The winners of the BUP PhD Award 2024
This award is a distinction given to the authors of what is judged to be the most qualified PhD work defended at any of the BUP participating universities in the past year. The winners are Tony Mickelsson Blomqvist in the research area of Social Sciences and Humanities and Weifeng Lin in the research area of Natural Sciences, Technology and Engineering.
The winners receive a prize in the form of a diploma and support of up to a maximum of 1000 Euro for either attending a scientific conference or publishing in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The aim of the award is to support high-quality research promoting sustainable development in a Baltic Sea Region context.
The research area of Natural Sciences, Technology and Engineering
The winner of the BUP PhD Award 2024 in the research area of Natural Sciences and Technologies is Weifeng Lin, Uppsala University, Sweden. The name of the thesis is “Development of advanced chemical biology tools for microbiome metabolism. Chemoselective probes for enhanced metabolomics analysis”. The motivation from the Scientific Committee was the following:
The author developed chemical metabolomics tools for qualitative and quantitative analysis of metabolites in human and bacterial samples utilizing chemoselective probes immobilized onto magnetic beads. The work required a multidisciplinary approach involving several disciplines such as integrated organic chemistry, chemical biology, analytical chemistry, biotechnology, biomedicine, and computational analysis. The PhD thesis is highly innovative, because the method developed by Dr Lin improves the mass spectrometric sensitivity by up to a factor of one million with exceptional sensitivity and reproducibility. Application of the methodology elaborated in the frame of the work resulted in the discovery of four valuable nutritional biomarkers. The chemical metabolomics tool compiled by Dr Lin provides valuable insights into microbial interactions with the human body and the development of diseases. The PhD thesis is based on five Q1 peer-reviewed papers and five additional papers, which underlines the high scientific quality of this work. Additionally, the results of the thesis support the sustainable development in the BSR in the context of environmental monitoring and improvement of public health.
The supervisor was:
- Daniel Globisch
Photo: Albert Hjalmers
The research area of Social Sciences and Humanities
The winner of the BUP PhD Award 2024 in the research area of Social Sciences and Humanities is Tony Blomqvist Mickelsson, Södertörn University, Sweden. The name of the thesis is “A Nordic sport social work in the context of refugee reception”. The motivation from the Scientific Committee was the following:
The UN Sustainable Development Goals encompass economic, social, and environmental dimensions. The research on social sustainability and resilience within communities in the Baltic Sea Region is relatively recent. In his thesis, Tony Blomqvist Mickelsson focuses on the role of Swedish voluntary sports clubs in enabling marginalised populations' participation in sports, and in acting to integrate sports into mainstream social work tradition. The author focuses specifically on the reception of Ukrainian refugees, and he reaches his conclusions on the base of interviews and participant observation used in an innovative way with the help of highly relevant theories, concepts, and methods. Blomqvist’s findings suggest that while sports clubs face challenges in their work related to resource availability and consistency, a fact observed across migrant populations, Ukrainian refugees present a unique picture, since their prior experience of organised and competitive sports facilitates an easier integration, at the same time as they often are perceived as being 'closer' to the dominant culture in the receiving country. As a result, Swedish sports clubs generally display a more favorable attitude towards the inclusion of Ukrainian refugees, which highlights a potential double-standard in the refugee reception. Further, Blomqvist has introduced the concept of sports social work to regional and national sports federations, and he has contributed to the popularisation of his own research by participating in various projects. With his research, Tony Blomqvist Mickelsson contributes in an important way to the growing research topic on the role of sports in the social integration of refugees, and the results can be used in the service of creating a more sustainable development in the Baltic Sea Region.
The supervisors were:
- Jani Turunen
- Hanna Bertilsdotter-Rosqvist
- Noora Ronkainen