International collaboration projects

Uppsala University is part of a number of university-wide international collaboration projects.

SIREUS

SIREUS is a three-year (2022-2025) collaboration project 
between The Swedish American Chambers of Commerce (SACC-USA) and 12 Swedish universities whith a focus on knowledge exchange within innovation, research, entrepreneurship and talent mobility for students and researchers between Sweden and USA. The project builds on SACC-USA’s bilateral business and talent network. The Swedish Embassy in Washington D.C. and the Swedish Institute support the platform. Website: www.sireus.org

The project goals are:

• Strengthen collaboration between Swedish universities and the Swedish-American business community
• Strengthen collaboration and exchange between Swedish and American universities
• Strengthen the bilateral collaboration in research, innovation and entrepreneurship
• Strengthen Sweden’s attractiveness as a study destination for American students.

Contact at Uppsala University: Johan Tysk and Philipp Baur

VAMOS

VAMOS (Virtual Exchange to Tackle Wicked Problems: Latin American and European Collaboration on Education for Sustainable Development) is a capacity-building project within the framework of the Erasmus+ programme running between 2021 – 2022 with a budget of 738.990 EUR. The project gathers six Latin American universities (Brazil and Honduras), two European universities (Uppsala and Padua), and one NGO with leading experts in virtual exchange (UNICollaboration). VAMOS is being coordinated by the Unit for Global Partnership at Uppsala University, in collaboration with SWEDESD (Swedish International Center of Education for Sustainable Development), and the master programme in sustainable destination development.

RED4SUS

RED4SUS aims to build capacity for Innovation Leadership in the Project Development Office (EDP, in its Portuguese acronym) of the State Government Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The program is working with the Design Thinking methodology to develop new approaches for sustainable innovation and SDG action. RED4SUS is running between Oct. 2020 and Oct. 2021 in collaboration between 3 partners: 1. Uppsala University (Sweden, Coordinator): Division for Internationalisation, Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering and Uppsala University Sustainability Initiatives;  2. Federal University Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil): School of Engineering; 3. State Government Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil): Project Development Office.

RED4SUS is funded by the Public Sector Innovation Programme of the Swedish Institute.

More information in English and Portuguese:

Contact at Uppsala University: Philipp Baur and Klas Palm

ENLIGHT

In July 2020 Uppsala University (UU) was awarded funding through Erasmus+ in order to establish a European Universities Alliance, ENLIGHT. In a consortium of eight other European universities, UU will gather education and research within the theme ‘sustainable cities’. Participating universities are the universities in Göttingen (Germany), Groningen (the Netherlands), Ghent (Belgium), Tartu (Estonia), Bordeaux (France), Basque Country (Spain), Galway (Ireland) and Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia).

One of the main objectives of the project is to facilitate for students and teachers to move between the universities in the network, both virtually and physically. Over time, students should be able to freely take part in courses at all of the nine universities and tailor their own academic training. Teachers may plan joint virtual courses together with colleagues within the network and teach students from all nine universities within the same course.

The overarching goal, as determined by the EU-commission, is to strengthen European students’ confidence to act as engaged citizens in a globalised world who are ready to take on the big societal challenges we face today. The project should also lead to improved quality, inclusion and competitiveness of European higher education as well as contribute to the sustainable economic development in each region.

The consortium has collectively identified five challenges relevant to the theme sustainable cities. These are Health and well-being (1), Digital revolution and impact of digitization (2), Climate change (3), Energy use and the circular economy (4) and Equity (5).

Over the next three years we will collaborate on the development of challenge based and cooperative interdisciplinary education, virtual collaboration and exchanges as well as flexible course modules. ENLIGHT will work closely with local and regional organisations in order to tie into local and region innovation systems as well as assure that the challenges of each region are reflected within the educational programs offered by the consortium.

ENLIGHT has a startup phase of three years with a budget of five million euro. Should the project prove as beneficial as the consortium believes more substantial funding may be become available to continue until 2030 and even 2050.

Contact at Uppsala University: Jonathan Schalk

SKILLMILL

“SkillMill: Helping students understand, identify and express soft skills gained during studies abroad” is a Strategic Partnership project financed by the EU, within the Erasmus+ framework. The project has a budget of about 281 000 EUR and will run for three years (2019-2022). SkillMill is coordinated by Uppsala University, and includes University of Helsinki (Finland), University of Stavanger (Norway), and University of Tartu (Estonia).

