The GU Journal has a free and independent position, is made according to journalistic principles.
Editor-in-chief:
Eva Lundgren
Phone: 070-969 10 14, e-mail: eva.lundgren@gu.se
Editor: Allan Eriksson, e-mail: allan.eriksson@gu.se
Photographer: Johan Wingborg, Phone: 070–595 38 01, e-mail: johan.wingborg@gu.se
Layout: Anders Eurén, Phone: 073-257 62 40, e-mail: anders.euren@gu.se
Address: GU Journal, University of Gothenburg, Box 100, 405 30 Gothenburg , Sweden.
E-mail: gu-journalen@gu.se
ISSN: 1402-9626
Translation: Språkservice
Likes nature.
Latin America in focus.
A thoughtprovoking tragedy
he horrific mass shooting in Örebro has dominated the media flow in recent weeks. First and foremost, my thoughts go to all those who have been affected in various ways by the indiscriminate violence. But the incident also raises many questions about how we can increase security in our society and prevent violence from happening again. Universities are environments with great openness, where we safeguard a flow of people and ideas. That openness is something we are proud of, take for granted and place great value on. At the same time, we must not be naive, we need to think through what we can do to create more security and how we should act concretely if the worst were to happen.
Right now, many more or less drastic political proposals are being made. My conviction is that balanced proposals for measures should only come after a proper analysis. At the University of Gothenburg, I therefore want to encourage discussion and reflection on how we can maintain safety and security in our open environments.
As always, in January all Swedish Vice-Chancellors of higher education gather for a meeting. We first meet with the research funders and the following week with
the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) and the Ministry of Education and Research. A recent research and innovation bill and a relatively new Minister of Education, Johan Pehrson, made the days extra exciting for us Vice-Chancellors.
State Secretary Maria Nilsson gave us an interesting insight into the work behind the research package, which sets the direction for the government's research and innovation policy for the next four years. The work has been based on the politically established watchwords of excellence, internationalization and innovation. The external situation plays a role, such as a hardening security policy dimension and the ongoing technology race in the world. Sweden wants to be part of it and therefore needs to invest. The end result is a bill with many and rather scattered proposals, but with investments equivalent to 6.5 billion in permanent funds. A quarter of the investments go directly to the universities, while the lion's share is to be distributed in competition via the research councils. The Swedish Research Council in particular has been given many large new assignments and funds to announce.
We are currently working hard to position ourselves for the calls for proposals for strategic research areas (SFOs), which are already announced in 2025. Planning and preparation need to take place already in the spring. On 25 February, I will gather deans, vice-deans for research and all heads of departments for a strategy day to discuss tactics for the University of Gothenburg to come out as well as possible in the new initiatives. We need to make use of both our unique breadth and our cutting-edge areas and think more together than we have succeeded in previous similar calls.
Vice-Chancellor MALIN BROBERG
LUM's last issue
n October 23, the editorial team of GU Journal visited our colleagues at Lund University Magazine (LUM). Jan Olsson, Petra Francke and Minna Wallén-Widung talked about the magazine, including how it started back in 1968 which makes it Sweden's oldest university magazine. They explained that it is now available in both print and digital formats and showed examples of topics they have covered during the year.
Barely two months later, we got a message from Jan Olsson, in which he explained that LUM would be closed down. The editorial staff had been called to a meeting with the communications director and had been told that an organizational change was underway, in which LUM did not fit in. The editorial staff had not been allowed to take part in any discussion of the plans. LUM’s editors was noticeably shocked. Employees at Lund University have also reacted; among other things, a petition for the newspaper received almost 900 signatures.
We who work with GU Journal were of course also upset. LUM is a magazine that not only contains news and reports but also provides space for employees who are otherwise not heard. The magazine has also been one of the few common meeting places that all LU employees have had access to.
As one reader writes: “LUM plays a unique role as a unifying and community-building link within a large, complex and decentralized university.”
The last issue was published in February.
We are convinced that Lund University has made a big mistake.
The GU Journal editorial team
”We live in uncertain times”
There is currently an ongoing inventory at more than 35 Swedish universities and colleges, including the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers, identifying courses that may contribute to the national defence. It involves the network Campus Totalförsvar which has been given a grant of 30 million krona by the government.
The National Defence College, Luleå University of Technology and the University of Örebro are behind the initiative. The aim is for the universities and colleges, each with their particular expertise, to contribute to the Swedish defence capability.
Richard Torkar, Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, represents the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers.
– The reason for this collaboration is of course Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Swedish NATO membership as well as the troubled times in which we find ourselves. Our country needs to mobilise and the universities must do their part. But it does not involve
creating new courses or about giving priority to the military or employees within the civil defence. The same qualification requirements apply as for all other applicants and admissions are handled normally.
Richard Torkar argues that the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers have a lot to offer the national defence.
– Some areas are evidently important, such as increasing the technical skills of the national defence. And disaster medicine, security issues, energy systems and logistics are important as well. But other aspects may also be of significance, such as the role of culture during war. So there are many different skills in
demand, and a university such as ours has a lot to contribute. The courses identified by the universities will subsequently be marketed to the relevant personnel.
The government is investing 30 million krona in Campus Totalförsvar and the Knowledge Foundation is contributing 10 million. The funds will be spent on preparing and running the initiative but will not entail any extra resources for course or administration at the participating universities and colleges.
They are also invited to submit proposals for research that they can run or participate in.
– It is about identifying a handful of fields of research that are particularly important to national defence. Some examples include
quantum computing, drone technology, cyber security and space research, but also food and water supply.
Richard Torkar points out that Sweden, since the end of the Cold War, has lost areas of expertise within national defence that will take 5–10 years to restore to some extent.
– We are unused to thinking about our security and about having our own expertise and skills within important fields. My department, for example, has around 150 doctoral students, of whom only a small number are Swedes. Internationalisation is hugely important, but we also need to educate according to our own needs as well. We can compare with Ukraine, which was invaded as early as in 2014 and therefore had time to prepare for further aggression. In Sweden, we also need to be aware that we are living in troubled times.
The vice-chancellors at the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers gave Richard Torkar the assignment to represent the two universities.
– One reason they chose me
»So there are many different skills in demand ...«
Richard Torkar
in particular is probably because I am the head of a joint department for both the university and Chalmers and thus represent them both. But I also have a background as an officer in the reserve, and that might have contributed.
