes and awards’ in LUCRIS: Nobel Prizes. For now, there is a single entry in this category: Anne L’Huillier, professor of atomic physics and member of the profile area Light and Materials. Huge congratulations to Anne.
- Light & Materials Synergy Day – Light & Materials (lu.se)
- Four researchers receive ERC Starting Grants | Lund University
- Large NIH grant for Swedish Alzheimer’s research | Lund University
- 53 910 taggings with the sustainable goals in the University's research output
