New episode of the pod Novum Organum: interview with Matilda Ernkrans

New proteins, wild berries and experimental food production. Could this be the key to more sustainable food production? The FINEST innovation center is planning to investigate this as part of a four-year project.

Niklas Ahlm have been awarded first price in The Swedish Energy Markets Inspectorate’s paper competition 2021 for his paper during his studies at the Master's Programme in Energy Systems Engineering.

Uppsala University has been tasked with coordinating two new centres of excellence for sustainable energy systems – one for solar power and one for nuclear technology. The Department for Civil and Industrial Engineering is a co-applicant and will participate in both centres between 2022 and 2026.

Karin Westlund has always been interested in mathematics and describes herself as a a bit of a ‘country bumpkin’. So she felt right at home at Skogforsk, where she has also been an externally employed doctoral student studying at Uppsala University in the subject area industrial engineering and management for two years.

USER - Uppsala Smart Energy Reserach receives 1,4 miljoner SEK to study how the COVID-19 Pandemic have effected the electricity consumption.

What is it like for a researcher to put on the interviewer’s hat? Researcher Annika Skoglund talks with representatives from academia, the business community and politics in the Novum Organum podcast.

Hello there... Martina Sjölander, student in the Master’s Programme in Industrial Analytics and the second Uppsala University student in a row at to be named Female Leader Engineer of the Year.

Our student Martina Sjölander has been named Female Leader Engineer of the Year. Martina has studied the Bachelor's Programme in Mechanical Engineering and is now studying for the Master's Programme in Industrial Analytics.

Petter Forsberg has one foot firmly planted in the Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering at Uppsala University and the other in the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE). The fact that he has two roles has many advantages – both for himself and for his employers.

In the quest for a circular economy and a sustainable society, we need to transform our waste into a resource. In the so-called waste package, the Riksdag and the Swedish Government have adopted new legislation that to a far greater extent considers waste to be a resource. The waste package is due to be introduced in 2025 and Uppsala University is currently conducting research on the subject.

In engineering ethics education, we encourage the student to see different perspectives of an issue for example structured debates or through role play. By doing so, we stimulate moral reasoning but also imagination and empathy. Film could be a means for immersing the viewer into the perspective of others. 

What can we learn from modern maritime history? This is an issue that will be addressed in the fourth webinar in the Managing Shipping series on June 1 at University of Gothenburg. Thomas Lennerfors from Uppsala University will in his presentation be based on his research on maritime transporters of refrigerated goods and its history. The webinar is free and open to everyone. The webinar will be held in English.

Matilda Ernkrans, Minister of Higher Education and Research, explains the Swedish strategy to secure academic freedom and prosperity. With Annika Skoglund, Associate Professor, Uppsala University.

Collaboration is the key when the food industry has to change. Finest is a four-year center initiative consisting of Rise, Chalmers and Uppsala University as well as 15 actors from the Swedish business community. The goal is to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable food system.

Within the framework of Platinea (PLATform for INnovation of Existing Antibiotics), 16 actors have collaborated over the past three years to solve problems regarding antibiotics in Sweden. Collaboration is focused on optimizing the use of existing antibiotics and increasing the supply of important antibiotics that risk disappearing from Sweden.

WHAT IS THIS CASE ALSO A CASE OF? 
Our own research on cases in management education shows that cases provide heroic, individualistic and uncritical perspectives on leadership and organization, that they have a narrow scope and focus exclusively on the company and its shareholders, and that they are biased towards masculinity, managerialism and American capitalism. I argue here that engineering ethics should carefully scrutinize the underlying ideas that a teaching case is representing. What are your cases also a case of? What are your underlying assumptions in having students go through your cases?

Only 2–5 percent of the berries in the Swedish forests are picked. Why not make more use of this resource? This is what the researchers at the newly started center FINEST wonder. They want to help local businesses see the potential of wild berries.

Tuesday 20 April at 13.15-15.00 (CEST)

The project "Between the map and visitor experience" received an award from Uppsala University Innovation. Rickard Grassman, Klas Palm and Ulrika Persson-Fischier from our department participated in the project. It was a collaboration with the tourism industry on Gotland, and aimed at increasing social and economic sustainability within cruise tourism, by mapping the tourists movements with GPS and their satisfaction and experiences while at the destination.

Knowing where tourists actually are and for how long, what routes they take and what they are looking for, unnecessary social congestion can be avoided, benefiting both tourists and locals, and the local businesses can plan their activities so that the benefits of cruise tourism can be accessed by all. The award is for innovative and scalable collaborative projects

The project “Measuring the effect of publishing and using open data in Sweden”, with Serdar Temiz, Simon Okwir and Anders Brantnell at Industrial Engineering and Management as the project team, has been accepted by Internetstiftelsen. It is a 900 KSEK project that runs from May 2020 to December 2021. Congratulations to the project team!

Klas Palm at our division has been granted pre-study funding from UU Innovation, UUI, to lead the development of a test bed for the collaboration and system challenges of the healthcare system in the spring of 2020. This together with Region Uppsala and the county's eight municipalities.