Text: Eva Lundgren
Photo: Johan Wingborg
→
Facts: Campus Totalförsvar is a strategic partnership between more than 35 Swedish universities and colleges with the aim of strengthening Sweden’s national defence through education and research. The National Defence College, Luleå University of Technology and the University of Örebro are behind the initiative, which is also supported by the Knowledge Foundation by 10 million krona and the government by 30 million. Campus Totalförsvar has a steering committee com-
prising the vice-chancellors of the three co-founding universities, one representative of the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions, SUHF, (Muriel Beser Hugosson, Vice-Chancellor at the University of Skövde) as well as David Gisselsson Nord, Associate Dean at the Faculty of Medicine, Lund university. The Swedish Armed Forces and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) are coopted members. The network will begin its work on April 1.
Richard Torkar is head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
More funding but less freedom
“One of the greatest investments ever in research and innovation”. This is what the government is saying about the new research bill for 2025–2028. It amounts to as much as 6.5 billion krona in extra grants and the focus is on excellence, internationalisation and innovation.
– But the investment is somewhat asymmetrical; the largest grants will only be allocated at the end of the period. And even though the importance of academic freedom is being stressed, the bill will involve increased control, says Pro-Vice-Chancellor Carina Mallard.
FOR EXAMPLE, the bill proposes that the direct grants to higher education institutions will increase by around 1.6 billion krona during the four-year period. New quality indicators will complement the old ones, such as giving more weight to the ability to attract EU funding. Increased EU funding is also something which the University of Gothenburg is working on in its own strategy, says Sigríður Beck, Unit Manager at the Grants and Innovation Office (FIK).
– So the universities will receive a considerable contri-
bution, but the lion’s share of the investment will go to the external financiers. They will receive around 4.9 billion krona, which is 75 percent of the 6.5 billion. You could argue that this will cause a lack of balance in the bill, which will lead to less freedom for the universities: the more external funding a department receives, the more funds must be spent on co-financing which means that there will be less funds available for other projects.
THE BILL ALSO include investments in young researchers. It involves career support for assistant senior lecturers to the amount of 245 million krona which the Swedish Research Council (VR) will be responsible for allocating, Carina Mallard explains.
– You apply for these funds in competition with both national and international applicants and the aim of the government is to increase mobility. This is because Swedish universities to a great extent recruit internally, including the University of Gothenburg. Our goal is to increase the share of employed assistant senior lecturers to 3 percent, but we have only reached 1.9 percent. According to the bill, universities that are successful in this recruitment will be rewarded, which is of course an incentive to takes this
matter very seriously.
But this investment also leads to an increased level of control, Carina Mallard points out.
– It will be the universities that nominate candidates to the positions of assistant senior lecturer. But it must be done in accordance with strategic priorities assessed by VR, and the funds require co-financing by at least 50 percent.
The bill also includes three major investments in excellence and ground-breaking research: It partly concerns “ground-breaking research that promotes scientific risk-taking and research breakthroughs at the highest international level” that will be allocated funding from 2026. A number of excellence centres will also be financed with up to 10 million krona each per year; the centres can cover any field, which gives large universities many opportunities to participate. The third investment concerns a number of excellence clusters for ground-breaking technologies that will be allocated 20–40 million per year, says Sigríður Beck.
– SO THE GREATEST investment is focused on these excellence clusters. These fund will be allocated through VR and Vinnova, and amount to a total of 2.5 billion krona,
»So the universities will receive a considerable contribution, but the lion’s share of the investment will go to the external financiers..«
Sigríður Beck
Carina Mallard is pleased that the government wants to invest in science bur worried about increased control.
which is half of the total allocation to the external financiers. The focus is on technology, but the bill stresses the importance of increasing knowledge about the interplay between new technology and social development. For this reason, each excellence cluster will also include funding for the humanities and social sciences, which will give the University of Gothenburg good opportunities to participate in these applications.
EIGHT NEW STRATEGIC research domains are being announced (see About the Bill below), and the largest grants are proposed to go to quantum technology, health and excellence in school, Sigríður Beck tells us.
– The funds will be allocated after a call for applications and a quality assessment by
VR together with the other financiers. How the financiers will collaborate is unclear.
But we do believe that both the call for applications to excellence centres, excellence clusters, strategic research domains and possibly to ground-breaking research as well will be announced as early as this year. So there will not be much time for researchers and universities to work on these applications, nor for the financiers who will be assessing them.
The bill also involves increased support for the universities’ research and innovation grants and innovation offices with more means of verification for anyone wishing to utilize their ideas. In addition, there will be investments in infrastructure, Carina Mallard explains.
– These will mainly benefit the major facilities, such as
EES, MAX IV and SciLifeLab, while there will be smaller allocations for VR to finance other national facilities. This could mean that the universities themselves will have to accept a greater degree of responsibility for those.
REDUCED bureaucracy is another goal for the government which also want to investigate a joint system for research applications. In addition, the bill also includes proposals on reviewing the prerequisites for the country’s universities to develop excellence. This work includes investigating the universities’ status as official authorities. The government also aims to strengthen the universities’ participation in international contexts, such as in the EU, says Carina Mallard.
– The bill contains many suggestions about how
Sweden can become a worldclass research nation , but much of it is unclear. For example, collaboration should increase, both between universities, between financiers, and between universities and financiers. However, nothing is said about how this will be achieved. The Vice-Chancellor’s University Management Council and the Research Board are currently hard at work on the bill and how it relates to our strategies, something that will also be brought up at the vice-chancellor’s strategy day. But the big question, to which we do not yet have an answer, is of course what these investments will mean for the University of Gothenburg specifically.
Text: Eva Lundgren
Johan Wingborg
→ Facts:
The bill, Forskning och innovation för framtid, nyfikenhet och nytta 2025–2028 will involve an increase of state funding for research by a total of 6.5 billion krona, of which 1.632 billion go directly to the universities. Of the 4.869 billion going to the financiers, around 1,4 billion will go to the Research Council (VR), such as the investments in excellence centres.
The bill also includes investments in the following strategic research domains:
Health, life science and artificial intelligence
Quantum technologies
Arctic research
Climate-related research
Crisis preparedness and national defence
Field research on professions concerning crime
Excellence in school
Research into advanced materials.
Photo:
Risk of future shortages of PhDs
Since 2014 the number of doctoral students have fallen considerably within the humanities, social sciences and at the School of Business, Economics and Law.
– There is concern about a futures lack of lecturers with PhDs within the humanities and social sciences, says Pro-Dean Fredrik Engström.
