A word from the Dean, June 2026

Summer is here

Summer is here and the university campus looks a bit deserted. I would like to recommend a visit to the Bergius Botanic Garden, a resource currently managed by Stockholm University and the Faculty of Science. The Bergius Botanic Garden dates back to the 18th century and was founded by the Bergius brothers. During the 19th century the garden moved to Frescati, where it remains to this day. Present day the Bergius Botanic Garden belongs to Stockholm University, whilst the Edvard Andersson Greenhouse, completed in 1995, is primarily funded by the Edvard Andersson Fund, which is administered by the Bergius Foundation at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA). I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that all employees at the university, as well as at the KVA, can visit the greenhouse free of charge. The garden is an important site with both cultural and scientific roots, and it has a natural place at a university like ours.

News from the Swedish Research Council

A few weeks ago, the Scientific Council for Natural and Engineering Sciences at the Swedish Research Council (VR) invited the country’s deans of natural sciences and engineering. Most of you are probably already aware that the Scientific Council for Natural and Engineering Sciences is to be split into two councils: one for natural sciences and one for engineering. Ahead of the split, a Committee for Engineering Sciences has been appointed, on which Stockholm University is represented by Berit Olofsson. As is customary, elections will be held in 2027 for the new councils, which should be in place from 1 January 2028. It is likely that engineering will gain a more prominent position following the division of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council.

VR also provided updates on several calls for proposals. Among other things, VR’s consolidation grants will be converted into grants for those who have been successful in the ERC’s Consolidator Grant call but have not received funding due to a lack of available funds. A call for proposals for new centres of excellence is expected, and up to about ten new centres may be funded. In addition to these, a call for proposals for institutes of excellence is also planned, for which existing centres can apply. Calls for funding for centres and institutes will alternate, starting as early as this autumn. A new type of grant is also planned – for Groundbreaking Research. Two types of grants are proposed: an exploratory grant sought for two years (with the possibility of an extension) and a ‘transformative’ grant for a longer period, six to eight years. It remains to be seen how the details of these will be formulated. The deans asked why it was not possible to make greater investments in ‘standard’ project grants, but funding specifically for groundbreaking research is specified in the research bill.

New calls for applications for grants for assistant professors are also on the way, and at the time of writing we are in the midst of a process to nominate candidates for the autumn call. Unfortunately, the outcome was not favourable for our scientific area; none of our applications were successful. We will try to learn from this in our ongoing work to select candidates for the autumn. The call for applications for clusters of excellence clusters for groundbreaking technologies has just closed, and Stockholm University has submitted a few applications as the lead applicant, whilst individual researchers are co-applicants for significantly more initiatives than that.

As you can see, the past year has brought several announcements from the Swedish Research Council, and many of our researchers have been busy with applications – a very important task for the university!

Hopefully, a bit of a summer break and some well-deserved time off are on the horizon, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a wonderful summer! I would also like to thank the faculty’s outgoing Head of Department, Joanna Tyrcha, for her excellent work during her nine years as Head of the Department of Mathematics. I would also like to welcome Lars Arvestad as the new Head of Department from 1 August.

Lena