The Vice-Chancellor’s Blog

First and foremost: welcome to a new semester! It’s always exciting to see the new students who have arrived in town – passing cheerful students in their best clothes, getting to know one another in our fantastic Uppsala. I hope we’ll have a fun and educational semester in which reflection and good conversation are combined […]

After a long and eventful semester, we have finally reached Almedalen Week. It’s a week that has the potential to be a festival of democracy. In many ways, our University is at the heart of it all. Campus Gotland is right there in Almedalen and on top of the splendid geographical location, we also take […]

What a lovely day! Celebrating the Last Day of April in Uppsala is always wonderful, but this year I think it was exceptional. Sunshine, warmth, the feeling of spring and joy everywhere I looked. It doesn’t get any better than this.  Being Vice-Chancellor at Uppsala University involves a lot of hard work. A never-ending succession […]

A few days ago, Jürgen Habermas passed away. He was one of the major philosophers of our time, and two years ago (2024) he was awarded the Skytte Prize for his outstanding contributions, for having “constantly reminded us, theoretically and empirically, that the very lifeblood of democracy depends on human capacity and willingness to respect […]

The new year has started and the spring semester will soon be in full swing. Clear evidence that most people are back at work appeared recently when a consultation response from Uppsala University received an unusual amount of attention in the media and social media. It was all about the committee report En kulturkanon för Sverige, […]

Today I will be visiting the Ministry of Education and Research in Stockholm on behalf of Uppsala University and the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions, to present our reactions to the next Horizon Europe programme (2028–2034) – the proposal put forward by the European Commission for EU investments in research and innovation. Although the […]

On Monday we had a seminar on academic freedom that made the news. The media attention was due to the fact that the seminar was interrupted by demonstrators who wanted Swedish universities to condemn Israel and suspend all cooperation with universities and researchers in Israel. A message that started out reasoned, but which gradually escalated, […]

Uppsala University was founded 548 years ago. We are celebrating that today and in two years it will be time for a more major celebration. Anniversaries are special days. We gather to recognise important milestones, personal and collective, we pause and reflect. Then we move on. Traditions can sometimes be perceived as backward-looking and conservative, […]

In the middle of September, I will be travelling with a few select companions to the United States. We are a delegation from the University, the municipality and the county administrative board who are visiting Minnesota and New York.  The first stop is Minneapolis, Minnesota, where we will visit the University of Minnesota, with which our […]

The summer is nearing its end and a new academic year will soon be under way. As usual, the semester is getting off to an early start with new students arriving, curious and eager, in our Uppsala. It bodes well for the future to see them already discovering the city. They will have plenty to […]