IN TEN YEARS , the number of doctoral students at the Faculty of Arts have fallen by almost 40 percent. But the trend is not entirely unambiguous – there are significant variations year on year. From 2016 to 2020 the faculty had a thorny financial situation, which led to a freeze on the recruitment for post-graduate position at certain departments. Over the past three years, the number of doctoral students has increased by around 15 percent.
– When finances are strained, departments often choose to reduce the number of post-graduate admissions. It is a simple way of keeping costs down, but the long-term consequences can be problematic , says Fredrik Engström at the Faculty of Arts.
Both the Research Council and the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions have recently published figures showing that the dependency on external grants is increasing. But the degree of financing varies greatly between different fields. At Lund University for example, 90 percent of post-graduate education in medicine is financed by external funding, while the corresponding figure in the humanities and social sciences is 20 percent.
– Within five to ten years, we
risk an intractable lack of PhDs within the humanities and social sciences. We are simply not educating enough people.
WHAT CAN the faculty do? According to Fredrik Engström the room for manoeuvre is limited as long as the current system for financing remains. Despite this, he can see certain opportunities for improving the situation.
– I am not worrying about the short term, but in the long term the trends is more disconcerting. We can see the same trend at other universities.
– We cannot employ more doctoral students but we can invest in creating a better research environment, ensuring that doctoral students finish their theses on time and improving
Fredrik Engström says that there is a lack of PhDs in the humanities and social sciences..
the work environment.
The Faculty of Arts currently have 32 post-graduate research subjects with around 150 doctoral students. This means that some subjects are very small, which is a challenge.
– I do not believe that the solution is to cut back on the number of subjects, but rather to find new forms of collaboration across subjects, faculties and universities in order to strengthen post-graduate education.
A the end of the day, the admission of doctoral students is a matter for the departments, who make their decisions based on financial constraints, he points out.
At the School of Business, Economics and Law the extent of the decrease is similar to that of
Photo: JOHANNA HILLGREN
the Faculty of arts. But according to Mikael Johansson, Postgraduate Studies Officer, the statistics provide a misleading impression if you only look at the number of registered doctoral students. Some are limited in their activity or lack funding. A better measurement is the number of doctoral students who are 50 percent active or more. Here, the number of doctoral students has fallen from 131 to 92.
– Despite fewer doctoral students, productivity has increased, thanks to full financing and increased competition at admission, says Mikael Johansson. The School of Business, Economics and Law has brought the issue before the vice-chancellor since the current allocation model limits the possibilities.
AT THE FACULTY of Social Sciences, the number of doctoral students has fallen by 22 percent. It is not very easy to ascertain why that is, argues Professor and ProDean Isabell Schierenbeck.
– I am not overly concerned. The decrease is mainly concentrated to two departments, one of which has been terminated during the period. A more positive interpretation is that the departments have worked on issues of quality and work environment, which has led to doctoral students finishing on time. That said, the faculty management are carefully monitoring these developments.
Sanskriti Chattopadhyay, Chair of the Doctoral Student Committee of the University of Gothenburg (GUDK, new doctoral students’ council from July 1, 2025), can see several trends. At the School of Business, Economics and Law it may be more attractive for students to choose a career in the industry before a doctoral position which pays less. Also, life as a doctoral students often involves stress and uncertainty.
– Even if the University of Gothenburg is faring better than average, there is still a lot to be done within supervising, project
planning and work environment, says Sanskriti Chattopadhyay. She cites a new study that shows that Swedish doctoral students take psychiatric medication at a higher rate than the population as a whole.
– STUDYING ENTAILS significant mental pressure and causes stress, which leads to many seeking psychiatric care.
And the economic situation also matters, argues Sanskriti Chattopadhyay. Inflation and rising costs will impact the possibilities of admitting new doctoral students.
– For example, the Faculty of Science and Technology has moved to Natrium, with higher rents and overheads. In addition, we have seen that research teams prefer to hire post-docs instead of doctoral students, which leads to declining interest in a post-graduate education.
Read the report from UHÄ: Högskolans framtida behov av doktorsexaminerade från 2022. Photos by Fredrik Engström (photographer Johanna Hillgren), Isabell Schierenbeck (photographer Johan Wingborg), Mikael Johansson, Sanskriti Chattopadhyay (photographer Leo Nyström).
Allan Eriksson
→ Facts:
Statistics: Number of doctoral students 2014–2024
At the University of Gothenburg, the number of doctoral students has declined at all faculties except Sahlgrenska Academy and the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts. The IT Faculty and the Faculty of Science have seen a relatively small decline of only a few precent.
Not surprisingly, Sahlgrenska Academy has the highest number of doctoral students – over 1,000 –which is four times more than the Faculty of Science and ten times more than the School of Business, Economics and Law. The IT Faculty, which ceased to exist on December 31, 2024, has the lowest number with 50 registered doctoral students.
Numbers of doctoral students at the University of Gothenburg from 2014 to 2024. Development in %
Sanskriti Chattopadhyay
Mikael Johansson
Isabell Schierenbeck
Photo: LEO NYSTRÖM
Photo: JOHAN WINGBORG
More examination forms needed
The number of examinations on site at the university has increased by 40 percent since 2018. One important reason is the new AI tools, such as Chat GPT, which makes it difficult to arrange legally secure exams in the home. But developments in AI does not necessarily mean that home assignments have stopped working, several teachers argue.
THERÉSE SKOOG, Associate Dean at the Faculty of Social Sciences, says that the number of on-site examinations has increased at her faculty as well.
– I am sure that Chat GPT and similar AI technologies is one reason, but many teachers also find that on-site examination is the best way to examine a particular course or specific learning. The
most appropriate type of exam will of course depend on what will be assessed: for pure factual knowledge, an on-site exam may be excellent but when it concerns practical skills in subjects such as psychology, journalism or social work, something different probably is required.
THE HOME EXAM is not dead. But written home examinations need to be designed with the new AI tools in mind and perhaps combined with other or new ways of assessing, Therése Skoog argues.
– It could be regular follow-ups of the writing process or about holding seminars in which the text is discussed. The teacher may also schedule certain times at which the students sit together in a classroom writing.
But there need not be a ban on using AI tools in exams, says Therése Skoog.
»It could be regular follow-ups of the writing process .... Therése Skoog
– For example, the students can be tasked with investigating whether Chat GPT provides reliable answers to a question, or comparing AI text with text written without AI support. What is important is to clearly communicate to the students what the rules are so that they know when and, if so, how AI tools are permitted.
FOLLOWING THE STUDENTS’ writing processes, holding seminars and perhaps using additional ways of examining will take up quite a bit of the teachers’ time, Therése Skoog admits.
