Inauguration of New Professors and Conferment of Doctoral Degrees, 2020

Promotores, promovendi and installandi, medallist and award winners, honourable guests,

A warm welcome to Stockholm University’s inauguration and conferment ceremony for the academic year 2019 – 2020!

In March 2020, when universities and institutions of higher education had to switch to digital teaching, most of us probably thought that it would be a matter of a short term adaptation. At Stockholm University, when we at last realised that the autumn inauguration and conferment ceremony of that year would have to be cancelled, made digital or postponed, we chose the latter option and made an optimistic booking for a new date during last year. Little did we realise that it would not be before 2022 that the pandemic would allow us to meet again in the City Hall. Even less did we imagine that although – so far as we know – the brunt of this century’s largest health crisis is behind us, we would instead find us right in the middle of a global security crisis because of the war in Ukraine.

This reality makes our mission as a university particularly important: to develop and further scientific knowledge through long-term commitment and critical thinking, and to share research results and research data, to promote openness, transparence and reproducibility. In the course of these years, we have also been given a forceful reminder of the great significance of science in society. This was true at the outbreak of the pandemic, when existing basic research, as well as the fact that the Chinese researchers rapidly shared the genetic code of the coronavirus on the internet, contributed to giving us a vaccine in record time. Many researchers also quickly switched to studying many of the unanswered questions which were facing us, and which still constitute a challenge for the future; this goes for the mutations of the virus and spreading patterns, as well as preparedness in the face of future pandemics. There were also quite a few scientific controversies, but this is part of the conditions for research. The fact that they played out in the public eye, sometimes in tones which do not belong in civilized debates, is due to media logic, not least that of the social media.

The importance of science is demonstrated in many ways during the ongoing crisis, where security and conflict studies, war and peace ethics, and not least knowledge of languages, culture and history provide important building blocks to give relevant documentation and interpret the development at the present time. However, the answers are sometimes contradictory – science rarely provides simple answers.

As we know, the research bill from 2020 gave strengthened and welcome resources to research and research infrastructure, mainly in the form of a large number of different calls intended to meet various important societal challenges – in addition to health and welfare, also climate and environment, digitalization, supply of skills and working life, as well as a democratic and strong society – but also a number of various smaller ventures. However, the support for free basic research, which is a particular concern to Stockholm University, was less extensive. It is of vital importance to keep it in mind in view of the coming research bill – without strong basic research, which provides a broad basis for future, unexpected applications, we will not be able to meet coming societal challenges of which we know nothing.

The year 2019 – 2020 was in many ways successful for research at Stockholm University and I will only give you a handful of examples. Frank Wilczek, professor at the Department of Physics and Nordita, the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, was awarded an important grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation for the programme Wallenberg Initiative on Networks and Quantum Information, to set up groups of researchers in two new areas, quantum information and complex networks, with relevance for quantum computing, artificial intelligence and “big data”. These recruitments, which were delayed due to the pandemic, are being implemented through researcher workshops these days. The Wallenberg Foundations also granted us four new Wallenberg Academy Fellows and three prolongations, while four were promoted to Wallenberg Scholars. One ERC Consolidator Grant and three Starting Grants, two Distinguished professor grants from the Swedish Research Council, and four out of a total of nine grants for research environments from the Swedish Research Council, for innovative cross-disciplinary collaborations, are all indicators of the University’s good competitiveness. Hiranya Peiris was awarded the Göran Gustafsson Prize in physics and David Drew, who is today inaugurated as a professor, was awarded the Göran Gustafsson Prize in chemistry. The Hans Blix Centre for the history of international relations was established in March 2020 and could at last be solemnly inaugurated earlier in May this year. With its focus on diplomacy and foreign politics it is of the utmost relevance for contemporary history.

The annual report 2020 on economic and bibliometric research indicators gave the University a high score in a national comparison. Stockholm University ranks among Sweden’s top universities in terms of citation impact – at the time, this was already an established fact, and it is also confirmed by the two most recent research barometers published by the Swedish Research Council.

As new doctors and professors at Stockholm University, you have every reason to be proud. This pride is, of course, linked to your own research and its results, but also to the research environment where you were active, or still are. It is my hope that our prominent jubilee doctors, many of whom have been or continue being active researchers both at Stockholm University and at our sister universities KTH and Uppsala, can feel joy over their Alma mater today.

Let me also draw particular attention to the winners of our award for excellence in teaching, who will receive their diplomas at the inauguration and conferment ceremony. It is of high symbolic significance that we also reward outstanding teaching achievements during this ceremony where science is at the forefront. It is not by accident that our positions as associate senior lecturer, senior lecturer and professor are called teaching positions: research and higher education belong together. What would our scientific accomplishments be unless they were disseminated by knowledgeable and dedicated teachers – and then in turn by students who have made this knowledge their own? This is where the universities make their primary collaborative and societal contribution – we offer higher education and culture to new generations.

The need for knowledge, enlightenment and search for truth, which constitute the core values of Stockholm University, is greater than for a long time in these times of unrest, when democracy is pushed back in a number of countries, and academic freedom as well as freedom of expression are under threat in many places. But even though the world situation today is hardly conductive to festivity, I am still grateful that we did not cancel completely or tried a digital ceremony in 2020. For if there is something that we learnt over the last few years, besides developing our digital competence and realizing that technology is good for a lot of things, it is also that technology is not quite enough when it comes to celebrations. Man is the joy of man, as it says in Hávamál, the Old Norse poem. This joy is at its best in real company, in the inauguration and conferment ceremony with its symbolic, physical gestures and in the splendour and fellowship of the banquet. Now, that we are finally able to celebrate and the University can honour you, I wish to congratulate you all on your well-deserved success!

Dixi.