Inauguration of New Professors and Conferment of Doctoral Degrees, 2021

Rectores, promotores, promovendi and installandi, medalists and award winners, honourable guests,

A warm welcome to Stockholm University’s inauguration and conferment ceremony for the academic year 2020 – 2021!

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. Little did we realise that it would not be until this year that the pandemic would allow us to meet again in the City Hall for academic ceremonies. 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 invasion in Ukraine.

In this reality, our mission as a university becomes particularly important: to develop and further scientific knowledge through long-term and critical thinking, to openly share research results and research data, in order to promote transparency and reproducibility. During these years we have also received a powerful reminder of the great importance of science in society. This was true at the outbreak of the pandemic, when already existing basic research gave us a vaccine in record time. A number of researchers also switched to studying many of the unanswered questions we were facing and which still pose a future challenge for us, from the mutations and spread patterns of the virus, to pandemic preparedness in the future. There were also quite a few scientific controversies, but this is part of the conditions of research. The fact that they played out in the public eye, sometimes in tones which do not belong in scientific debates, is due to media logic, not least that of the social media.

The importance of science is also apparent in many ways during the present crisis, where security and conflict research, ethics of war and peace and not least knowledge of languages, culture and history are important building blocks to provide relevant data and interpret development in our time. However, even here, the answers are sometimes contradictory – science rarely gives simple answers.

We have just had elections in Sweden leading up to a change of government. The significance of this for us as a university is, of course, not clear yet. Meanwhile we find ourselves between two research policy bills. As we know, the research bill 2020 gave us increased and welcome resources for research and research infrastructure. The resources were mainly devoted to a large number of different calls intended to meet various important societal challenges – in addition to health and welfare, also climate and environment, digitalisation, skills supply and working life and a democratic and strong society – but also many lesser ventures of different kind. However, there was less support for free basic research, especially important at Stockholm University. It is particularly important to keep basic research in mind in view of the coming research bill. Without strong basic research, which gives a broad basis for future, unexpected applications, we shall never be able to meet coming, as yet unknown societal challenges.

The academic year 2020-2021 was important in many ways for Stockholm University, both through research achievements and collaborative activities. First, I should like to mention a self-imposed collaborative assignment – the production of hand sanitizer, initiated by our chemists, and which came to be of great importance in the health care in Stockholm. As an example of collaborations, I should also like to mention the exhibition space Accelerator and its successful digital talks with researchers, artists and students about the latest research and contemporary issues, which vitalised the activity in the middle of the shut-down during the pandemic. In the autumn of 2020, we also welcomed our first researcher in the Scholars at Risk-programme which is an international network of increasing importance in times of global unrest.

In 2020, the Wallenberg Foundations launched their big and important programme for
data-driven life science, in which Stockholm University also participates. It will be of great importance for the University to strengthen its research in cell and molecular biology, evolution and biodiversity.

But the University also initiated and carried out a number of activities. Stockholm Material Hub, a cooperation within Stockholm Trio for materials research, started during this year. The Stockholm University Centre for Circular and Sustainable Systems, SUCCeSS, also started during this academic year, to address, through research and applications, the major challenge of switching to circularity in order to meet the climate goals.

During the spring of 2021, the collected works of August Strindberg became digitally available through the Swedish Literature Bank. This was the crowning achievement of 35 years of work with the publication of Strindberg’s works. It was directed from Stockholm University with Gunnel Engwall as a tireless and devoted editor during 30 years. This is a scholarly achievement and an important collaboration effort.

During the academic year, researchers at Stockholm University were awarded one Consolidator Grant and no less than four Advanced Grants from the European Research Council ERC. Five new Horizon 2020 projects from the EU were awarded with Stockholm University as the main applicant, and another five where the University is a partner.

One KAW project (Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation) was granted during the year: “Network organization and dynamic control of aggression in the brain, from individual confrontations to behavioral expressions over the lifecycle”. In the autumn of 2020, two out of three of the big research programmes from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond were awarded to Stockholm University, “A new approach to measuring the wealth of nations: understanding long-run economic growth using historical aerial photographs” in economics, and “The Lost Navy: Sweden’s ‘Blue’ Heritage c. 1450-1850” in history, as well as two grants from the Swedish Research Council to strong research environments within humanities and social sciences.

The University has also received considerable private donations during this academic year. For example, thanks to a donation, Stockholm Resilience Centre could establish the Curt Bergfors professorship in sustainable food systems, and its holder is being inaugurated today.

The yearly report 2020 on economic and bibliometric research indicators placed the University high in a national comparison. Stockholm University is among the top universities in Sweden 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 today. 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 are still active researchers, can feel joy over their Alma Mater today.

I should also like to mention our two medalists, two researchers who have been of great importance for Stockholm University, both through their research and their leadership.
The University’s medal is a way of expressing our gratitude, but also to reward dedicated academic leaders and demonstrate their importance.

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 University makes its primary collaborative and societal contribution – we offer higher education and culture to new generations.

The need of 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. For if there is something that we learnt over the last few years, besides developing our digital competence and realising that technology is good for a lot of things, it is also that technology is not quite enough when it comes to celebrations. Gaudeamus igitur – So let us rejoice – is the first line of the medieval Latin student song, which also for many years gave its name to Gadden, the Stockholm University student newspaper. 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.