– But not all exams need to be time-consuming, an on-site examination could for example comprise multiple-choice questions that are easy to grade. But the humanities and social sciences have the lowest price tag per student and the fact that exami-
nations require more work could be an argument for increasing the allocation.
THE DISCUSSION about which type of examination is the best one is ever present at universities, regardless of technological developments, explains Oskar Broberg, Associate Dean at the School of Business, Economics and Law.
– During the pandemic, for example, we had almost the opposite problem: then we had to quickly find other forms than on-site exams, which was truly challenging.
The fact that the discussion about AI tools often concerns exams specifically is not very strange since it is an acute problem that needs resolving. But teaching and assessment should be treated as a whole, not as two separate parts of an education,
Oskar Broberg argues.
– FOR EXAMPLE, during my 25 years of teaching, oral examinations have been rare but it would now seem as that format is on its way back. There is some concern among teachers that oral exams take a lot of time, but that depends on how it is done. An oral exam can be used in a pedagogical manner, such as by scheduling it early on in the course, and also be a way of countering the strategy of many students to start cramming a week before the exam. An oral exam can be designed in a way to make it feel less stressful and instead becomes a natural part of the discussions during classes.
Using different methods of examination is important for many reasons, including financial ones; the examination rooms today are equipped with a lot of technology and have therefore become ever more expensive to use. So acquiring new examination rooms could be one part of the solution, argues Oskar Broberg.
– WHEN NEW TECHNOLOGY is being introduced some people get very enthused while others instead tend to be sceptical, which leads to skill discrepancies, Oskar Broberg points out. Frequently, the enthusiasts think that this new thing is very new. But the remit of universities and how to best comply with that remit are constantly on the agenda.
Mattias von Feilitzen is Educational Developer at the Department of Applied IT. He argues that one advantage of on-site examinations is due process: Students can hardly send someone else to sit the exam for them.
– But the aim of an examination is to assess the student’s knowledge. In instances where an on-site exam is not the ideal option, it is not much help that the teacher at least knows that the right person sat it.
Of course, it has always been possible to cheat on home exams, but AI technology has significantly increased that possibility. The risk that the students solve an assignment using a chat-
»An oral exam can be used in a pedagogical manner ....«
Oskar Broberg
»It is no less important to consider how the technology will impact learning.«
Mattias von Feilitzen
bot is possible for the teacher to investigate by using an AI themself to answer the questions.
MATTIAS VON FEILITZEN agrees with the importance of continuously tracking the students’ writing process.
– So far at least, the AI tools are bad at coming up with unfinished drafts, incomplete sentences or wild ideas. Providing feedback to the student will of course take time, but that may be compensated by having less work with summarative feedback on the results. In addition, there are pedgogical benefits to providing feedback during the process.
The discussion about the consequences of AI tools often revolves around examinations, Mattias von Feilitzen concludes.
– It is no less important to consider how the technology will impact learning. Ill-considered and irresponsible use can have major consequences for students' learning, which they need to be made aware of. At the same time, using these technologies does not have to be bad, they can function as powerful supports and worj tools, but this requires that se also have knowledge how they work. We must all of us learn more about AI tools and how they can be used, but developments are so rapid that even I, who work with these issues, have trouble keeping up. For teachers, who must also manage all their other tasks, the challenge is of course even greater.
WHEN THE INTERNET evolved, there was this notion that nobody would need to learn anything any longer, you could just look it up online, Mattias von Feilitzen points out.
– There are similar notions around AI, that we can let a machine do the work for us. But humans have a fundamental desire to understand the world around them and keep developing, and no technology will ever change that.
Eva Lundgren
Illustration: LARS LANHED
Digging where he stands
The Andes or the Himalayas? This was the question that Anders Burman considered when he as a very young man decided to spend his savings on travelling the world. It led to a nine month long adventure to Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile and a lifelong love of mainly Bolivia and its culture. →
Text: Eva Lundgren Photo: Johan Wingborg
ut in Bolivia unexpected things sometimes happen. One such example is from June 26 last year when Anders Burman heard the news that the country had been subjected to a coup. He and his wife Mirna were in their flat in La Paz where they were looking after Mirna’s niece.
– I thought that now is the time to act fast since all the stores and communications would probably soon close down. So I made my way through the streets with the niece to bring her to her parents. We managed to catch the cableway just before it closed, I dropped off the girl and went to pick up my oldest daughter from football practice On the way home we managed to get to a store to buy bread before it locked up. When we finally made it home we were told that the coup was averted after only three hours.
The commander of the Bolivian army, Juan José Zúñiga, and two other military leaders and around thirty soldiers had driven an armoured car into the presidential palace. They had been stopped there by President Luis Arce who, in front of the cameras, declared: “I am your captain and I order you to withdraw your troops. I will not permit this insubordination”. And thus the coup attempt was thwarted.
– I was interviewed by GP and the article which had the heading Very Strange Coup Attempt. And you can only agree. Many argue that it was an autogolpe – a selfcoup– that the president had staged to gain support.
Anders Burman is a social anthropologist and Professor of Human Ecology. He has spent a total of 10 years in Bolivia, a county rich in gas, oil and minerals, and with good growth over the past 15 years. Sand yet, the country is one of the poorest in South America. Around 70 percent of the population belong to one of the 36 indigenous peoples, of which Quechua and Aymara are the largest. His wife, Mirna, is Aymara and Anders Burman met her in 2000 when had applied to be a volunteer for the organisation, “Svalorna Latinamerika”.
– It led to my working for two years as a teacher in environmental anthropology at a small Bolivian villages school which doubled as a boarding school for adolescents. The school was run by an organisation of indigenous people who taught agriculture, but also subjects concerning social movements and Andean philosophy.
The pupils that Anders Burman taught during the day in turn became his teachers during the evening. They taught him how to play Siku, a kind of pan flute, as well as how to speak Aymara.
It was his experience from this period that led Anders Burman to become a doctoral student. And when he returned in 2006 for field studies, Bolivia, for the
first time since its independence in 1825, elected a president from among the indigenous people. Evo Morales, leader of Movimiento al socialismo (MAS) promised to nationalise natural resources, work against corruption and building a new country. And the constitution changed, giving the country a new name: The Republic of Bolivia became the Plurinational State of Bolivia.
– The election was a shock to the white upper classes who considered the indigenous people naturally meant for physical labour, while themselves were intended to govern. My doctoral studies, which led to my thesis in 2009, was specifically about decolonisation and the rights of the indigenous peoples. I was also interested in how the Andean, animist world view, where things like mountains are seen as living beings, became part of the political struggle and the activism.
