Previous EU framework programmes have focused largely on engineering, medicine and science, but over the next seven years, the EU wants to see more interdisciplinary research and collaboration, as well as more social science and humanities. But will Horizon 2020 be the breakthrough that the humanities have hoped for? “We are heading in the right direction, but we’re not there yet”, says Wim van de

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/humanities-late-joining-horizon-2020-train - 2025-08-25

Lund University offers over 100 Master’s programmes and a growing number of Bachelor’s programmes in English. In order to recruit more international, fee-paying students who have the prerequisites to complete their studies, the Education Board has decided to investigate the possibility of offering preparatory English language training. Similar programmes can be found in other countries and are ref

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/university-considers-international-foundation-year - 2025-08-25

Lund University has allocated almost SEK 500 000 of strategic education funding for a new course created in a collaboration between the faculties of Law and Medicine and Loyola Law School in the US. The course will be on how to ensure legal protection of innovations at the intersection of law and medical technology, and of European and American law. It will be offered as an online distance learnin

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/law-and-medicine-create-innovation-course - 2025-08-25

This autumn, Lund University will offer its first three free open online courses, known as MOOCs. They will be in green economy, global health and European business law. Despite this decision, opinions are still partially divided. Some see MOOCs as a motor for development that will rejuvenate and adapt higher education to new methods of learning. Others fear that the hype surrounding MOOCs will ro

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/green-light-three-moocs - 2025-08-25

Royal climate change researcher Harriet Bulkeley doesn’t believe that directives from above cause us to change our behaviour. On the other hand, she believes in the creative and fumbling environmental experiments that she has seen popping up in cities around the world. Now she is going to study climate-friendly initiatives in Sweden. Harriet Bulkeley at the royal lunch following her lecture. Photo

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/green-cities-grow-roots - 2025-08-25

Geologist Charlotte Sparrenbom could be called a water detective. In her research, she searches for facts about underground water and its age in order to investigate and minimise the risk of pollution in groundwater. She is very concerned about insufficient monitoring of water quality by Swedish authorities. Senior lecturer Charlotte Sparrenbom is participating in the new research project TRUST, w

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/water-detective - 2025-08-25

Meet Ingvar Wirfelt – the new managing director of Gerdahallen, the university sports centre, from 1 March. What do you think is lacking at Gerdahallen at the moment? “I think there are a good range of activities and that the centre is good at picking up new trends. ‘Indoor walking’ is something I’d like to see – but it requires a lot of space. ‘Crossfit’ is another new form of exercise that has b

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/what-lacking-gerdahallen - 2025-08-25

Enzymes developed in Lund could be used in university and industry labs worldwide in the future. This is what Professor Eva Nordberg Karlsson hopes; her research group has signed a contract with an Icelandic biotech company that is going to sell their products. Eva Nordberg Karlsson wants to give other researchers reliable access to enzymes. Photo: Ingela Björck The contract is the result of an EU

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/enzymes-lund-set-take-over-world - 2025-08-25

Patients with diabetes or Parkinson’s disease can be cured with stem cells at a clinic in China. Multiple sclerosis, stroke and cerebral palsy are treated at a stem cell clinic in Mexico, and in Thailand, the deadly disease ALS can be cured with stem cells... at least according to advertising from these and other clinics around the world. Desperate individuals travel there in what has been called

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/hyped-hope-shady-stem-cell-clinics-take-advantage-desperate-patients - 2025-08-25

The situation of patients with Huntington’s disease is in many respects different from patients with other serious conditions. “The condition affects the brain, the very foundation of who we are, and is caused by a diseased gene. If you have the gene, you will develop the disease sooner or later, regardless of how healthy a lifestyle you have”, says ethnologist Niclas Hagen He is a member of Susan

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/difficult-living-risk-huntingtons - 2025-08-25

Petra Östergren is a social anthropologist who has received SEK 3 million to participate in a major new EU project about how to tackle human trafficking by studying demand. Around 15 researchers from eight countries are taking part in the project, the goal of which is to reduce the suffering that results from the worst forms of exploitation. Petra Östergren. “No. We often think about women being l

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/human-trafficking-primarily-about-prostitution - 2025-08-25

This autumn she was awarded SEK 22 million in ERC grants for her Alzheimer’s research. In addition, she is a member of the Nobel Prize committee for chemistry, she has written children’s books, won the veterans’ European Championship in orienteering and is director of Humlegården, a day centre for people with autism. Meet Professor of Chemistry Sara Snogerup Linse. Sara Snogerup Linse has many iro

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/multi-tasking-top - 2025-08-25

What if you could take a substance that allows a nasty bacterium to resist the human immune system and develop it into a drug to help people with completely different diseases? It sounds like a fairy tale for medical researchers. Yet this is precisely what is about to happen in Lund. Lars Björck hopes that the enzyme IdeS can be used to treat a number of autoimmune diseases. The nasty bacterium is

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/enzyme-killer-bacteria-could-save-seriously-ill-kidney-patients - 2025-08-25

In our everyday lives, we surround ourselves with electronics without really thinking about it. We go to work by car or train, travel by air when we go on holiday, and are reliant on our mobile phones, iPads and laptops. We take the products’ functions for granted, until they suddenly stop working. The fact is that this happens fairly often – every year in Sweden, we pay roughly SEK 2 billion to r

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/eu-project-produce-more-reliable-electronics - 2025-08-25

At the Academy of Music in Malmö, Peter Spissky from Czechoslovakia found an opportunity to develop his interest in baroque music – a genre that didn’t suit the political system in his homeland. Through his research on how gestures taken from speech, acting and dance can be compressed into the movement of the bow, he hopes to come closer to the lively, vibrant playing that is at the heart of the g

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/bowing-swing - 2025-08-25

For a researcher to be successful, he or she not only needs to produce good research – it also has to gain exposure. However, there is competition for space in scientific and popular science journals. This has led to the growth of a grey area with unprofessional journals that take payment from researchers who want their work to appear. Kristoffer Holmqvist recommends the information on the Univers

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/unprofessional-open-access-publishing-new-industry - 2025-08-25

Industrialised construction gained momentum during the record years with the Million Program in the 1960s. Wall panels were constructed in factories and assembled on site, whereas the rest was mostly made artisanally. Today, industrialised construction involves embracing industrial principles and adopting them to the specific conditions of construction “This involved mass production, the ideal was

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/sweden-and-japan-worlds-foremost-countries-within-industrialised-construction - 2025-08-25

Jerker Lessing is a doctoral student at the Faculty of Engineering (LTH) and has a burning interest in the subject of industrialised construction. Although his academic career is still in its early stages, he has already led two courses at Stanford University, California. And now, at the end of March, his latest students will visit Lund University to see how far Sweden has come in the field. Jerke

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/lth-doctoral-student-sought-after-lecturer-stanford-university - 2025-08-25

Could green citizen journalism on social media be a way to solve China’s huge environmental problems? “Perhaps. Citizen journalism forces change. However, the authorities still believe that experts and more control from above will solve the problem of climate change. They haven’t understood that the trend cannot be reversed without the involvement of a grassroots movement.” An increasing number of

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/green-grassroots-journalism-important-tackle-chinas-environmental-problems - 2025-08-25

How did the education system develop? Why did some countries choose to secularise schools completely, while others gave state support to private religious schools? Johannes Lindvall has conducted a survey of how Western schooling developed and had his article published in the world’s most prestigious political science journal. Johannes Lindvall. American Political Science Review is to political sc

https://www.staff.lu.se/article/article-development-school-system-published-prestigious-journal - 2025-08-25