Month: May 2014

This morning, the festivities related to the degree conferment celebration started at 7 am with a salute from the castle. 38 shots were fired, they represents the number of participating faculties and jubilee doctors at today’s celebration.

An hour later the bells started ringing in the cathedral. The ringing lasted for ten minutes, and probably awakened all the residents in Uppsala who had managed to fall asleep again after the cannon salute.

At today’s ceremony in the university hall, we are celebrating 136 new PhDs and 29 jubilee doctors. It is wonderful that so many jubilee doctors are present; they are almost twice as many as last year. Later in the evening the festivities continue with a banquet at Uppsala Castle.

Today May 22, we received a delegation from Hallym University, South Korea in conjunction with the Sixth Uppsala-Hallym symposium on ”Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine” where a number of world-leading researchers will present. For all of you that have the possibility, I can really recommend the symposium tomorrow May 23 at the Rudbeck Laboratory .

Uppsala University is a modern global university and it is so rewarding to see how our researchers take on and develop opportunities for international research cooperation. Thanks to the help of many colleagues, including our former Vice-Chancellor Prof. Anders Hallberg and Prof. Kjell Öberg, I am confident that our relation with Hallym University will continue to develop.

During the luncheon, I had a very fruitful discussion with Prof. Yong-Sun Kim about our cooperation and I am very glad to know that also a student exchange agreement within the Faculty of Medicine will come in place.

Yesterday was a very interesting day at work. In the morning, we discussed politics with Stefan Löfven, the leader of the Social Democratic party, Ardalan Shekarabi, Member of Parliament and Vivianne Macdisi, County Commissioner. They sought to discuss the university’s role in the knowledge region of Uppsala, how does the university spur innovations and new technologies in the sector of life sciences, and how do we collaborate with business and society? We raised questions about education, internationalization, resource allocation and evaluation methods, among other things. The time was limited, as it often is when many have much to say, and the meeting ended with the call to continue at a future meeting.

We then met the Indian ambassador Banashri Bose Harrison at the inauguration ceremony of a bust of Rabindranath Tagore at the English Park campus. Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, and was the first non- European who was awarded the prize. During the afternoon there were three lectures about his life and his relationship with Sweden organized by the Forum for South Asian Studies at the Department of Linguistics and Philology.

The rest of the week has many things to offer, for example the Include-conference on Thursday and a visit by the university management from Lund University on Friday. An exciting and eventful week, just as it should be early in May!

Banashri Bose Harrison and Eva Åkesson.

Now we have celebrated the arrival of the spring in Uppsala, even though the spring weather temporarily receded (but the snow seems to melt away quickly). It was an eventful day with many activities on the agenda; student floats running the Fyris River, herring lunch, the donning of the caps at Carolina Rediviva, visits to several student clubs and dinner at Uppsala Castle. In the evening we listened to Curator curatorum Kristina Melin’s spring speech.

Today, on May 1, it is time for spring dinners at different nations. We wish you all a happy spring!