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Looking back at a momentous 2015

Highlights include Hawking, astronauts meeting, Robyn's science fest for girls

KTH President Peter Gudmundson welcomes Stephen Hawking to KTH. Hawking's weeklong conference on black holes was one of the scientific highlights of a momentous year at KTH. (Photo: Håkan Lindgren)

Year in Review

Published Dec 23, 2015

As another momentous year at KTH Royal Institute of Technology comes to an end, let's take a look back at some of the biggest events and news of the last 12 months.

Hawkingmania
When Stephen Hawking arrived for a weeklong visit at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in late August, he had a surprise up his sleeve. The legendary Cambridge physicist was here to preside over a special conference on black holes, organized by University of North Carolina physicist Laura Mersini Houghton. On the second day of the conference, which was held in Kollegiesalen, Hawking surprised the world by announcing a new theory about how black holes handle information — an attempt to solve one of the most puzzling questions of modern physics. Read story

One of the first women in space, American astronaut Anna Fisher, answers questions from KTH student Nishita Vegi during the Planetary Congress of the Association of Space Explorers, at KTH. (Photo: Håkan Lindgren)

100 Astronauts
Just three weeks after Hawking & Co. departed, yet another space-themed event convened at KTH as 100 astronauts and cosmonauts from around the world landed in Stockholm for the annual Planetary Congress of the Association of Space Explorers. For two days in September, KTH hosted the event, which included the inauguration of the Dome of Visions. Seminars on spaceflight were mixed with demonstrations and even a Google Hang on air with four history-making astronauts. Read story

Brazilian state visit
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff visited KTH in October, addressing a packed Kollegiesalen on the topic of further cooperation between the university and Brazil, one of KTH's priority regions. The meeting was highly important for KTH, since a variety of collaborations and exchanges have been done at various levels for both researchers and students, concerning areas such as smart cities and aerospace. KTH has a number of partner universities in Brazil. Read story

Robyn launches Tekla
Recruiting more women into the fields of science and technology is a challenge for education systems everywhere. And now that effort has a high-profile champion — Grammy Award-winning recording artist Robyn. And as part of her receiving the KTH Great Prize the previous year, pop star Robyn decided to make her own contribution to winning girls over to technology — by organizing and personally hosting the first-ever Tekla science festival for girls at the KTH campus. Read story

Max Tegmark returns to campus to receive the KTH Great Prize. (Photo: Håkan Lindgren)

Welcome back Tegmark
Physicist and cosmologist Max Tegmark returned to his former university to collect the 2015 Great Prize, and to deliver a standing-room-only lecture on "our mathematical universe." The Swedish scientist, who is a professor of physics at MIT, was honored for following in the footsteps of prominent scientists such as Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson in presenting cosmology to the mass public in a vivid and memorable way. Read story 

FOUNDER.org World Forum
KTH is home to a high number of startups, but over the Swedish midsummer, dozens of student entrepreneurs from the world's top universities descended on the campus for the FOUNDER.org World Forum, an annual event for knowledge sharing and inspiration. KTH, started its collaboration with FOUNDER.org. in 2014, becoming the first Scandinavian university in the global network. FOUNDER.org has for the few several years been supporting the commercialization of research and student ideas at top universities such as MIT, Stanford, Berkley, Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge. Read story

Innovation in mind
The leader of Malaysia's Gerakan Rakyat (People's Movement) party, Mah Siew Keong, came to KTH with the aim to import some of the ways of working that Sweden relies on to foster innovation. The politician is Malaysia's cabinet minister responsible for the country's innovation initiatives. "KTH is so oriented toward industry," Mah said. "In our country, if you are in the academy you are in the academy. If you are in the private sector, you are in the private sector. And maybe they meet up once in a while, to discuss how to cooperate. But here ... there is interaction throughout the year." Read story

Startups from universities around the world met up at KTH in June during the FOUNDER.org World Forum.

Climbing the charts
2015 was the year that KTH enter the global top 100 list by QS World University Rankings, which named KTH the 92nd best university in the world. The latest ranking represented an advancement of 18 places for the university compared to last year; and it marked the first time KTH has reached the top 100 in any of the four major global rankings. Earlier in the year, QS released its subject rankings , naming KTH among the world's 50 top universities in five out of 13 subjects.  Read story

Swedish-Chinese summer school
Almost 80 students and teachers from China and Sweden met at KTH in late August for a week of inspirational lectures on a broad range of interdisciplinary topics in biomedicine. The joint Swedish/Chinese summer school and workshop is held to motivate students to enrol in exchange programs and to embark on innovative biomedical research. Read story

Wired honors KTH algae research
Can a seaweed farmer change the world? Wired magazine seems to think so. It named algae entrepreneur Fredrika Gullfot —a former KTH researcher — one of its 12 Wired Innovation Fellows for 2015. Read story

Sustainable plan
The International Sustainable Campus Excellence Award was given to KTH for its campus plans. The plans outline the direction in which the campus will be developed over the next four to five years – the focus being on sustainability and on creating a vibrant campus. Read story

The new KTH solar laboratory opened this year. (Photo: Håkan Lindgren)

Autonomous system grant
KTH Royal Institute of Technology was one of four universities that were provided with SEK 1.8 billion to share for basic research in autonomous systems and software development. The 10-year investment from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation also includes collaboration with Swedish industry. Read story

New solar lab
One of the few solar laboratories in the world opened at KTH Royal Institute of Technology this year. The lab's solar simulator will be used to enhance knowledge and research on, among other things, concentrated solar power, or thermal solar power. "Because there are so few facilities of this type in the world, we started by building one," said Björn Laumert, associate professor at the Department of Energy Technology at the School of Industrial Engineering and Management. Read story

Research recruitment
KTH Royal Institute of Technology started a special drive to recruit 13 international researchers positions as assistant professors. The posts of associate professor were to be filled in 11 different disciplines spanning a broad area, from mathematics to sustainable urban development. Read story

Do the math
Mathematics Research at KTH got a hefty injection of stimulating international exchanges, made possible by six grants from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation mathematics programs. "You can say that this is an acknowledgment that the research in mathematics at KTH is at a very high level, and is perhaps even leading the country in terms of quality. To get this kind of varied support means a great deal, said Arne Johansson, KTH's vice president for research. The exchanges include the arrival of Michael Siegel to the numerical analysis research group from New Jersey Institute of Technology. Read story