In Mission & Core Values, we state that Uppsala University is meant to be a local, national and international meeting place for knowledge, culture and critical dialogue. A very apt description of this first week of June.
The state visit from India this Tuesday once again proved that Uppsala University is a player on the global stage. The Grand Auditorium was at maximum capacity as a large delegation headed by the president of India arrived at the University Main Building. H.E. the President was accompanied to Uppsala by two members of the Swedish Royal Family, H.R.H Crown Princess Victoria and H.R.H Prince Daniel. The audience members were entertained by the Uppsala Indian Choir and the mixed choir Allmänna Sången while the guests of honour were received in the Chancellor’s Room. Our procession entered the Grand Auditorium accompanied by organ music performed by the organist Andrew Canning, and Eva opened the proceedings by offering a formal greeting. After this, the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström gave a speech, introducing President H.E. Pranab Mukherjee. The president spoke of how a lasting peace must be built on mutual respect. Watch the speech here.
Meanwhile, the Uppsala Health Summit was in full swing, drawing close to 200 experts, policy makers and researchers from every part of the world to discuss antibiotics resistance and future measures. During the conference, we announced that the University will be establishing an interdisciplinary center that will double as a knowledge resource at the local, national and international level – the Uppsala Antibiotics Centre.
At the Wednesday ceremony for the international Master’s students, the University was represented by Göran Alderborn, dean of the Department of Pharmacy. The turnout was large. Between 700 and 800 people had come to the University Main Building. Several of the students had relatives visiting from abroad, and for the first time we had Master’s students from Campus Gotland joining the ceremony.
And on Wednesday and Thursday, representatives of the approximately 20 South-African and European universities making up the INSPIRE project met in the University Main Building. Innovation and entrepreneurship are central to the exchange program INSPIRE, which funds scholarships for student and research exchange between eight European and ten South-African universities. As part of the project, all scholarship holders will be offered a tailored education in innovation and entrepreneurship, and UU Innovation will lead the planning of the course content. In total, the project involves upwards of a hundred people, with the majority being South-African students and researchers visiting Europe. The first round of exchanges to Uppsala University will consist of thirteen scholarship holders, a mixture of Master students, doctorates and post-docs, as well as two staff members on exchange.