Investment in young researchers to boost Swedish research

The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation’s investments in young researchers continue with 29 new Wallenberg Academy Fellows. The research challenges that this year’s Academy Fellows are tackling include important issues for the future, such as energy provision and public health.

“Since the program started in 2012, 150 young researchers have become Wallenberg Academy Fellows. The Foundation is very happy to be able to provide promising research talent the opportunity to freely develop their ideas over a five-year period,” says Peter Wallenberg Jr, Chairman of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

The purpose of these investments is to boost Sweden as a research nation by retaining the greatest talents in the country and by recruiting young international researchers to Swedish universities. Via an integral mentor program, they also have an opportunity to strengthen their scientific leadership and better utilize their research results.

“More than half of this year’s Academy Fellows have a foreign doctorate. This demonstrates that the program is very attractive outside of Sweden too. We are delighted that almost 40 per cent of the people appointed, in tough academic competition, are women,” says the Foundation’s Executive Director, Göran Sandberg.

The program has been established in partnership with the scholarly academies and Swedish universities.

“Wallenberg Academy Fellows is a major investment that provides many of Sweden’s most promising young researchers with the chance to build strong lines of research. This program is among the most important to be carried out in current Swedish research and development,” says Göran K. Hansson, Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

2016’s Wallenberg Academy Fellows

(Where the nominating university is not the researcher’s current university, the nominating university’s name is in parentheses).

Natural Sciences

Dr. Oscar Agertz, University of Surrey, UK (Stockholm University)
Dr. Yaowen Wu, Max Planck Institute, Dortmund, Germany (Umeå University)
Associate Professor Karin Schönning, Uppsala University
Dr. Georgios Dimitroglou Rizell, University of Cambridge, UK (Uppsala University)
Dr. Abraham Mendoza, Stockholm University
Dr. Charles Melnyk, University of Cambridge, UK (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)
Dr. Sarah Greenwood, Stockholm University
Dr. John Fitzpatrick, Stockholm University
Dr. Björn Burmann, University of Basel, Switzerland (University of Gothenburg)
Dr. Agnese Bissi, Harvard University, USA (Uppsala University)

Social Sciences

Associate Professor Jonas Olofsson, Stockholm University
Dr. Erik Mohlin, Lund University
Dr. Jutta Bolt, University of Groningen, the Netherlands (Lund University)
Dr. Giulia Andrighetto, European University Institute, Italy and the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies of the Italian National Research Council (Mälardalen University)

Engineering and Technology

Associate Professor Maria Tenje, Uppsala University
Associate Professor Anna Martinelli, Chalmers University of Technology
Associate Professor Emma Lundberg, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Associate Professor Christoph Langhammer, Chalmers University of Technology
Dr. Shervin Bagheri, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Associate Professor Daniel Aili, Linköping University

Medicine

Dr. Laura Baranello, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA (Karolinska Institutet)
Dr. Niklas Björkström, Karolinska Institutet
Dr. Vicente Pelechano García, Karolinska Institutet
Dr. Sidinh Luc, Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, USA (Karolinska Institutet)
Dr. Sasan Zandi, University of Toronto, Canada (Linköping University)
Dr. Fredrik Lanner, Karolinska Institutet
Dr. Claudia Kutter, University of Cambridge, UK (Karolinska Institutet)
Dr. Olaf Bergmann, Karolinska Institutet

Humanities

Dr. Antti Kauppinen, University of Tampere, Finland (University of Gothenburg)

Find press images and read more about the research of the Wallenberg Academy Fellows at kaw.wallenberg.org

Five years’ funding may become ten

Funding is SEK 5 – 9 million per researcher for five years depending on the subject area. At the end of the first period, researchers will have the opportunity to apply for another five years of funding. Since 2012, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation has distributed a total of SEK 1.2 billion via the program.

Background

The program, funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, has been established in close cooperation with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, the Swedish Academy and Swedish universities. The universities nominate researchers to the program, the academies evaluate the candidates and present the most promising researchers for the Foundation, which then makes the final selection. The universities subsequently take the long-term responsibility for the selected researchers’ activities.