One clear indication that Andean traditions had started to gain new importance was that Morales on the day before his official installation participated in a sacred ceremony at Lake Titicaca: There, shamans held rituals before an audience of around 100,000 people.
– When my parents’ generation say that they experienced the protests in 1968, I counter by saying that I was in Bolivia in 2006! People wept with emotion and hopes were very high. And for the first few years Morales actually managed to create considerable economic growth, reduce the extreme poverty and introduce a child benefit, albeit a very modest one. In the beginning, many saw him as a kind of Messiah, but this is no longer the case. After being accused of abuse of power and other improprieties he was deposed in 2019 in what many people claim is a coup d’état and was eventually succeeded by Luis Arce, former Finance Minister in Morales’s cabinet.
To Anders Burman, it is important to get engaged in the society he is researching. Together with Bolivian colleagues and funding from Sida he has established a doctoral programme in Bolivia where 10 doctoral students will be defending their theses next year.
He also writes articles and books in Spanish, in order to actually be read in Bolivia and be able to give something back.
However, this is not a clever thing career-wise.
– What a researcher in my field is expected to do is to travel to another country, conduct interviews and gather information. Then they should publish articles in English in a prominent journal that none of the informants will be able to read or have access to. I realised that it was a stupid idea from a career perspective to write in Spanish when I was turned down for a lectureship; by publishing in a language that admittedly is
the native tongue of around 550 million people, but is not English, I was not deemed to have sufficiently taken part in international scientific discourse. In protest I wrote the article Are anthropologists monsters? Which I for safety’s sake published in English in a prestigious scientific journal.
Currently, Anders Burman is the head of research for a major six-year project that has received as much as 30 million krona from the Swedish Research Council and which investigates the relationship between migration and climate change.
– It is a cross-disciplinary project with around twenty researchers from countries in three of the world’s most populated mountain regions: Nepal, Bhutan, Peru and Ethiopia. We use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, everything from fundamental ethnographic fieldwork to advanced climate modelling. And I am very pleased that the project includes a person such as Deliang Chen, Professor of Physical Meteorology.
Climate change can have rapid consequences, such as flash floods. But they are frequently slow and are therefore only later noticed by those who are subjected to them.
– A farmer who, over the years, have moved their fields to higher and higher altitudes may eventually give up and try to make a living in the city instead. But climate change is never the sole decisive factor when people decide to migrate, it is a combination of a number of factors.
Many governments in the wealthier parts of the world are concerned about what impact future climate refugees may have on their country’s security, Anders Burman points out.
– The people who contributed the least to climate change and who benefited the least from the activities that caused it, are the one most severely affected by it. For this reason, our project is working on issues concerning how migration can be included in the larger debate on climate justice.
Since Anders Burman’s is Bolivian he now has double citizenship and spends a lot of his time in Bolivia. He is also involved in Bolivian cultural activities in Gothenburg. For example, he and his family normally participate in the “Hammarkullefestival” each year to play the Siku.
– Music is one of my main interests, as is football, something that my oldest daughter has inherited; she has played in both Jitex and in the La Paz team Always Ready; last year they became Bolivian champions and the team qualified for Copa Libertadores, Latin America’s equivalent to Champions League.
But even if Bolivia is important to Anders Burman he also enjoys being at home in Sweden. He lives in Alafors outside Gothenburg, but has also taken over his grandfather’s home, a small farm on the island of Orust.
– When I am there, I enjoy doing carpentry, chopping firewood, fishing and tending to the farm. Anything that you can do outdoors and only requires overalls and boots is fun in my mind.
ANDERS BURMAN
Job: Social anthropologist and Professor of Human Ecology. He heads to large cross-disciplinary project A New Interdisciplinary Framework for Studying the Relation between Climate Change and Migration (CLIMIG).
Background: He grew up in Trollhättan, graduate and post-graduate studies at the University of Gothenburg, Senior Lecturer in Lund (2011–2017), post-doc at the University of California at Berkeley (2009–2011). He lives in: Alafors, north of Gothenburg.
Family: Wife Mirna, who is an artist, and two daughters of 21 and 16 years respectively.
Hobbies: Music, mainly punk rock, doing carpentry, fishing, working in the forest.
Brighter future for Alzheimer patients
Major breakthroughs in research have led to a better situation for Alzheimer patients – at least in the Western World. In low- and medium-income countries the new diagnostic and treatment methods are still unavailable. Professor Henrik Zetterberg, who contributed to the medical developments, is working to remedy the situation. And he is hopeful about the future.
Alzheimer’s disease, our most common form of dementia, has long been described as an incurable, severe disease with no effective treatment methods. In addition, patients are often diagnosed at a late stage, when the deterioration of the brain’s nerve cells has already started.
Today, that picture is changing.
Over the past few years, several breakthroughs have been made in Alzheimer research, creating entirely new conditions for both treatment and early discovery of the disease. Henrik Zetterberg, Professor of Neuro-Chemistry and Consultant in Clinical Chemistry at the University of Gothenburg and the Sahlgrenska University Hospital, has in many ways been driving developments. His research team has created the foundation for early diagnosis through a test that indicates Alzheimer changes to the brain before the damage has become too severe. It is done through a simple blood test and will be available to Swedish healthcare providers in the spring of 2025.
At the same time, new Alzheimer medication that slows the progress of the disease has been developed, and it may soon be available for sale in Europe.
– It feels a little like a big leap forward: we now have the knowledge and methods to soon be able to identify and help Alzheimer patients much better than before, he says.
But it is not true for everyone. Lowand medium-income countries do not yet have the same opportunity to utilise the new diagnostic methods and drugs.
– New drugs and treatments must of course be made available in these countries as well, the question is how long it will take. I would like to speed up developments, he says.
»We are talking about very large groups of patients who are never examined.«
HENRIK ZETTERBERG
Henrik Zetterberg is involved in a global network that aims to increase knowledge about dementia and the ageing brain outside the Western World. Despite the fact that two out of three people living with dementia are found in low- and medium-income countries, dementia research has so far primarily focused on high-income countries.
– This means that we do not know nearly as much about the prevalence and causes behind dementia in low- and medium-income countries. We need to understand how factors that are more prevalent in these countries may affect dementia, such as lower levels of education, lower energy intake, many infectious diseases or exposure to toxins at work, he says.
In many low- and medium-income countries, dementia is often seen as a stigma. This may lead to people with dementia being hidden away, and there
is a belief that families that suffer from dementia are being cursed. At the same time, there is not the same willingness as in the West among elderly to seek medical help, since it is seen as something inevitable and more accepted that your health will eventually as you reach old age. And frequently,, there have been no drugs available whatsoever or any other help at hand.