The project’s goal is to develop a structured method to help students identify and express development of personal “soft skills” during studies abroad, which overlap strongly with key professional skills that are highly sought after by employers of today. This is achieved by uniting experts in career counselling with students from the Department of Game Design at Uppsala University’s Campus Gotland. In collaboration with stakeholders from the private and public sector, this team will develop a digital learning toolkit.

Students will be equipped with this “SkillMill Toolkit” during their studies abroad, which will give them training in primarily two aspects. Firstly, in understanding that their own experiences during studies abroad offer excellent training opportunities to develop personal skills, which are highly sought after by employers. Secondly, they will receive training in communicating these experiences, insights and personal developments narratively, in a way that is beneficial in a recruitment situation.

Contact at Uppsala University: Björn Nyström

EASTEM

​EASTEM (Euro-Asia Collaboration for Enhancing STEM Education) is a capacity-building project within the framework of the Erasmus+ programme running between 2019 – 2022 with a budget of 1 million EUR. The project aims to improve employability of STEM graduates in Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand by developing the competence of lecturers and bridging the gap between industry and academia.

EASTEM is coordinated by the International Office at Uppsala University and engages the following partner universities: Vilnius University, IMT Atlantique, HCMC University of Technology and Education, Hue University of Sciences, Hung Yen University of Technology and Education, Chiang Mai University, Mahidol University, Prince of Songkla University, Del Institute of Technology, Udayana University, Institut Teknologi Bandung and Universitas Gadjah Mada. The Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam and the Vietnam Electronics Industries Association are associated partners in EASTEM.

For more information, please visit the website or the the platform for the final meeting.

Contact at Uppsala University: Philipp Baur

LISTO

The Latin American and European Cooperation on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (LISTO) is an Erasmus+ capacity building project running from 2017 until 2020 with a budget of 1 Million Euro. Coordinated by the International Office of Uppsala University, it brings together seven universities from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay and three from Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain to facilitate an exchange of good practice in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. LISTO has three specific objectives: 1. Strengthen university-industry relations by applying the AIMday method developed by Uppsala University Innovation; 2. Develop the entrepreneurial skill set of teachers and students by developing and testing an international entrepreneurship classroom; 3. Discuss strategies to foster innovation and entrepreneurship as a university-wide strategy.

The project results are available here.

Contact at Uppsala University: Philipp Baur

SOUTH AFRICA - SWEDEN UNIVERSITY FORUM

South Africa - Sweden University Forum (SASUF) is a collaborative project between 14 Swedish and 24 South African universities, coordinated by Uppsala University. The purpose of the project is to bring together researchers, teachers and students as well as research funders, businesses and ministries from South Africa and Sweden, through common activities in both countries. The first phase of the project lasted between 2018 and 2020 and resulted in 70 collaborative projects between the countries.

In January 2022, a new three-year project phase will begin, lasting between the years 2022 and 2024. This phase of collaboration aims, among other things, to reach a higher number of collaborative projects, and to increase student inclusion at all levels. Today, SASUF Student Network consists of more than 900 students from Sweden and South Africa, and this group that will have greater importance and influence during the new project phase.

SASUF is funded from Sweden by STINT (the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education) and from South Africa by NRF (the National Research Foundation) and DHET (the Department of Higher Education and Training), as well as by the partner universities.

The next major activity in the project will take place during the latter half of 2022, which will be one of the yearly Research and Innovation Weeks. During the event, participants will participate in a week full of activities within themes related to Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. In addition to the Research and Innovation Weeks, continuous events will take place during the years, which information will be published about on the SASUF website and Facebook page.

For more information, please visit the website and the Facebook page, or contact  sasuf@uu.se.

Contacts at Uppsala University: Helin Bäckman Kartal and Gustaf Cars

MIRAI

MIRAI 2.0 is a collaborative project between leading Swedish and Japanese universities, which is now entering its second phase of collaboration, and operates between the years 2020 to 2022. The project consists of eleven Swedish and eight Japanese universities, and aims to strengthen academic collaboration between Sweden and Japan.