One consequence of this is that a large proportion of people with dementia in these countries are left undiagnosed.
– We are talking about very large groups of patients who are never even examined. So far, medical interventions in these countries have primarily been focused on HIV, malaria and infant mortality. Much has happened in these fields and life expectancy has increased. For this reason, the issues surrounding dementia are becoming clearer, he says.
In order for diagnosing and treatment of dementia to be more equitable, we need more research into dementia in countries other than the West. According to Henrik Zetterberg there is a lack of knowledge about the impact of genetic variation in Africa on dementia.
– The genetic variation in Africa is enormous, much greater than in the
A
street in Uganda.
West. We need to learn more about this, and to see whether there are especially pathogenic or protective genetic variants for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, he says.
The global, medical network of which Henrik Zetterberg is part gather in Nairobi every other year Their focus is on accelerating dementia research in low- and medium-income countries, and on successfully mobilising the extensive research funding that is required. The network also strive to increase awareness of dementia and the availability of diagnostic and treatment methods in these countries.
Recently, Henrik Zetterberg returned from the most recent network meeting, where Professor Ingmar Skoog also participated, and he is optimistic about the strong partnerships and projects that have been established.
– We need to widen the perspective on dementia together with local researchers and physicians, and to validate and test the diagnostic testing and the drugs in low- and medium-income countries as
well. With more global studies that are not solely based on populations in the West we gain a better understanding of risk and protective factors. It will likely lead to new discoveries and ideas about how we can prevent and treat the diseases, he says.
Concerning diagnostics and the new Alzheimer blood tests developed by Henrik Zetterberg’s research team, he sees great opportunities for making them available globally – in all kinds of regions.
– These blood tests do not require refrigeration, but can be stored at room temperature. For this reason, it is entirely possible to travel to more hard-to-reach places in order to collect blood tests and conduct simple, cognitive tests, he says.
He also tells us that researchers have developed a new portable MRI scanner for scanning the brain, which will soon be available.
– It is really evident that we have better conditions for global research into Alzheimer’s disease now, and that there
is strong commitment to making the new, medical advances available to the global population, he says.
Text: Ulrika Ernström Photo: Johan Wingborg
International Partnership on Dementia
Since 2007 international conferences are held regularly in Nairobi, Kenya, on dementia and the ageing brain. The aim is to create partnerships to promote global dementia research and to make available diagnostic tools and treatments for dementia in low- and medium-income countries.
The network and the conferences involve several universities, research institutes and organisations across the globe working with Alzheimer’s disease and research into dementia, including the University of Gothenburg. One of the people behind the conferences is Raj Kalaria, Professor of Pathology at Newcastle University.
Henrik Zetterberg is interested in global research on Alzheimer's disease.
Timing is everything – in physics as well as in music
New opportunities to develop complex computers that are both efficient and energy saving, that is the content of an article, recently published in Nature Physics, one of the world's most respected journals in physics. The authors are Johan Åkerman's research group. Here they explain the content of the article.
In a classical string quartet, four musicians play in concert with a timing window of less than ten milliseconds. In our upcoming Nature Physics article, Spin-wave mediated mutual synchronization and phase-tuning in spin Hall nano-oscillators, same as in a string quartet, timing is very important. But instead of musicians, we use nanoscopic magnetic oscillators and instead of notes and tempo, they time each other by exchanging magnetic interactions called spin waves in intervals of less than ten nanoseconds.
Spin-Hall nano-oscillators (SHNOs) are a type of nanostructures that use the physical phenomena of the spin Hall effect and spin transfer torque to create magnetic waves, also called spin waves, inside of a thin film, similar to how resonant vibrations of a violin string can create sound waves in air. Under certain conditions, we can tune SHNOs to produce spin waves that travel far across the material, and those waves, in turn, can tune the oscillations produced by other SHNOs. In the same way skilled musicians can time each other by sound waves alone, pairs of SHNOs can time each other using spin waves.
Until now, our research group and others had shown that SHNOs could only be synchronized to the same frequency and at the same phase. In this so-called in-phase synchronization, the oscillators play the same note at exactly the same time. Although this is very good for the power and precision one can extract
from these devices, it hinders possible novel applications that employ large complex networks. Oscillators with controlled phase information can work as unconventional computing accelerators for optimization tasks such as finding the shortest route along several cities or which stocks to simultaneously buy/sell to maximize the profit of an investment portfolio.
To encode such problems into large arrays of SHNOs, one also needs anti-phase synchronization. In this type of synchronization, the SHNOs still operate at the same frequency, but there is a delay in their signals of exactly half an oscillating period, akin to musicians playing a melody in canon. With both in and anti-phase synchronization, one can define a nanoscopic binary network in
»... for optimizing tasks such as finding the
shor-
test route along several cities ...«
JOHAN ÅKERMAN'S RESEARCH GROUP
which the problems above can be solved in nanosecond time with low energy consumption.
In our paper, we show that using spin waves as a carrier for exchanging information between SHNOs, we can induce both in-phase and anti-phase
The article is written by Nilamani Behera, Avinash Kumar Chaurasiya, Johan Åkerman, Ahmad A. Awad, Akash Kumar, Ademir Alemán, Victor H. González and Roman Khymyn (not in picture).
synchronization regimes by modifying the magnetic medium across which these waves propagate. Using electrical and laser detection, and micromagnetic simulations, we show that we can switch between these regimes using electrical current, voltage, or the distance between oscillators. The first two are especially interesting since they allow the networks to be changed dynamically. Such versatility allows for the construction and operations of complex and flexible architectures that could one day handle not only optimization problems, but also machine learning tasks.
In this work, we have pushed the boundaries of how SHNOs communicate and taken advantage of their intrinsic physical mechanisms to switch between phase synchronization regimes to achieve mutual phase binarization. Such binarization paired with the potential to construct large oscillator networks will allow the encoding and solution of problems of both academic and industrial interest. Magnetic materials present a tremendous opportunity for the development of low-energy-consumption hardware accelerators for next-generation computing. With the advent of the AI age and a hard size limitation for silicon base devices, magnetic chips present opportunities for novel computing architectures that complement existing ones and will allow us to keep the growth in complexity that has characterized computing systems for the past sixty years.
The Article Spin-wavemediated mutual synchronization and phase-tuning in spin Hall nanooscillators was published in the January issue of Nature Physics, one of the world's most renowned journals in physics. Authors are Akash Kumar, Avinash Kumar Chaurasiya, Victor H. González, Nilamani Behera, Ademir Alemán, Roman Khymyn, Ahmad A. Awad and Johan Åkerman.
Photo: Johan Wingborg
Students from Ukraine
This spring three students from Ukraine will study molecular physics and spectroscopy at GU. It is Vitali Zhaunerchyk, professor of Physics, who has arranged for the students to come here through the Erasmus+ exchange program and in collaboration with the University’s International Centre.
Polina Krast and Anastasiia Davydiuk will spend a year studying for their master’s degree at GU, while Daryna Ovcharenko will work on her bachelor’s thesis until the beginning of April. The exchange is the result of a collaboration between GU and the National Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv.
– Polina and I will work on our thesis and therefore will not attend regular seminars or courses. I am very happy to be here; everyone speaks English and the labs are well-equipped, says Anastasiia Davydiuk.
– GU provides everything you need, so there are all the opportunities to do a good job here. When I return to Ukraine, I hope to continue with doctoral studies. Many people want to do their doctorate abroad, and maybe I will too, explains Polina Krast.
– I haven’t gotten used to Sweden yet and still jump when I hear sounds that remind me of air raid sirens or bombs. I love Kyiv, but I think the much smaller city of Gothenburg also seems nice. When I finish my bachelor’s degree, I want to do a master’s degree in medical physics, says Daryna Ovcharenko. It was already in 2020 that Vitali Zhaunerchyk began to get involved in the Erasmus+ exchange program, which makes it possible for teacher and student exchanges to take place
Anastasiia Davydiuk, Vitali Zhaunerchyk, Polina Krast and Daryna Ovcharenko.
also with countries outside the EU. At that time, it was a master’s student from Belarus that came to GU.
– Due to the war, that cooperation could not continue. So instead, together with the International Centre here, I have become involved in Ukraine. All Ukrainian students who come here are women; men of military age are not allowed to leave the country. But I hope we will be able to continue to collaborate in the future for mutual benefit, both with teacher and student exchanges.
Facts: Since spring 2022, the EU has opened the Erasmus exchange program (intra-European part) for students from Ukraine. This means that students can take courses at higher education institutions within the EU. In total, GU has received seven Ukrainian students in this way, three at the Department of Physics and four at the Department of Languages and Literatures, two of whom arrived last fall.
Latin America's literary treasures
Among the many special collections at the University Library, the Ibero-American is by far the largest one. Of the almost 50,000 volumes, around 10,000 are yet to be catalogued. But this is about to be rectified, at least partly.
University Librarian Erika Widemalm has been given the interesting albeit demanding task of spending six months tackling as much of the plentiful material as possible and making it searchable.
The Ibero-American collection mostly comprises books in Spanish and Portuguese, although there are also works in Swedish and English. Previously, the collection was part of the Ibero-American Institute, which was founded in 1939 by Nils Hedberg, senior lecturer in Spanish and Russian. Originally it mostly consisted of donations, from both private individuals and from various embassies and consulates that the institute was in contact with, says University Librarian Joakim Lilljegren who is in charge of new acquisitions to the collection.
– One prominent donor was Johan Vising, the first professor of Romance languages at the Gothenburg University College and from 1899–1909 its vice-chancellor as well. On his death in 1942, his library was donated to the Ibero-American Institute, while much of his inheritance went to a college fund. It is that fund which is now for six months financing a cataloguing of the material.
The Ibero-American Institute closed down in 2007. In connection with that, research and teaching were transferred to the School of Global Studies, while books and other types of material ended up at the University Library, Erika Widemalm explains.
Erika Widemalm
Joakim Lilljegren
»One prominent donor was Johan Vising, the first professor of Romance languages at the Gothenburg University College ...«
JOAKIM LILLJEGREN
– The collection includes books within the humanities and social sciences as well as literary studies and fiction. I started working on it in October and was done with all the books on art history as well as the folios before the end of the year. I am currently cataloguing books on
legal studies. Even though many books are general in nature there are also works on more niche subjects. The books I have catalogued most recently include, beside codified laws from various countries, one book, for example, on legal procedures concerning marriage between people with leprosy in Venezuela in the 1930s.
Today, the collection is mainly used by the Department of Languages and Literatures and by the School of Global Studies, Joakim Lilljegren tells us.
– But people with a Latin-American background are also interested and lending has increased over the past few years, including interlibrary loans. Some of our books are unavailable in their original countries, perhaps due to censorship or for other reasons, and they are naturally of particular interest.
Each book that is made searchable in Libris and the University Library catalogue must first be examined in order to include the information necessary in the catalogue listing, says Erika Widemalm.
– The book needs to be classified, given a heading, assigned a shelf label and sometimes sent for repair to the library’s bookbinder. Some of the older and more fragile books are put into storage or moved to the rarities room.
The works in the Ibero-American collection are ordered by subject and country. On occasion, the cataloguing can throw you a surprise finding, says Joakim Lilljegren.
– Under the tab Modern politics for example, you will find works about the Spanish civil war. That is because the book was catalogued at a time when the civil war was still a current event. Recently published books about Spain in the 1930s are instead to be found under the tab History. You can also find other interesting things such as traces of pests that are only found in the Amazon. Our conservator usually finds that interesting.
Of course, Erika Widemalm will not
have time to catalogue all 10,000 books in six months.
– But I am guessing that I can finish a few thousand volumes.
The rest will be catalogued bit by bit if time permits, says Joakim Lilljegren.
– Hopefully it will be completed in time for the hundredth anniversary of the foundation of Ibero-American Institute, which will be in 2039.
the right:
Facts:: The Ibero-American collection is the largest special collection of the University Library and focuses on Spain, Portugal and Latin America. The collection comes from the Ibero-American Institute (1939–2007) and comprises an estimated 40,000–50,000 volumes, of which more than 10,000 works are yet to be catalogued. Cataloguing has now been made possible through Johan Vising’s college fund, which is managed by the Department of Languages and Literatures. Johan Vising (1855–1942) was the first professor of Romance languages at the Gothenburg College and later its vice-chancellor.
To
Johan Vising's Ex Libris.
Text: Eva Lundgren Photo: Kristin Lidell
The Ibero-American collection is the University Library's largest special collection.
Popular science is important, most people think. But engaging in public events doesn't give any extra money or help researchers in their careers. Meet two researchers who still think communcation with the public is worth the effort. →
Illustration:
Welcome to a different world!