MIRAI is particularly focused on researchers at an early stage of their careers who want to develop and lead joint Swedish-Japanese research projects in the five areas of innovation, ageing, materials science, sustainability and innovation and entrepreneurship.

In the autumn of 2017, the first MIRAI conference was held at Lund University, which was followed by another conference in the autumn of 2018 in Tokyo. Alongside with this, the 150th anniversary of Swedish-Japanese relations was also celebrated. In 2019, Uppsala University and Stockholm University hosted the third MIRAI conference "Moving together towards a sustainable future". In total, over 200 researchers, research funders, Rectors and Vice-Chancellors  as well as administrators participated in the four-day event. At this time the discussions had already started on what a continuation of MIRAI would look like, which resulted in MIRAI 2.0, which we are now in the middle of.

During 2020-2022, Uppsala University, in collaboration with Sophia University, will be the driving forces in the area of ​​materials science. Together, they organize workshops where they bring together researchers in common areas of interest as well as laying a great foundation for further collaborations.

In the recent call for seed funding in 2021, funding was granted to researchers at Uppsala University in the areas of materials science, aging and sustainability. All of these projects are collaborations with Swedish and Japanese universities, and will be launched in 2022.

For more information, please visit the website or contact the project coordinator.

Contact person at Uppsala University: Helin Bäckman Kartal

ACCESS

The Academic Collaboration Chile - Sweden (ACCESS) is a platform initiated in 2016 with the aim to strengthen academic collaboration through activities in research, education and innovation within the framework of ‘a sustainable society’. Currently, 15 universities in Sweden and Chile are part of the platform.

The platform aims to increase research collaboration between Sweden and Chile. ACCESS was mentioned as a high-priority project during the Chilean State Visit to Sweden in May 2016.

What does ACCESS offer?
Through the ACCESS platform, a possibility is given to identify and collectively discuss solutions on common challenges for both Chile and Sweden. Every year a bilateral research seminar is held (every second year in Sweden and every second year in Chile) where a broad spectrum of societal challenges is discussed in workshops. The goal is to facilitate a creative dialogue between researchers from both countries

Contact at Uppsala University: Fanny Jonsson

EVENT

EVENT is a capacity-building project in Vietnamese higher education, within the framework of the Erasmus+ programme. The aim of the project is to find development solutions to tackle the problem of high unemployment among university graduates in Vietnam. Concrete measures include continuing professional development for our career centres and launching new career centres in Vietnam, conducting a study on former students’ paths into working life and adding soft skills teaching to university education.

EVENT has a budget of EUR 1 million and will run for three years. Collaboration partners in the project are the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, Universidad de Valencia in Spain, the Ministry of Education and Training in Vietnam, the Institute of Labour Studies and Social Affairs, and five Vietnamese universities. The project is led by the International Office in Uppsala and Uppsala University’s regional office in Hanoi.

Contact at Uppsala University: Björn Nyström

FAPESP

São Paulo Research Foundation

Since 2015, Uppsala University has been involved in a collaboration with FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation). The aim is to encourage research cooperation by jointly providing funding for researchers from Uppsala University and the Brazilian state of São Paulo.

Read more about previously granted SPRINT-projects Uppsala University / FAPESP. 

Contact at Uppsala University: Fanny Jonsson

INCEDU

IncEdu (Developing Inclusive Education for students with disabilities in Sri Lankan Universities) combines four Sri Lankan, and three European universities. It is an Erasmus+ capacity building project which runs from 2019 to 2022.

The aim of IncEdu is to develop a support system that increases the opportunity for students with disabilities to access higher education in Sri Lankan universities. The project is working towards ensuring the students’ rights, and making sure that they have equal opportunities to other students. IncEdu’s four main objectives include working towards:

• To create community awareness.
• To develop competency of staff of the partner universities in Sri Lanka.
• To establish conducive learning environment for students with disabilities.
• To make policy recommendations.

Contact at Uppsala University: Fanny Jonsson

TES

The project Teaching Entrepreneurship for Sustainability (TES) aims at implementing sustainability in entrepreneurship education. It is an ERASMUS+ Strategic partnership project involving Uppsala University, University of Groningen and Nord University.  Read more about the project activities on TES website.

Contact person at Uppsala University: Marta Cocos