Massive blow-ups of gut bacteria and meetings with virtual seals are some examples of how modern technology can be used in popular science. It is about visualising things that we could not experience otherwise and about engendering an understanding of things that we cannot see.
“A journey of discovery through the human body and soul”, is how the exhibition Humans at the Universeum is being described. Parts of the exhibition have been developed by researchers working with intestinal bacteria at Sahlgrenska Academy, for example using hugely blown up pictures of bacteria to describe how food travels through the digestive tract.
Valentina Tremaroli is one of the researchers on the team which also worked with Thaher Pelaseyed’s and Malin Johansson’s research teams.
– The stomach specifically is one part of the body that interest most people; we have all of us been nauseous or had stomach-ache at some point. And people with inflammatory intestinal disorders are of course interested in finding out what research has discovered. Trying to communicate to the public about the latest results is an important part of research, and a way of paying back the investments made by society in us researchers.
The exhibition describes things such as what happens when you eat a sandwich; how the small intestine absorbs nutrients and how bacteria help breaking down the food. Using games and puzzles, both parents and children can learn even more.
The exhibition is inspired by the website Livet i tarmen (Life in the Gut), which was developed in the autumn of 2021 by several members of Fredrik Bäckhed’s research team under the supervision of Charlotta Johansson, and contains recorded popular science lectures and animated films as well as questions and answers about the importance of intestinal bacteria to our health.
Géraldine Fauville thinks it is important that people feel that they can make a difference.
»VR can make the invisible visible, letting us experience places we cannot visit and creating an understanding of things from which we are psychologically removed..«
GÉRALDINE FAUVILLE
But the researchers on the team work on research communication in other ways as well. For example, the partner with upper-secondary schools, both by going there to lecture and also the opposite, by opening the lab to visiting pupils, says Valentina Tremaroli.
– another important target audience is the people participating in our different trials, such as the IGT study which investigates whether the bacterial composition of the intestine can explain the risk of getting type-2 diabetes. Those who make themselves available for research should also be informed about our findings.
Valentina Tremaroli believes that all people have a curious inner child that must be encouraged.
– But research rarely provides the simple answers that many may be looking for. Explaining that reality is neither black nor white is an important part of communicating research.
But what is happening here? Using a headset and VR glasses, the GU Journal has dived into the ocean where a seal
Photo:
with her little pup is swimming towards us. The seal introduces herself as Selma and wonders if we would like to help her catch fish. This is a new attraction that will soon come to the Maritime Museum and Aquarium and the Gothenburg Natural History Museum, says Géraldine Fauville, marine biologist and Associate Professor of Pedagogy.
– As humans, we find it difficult to take an interest in problems of which we have no personal experience. Even if we can understand on an intellectual level that what we do here and now can impact other places on Earth and the future for coming generations, it isa still not easy to get emotionally involved. This is not least true for the sea; we cannot see ourselves what the consequences will be from acidification and over-fishing.
It is this emotional involvement that the project Havets Röst (the Voice of the Sea) wants to get to. By creating a personal encounter with an AI seal, Géraldine Fauville is hoping to get people to change their behaviour and think more about the environment.
– VR can make the invisible visible, letting us experience places we cannot visit and creating an understanding of things from which we are psychologically removed. For example, in this project we travel in time to find out what will happen to the seals if acidification and over-fishing are allowed to continue for another 20 years.
But the experience mustn’t lead to
»One way of facilitating things for researchers would be to collaborate more with the university's communicators ...«
hopelessness, Géraldine Fauville stresses.
– On the contrary, people must feel that they can have an effect through their actions That is why the VR encounter ends on a positive note, because if we take responsibility for acidification and over-fishing the seals will do fine.
Géraldine Fauville believes that VR technology in combination with AI programming will become more common in the future, both at museums, in schools and in other contexts, such as in rehabilitation within healthcare.
– VR devices have become more affordable, more durable and easier to use, which is a trend that I think will continue. Not everybody can experience the sea, but everyone can don a headset and a pair of VR glasses, and thus be part of something very special.
The fact that not more researchers are involved in popular science Géraldine Fauville believes is partly due to a lack of time.
– We must teach, conduct experi-
ments, write and comment on articles as well as many other things. If we are also to spend time on communicating research, perhaps time should be made for that on the job, so that it is not just something you try to find time for in your off hours.
Valentina Tremaroli argues that another reason why researchers are not more involved in popular science is that it can be difficult.
– One way of facilitating things for researchers would be to collaborate more with the university’s communicators who do know how to convey research in an accessible way. We should also work more closely with schools, not just upper-secondary level but also primary schools: As researchers, we have expertise in the subject while teachers know what information that children of a certain age can take in. Those of us who are interested in popular science should probably also get better about talking about the rewards we do get, albeit not necessarily career-wise. But seeing the light in the eyes of an upper-secondary school student who suddenly realised something new – that is worth all the hard work!
Eva Lundgren
Valentina Tremaroli thinks everyone has a curious child somewhere inside..
Photo:
VALENTINA TREMAROLI
What happens with the food we eat? Learn more at Universeum!
How do you do, Selma?
Facts: The project Havets Röst – Fördjupande samtal med en virtuell AI-säl för ökad havsmedetenhet is supported by Formas and was developed by a cross-disciplinary team at the University of Gothenburg, the University of Copenhagen, the Maritime Museum and Aquarium and the Gothenburg Natural History Museum.
The exhibition Humans at the Universeum opened in the spring of 2022 and contains a lot of information about gut bacteria, compiled by Bäckhed Lab. The team also runs a popular science website: Livet i tarmen (Life in the Gut)
At Unversum people can experience things they normally cannot see.
The Moment
Where? Who? When?
• Hasselblad Center.
• Louise Wolthers, Head of Research and Curator at the Hasselblad Foundation.
• 7 February 2025.
Short description
The exhibition Bugs & Metamorphosis presents works by 15 international artists who each in their own way explores how glitches (technical faults in electronic systems) can disrupt and call into question systems for knowledge, classification and control. The works deal with themes such as hybridity, camouflage and transformation, where glitches are not merely aesthetic expressions but also a path to exploring how images can create and change our understanding of the world.
In connection with the exhibition at the Hasselblad Center some of the works will be located at the Gothenburg Museum of Art and the Gothenburg Natural History Museum in order to “glitch” and interact with the collections. Parts of the exhibition will also be displayed at Kunsthal Aarhus in Denmark in the summer of 2025.
The exhibition is curated by Nina Mangalanayagam, senior lecturer at HDK-Valand, and Louise Wolthers, Head of Research and Curator at the Hasselblad Foundation.
