Four research projects from Uppsala University make IVA’s 100 list

This year’s 100 list has been unveiled by the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA), and features 79 research projects – four of which come from Uppsala University. The list brings together research projects that are deemed to have great potential in terms of benefiting society.

In this year’s 100 list, IVA highlights research projects that address technology in human service within climate change, energy supply, welfare technology, cyber security and emergency preparedness. Four of the 79 research projects included in the list come from Uppsala University. The projects have been selected via a meticulous nomination and selection process based on a number of criteria in order to create value for both industry and society.

Legislative proposals to simplify smart electronics repairs

One of the listed projects from Uppsala University deals with the emergence and the societal consequences of various legislative proposals – under the ‘right to repair’ umbrella – that aim to simplify repairs. The project is being run by Sebastian Abrahamsson, Katja de Vries and Per Fors, and focuses on repairing products that include software. By combining theories and methods from the fields of sociology, law, social planning and industrial technology, the researchers are compiling an overview of the societal and sustainability issues that arise when working with legislation.
Sebastian is delighted that the project has been included in the 100 list. As he explains, the project may help to reduce the amount of electronic waste in the longer term.
“Our research will be of great relevance to businesses, organisations, individual consumers, and ultimately society as a whole. Collaboration between universities and actors within society is important, but at the same time it can be hard to identify productive matches. We therefore hope that our inclusion in the list will help us to connect with other actors who are interested in these issues.”

Resilience to energy crises with the help of machine learning

Vera van Zoest is a researcher at the Department of Information Technology. Using big data and machine learning, she and her research team are studying the impact of crises on electricity consumption and vice versa. In a new project, they will study the resilience of Sweden’s infrastructure in times of crisis and the societal consequences that can arise. The project will contribute towards forecasting models and simulations of vulnerabilities in the energy infrastructure to improve Sweden’s preparedness in the event of an energy crisis.

Vera has a clear goal for the project’s inclusion in IVA’s 100 list.

“We want to put together a reference group of experts and stakeholders who work with energy crises, and we need to broaden our network to include more local actors. In this way, we will be able to adapt our research questions in line with real societal needs and disseminate our results so that they are actually used.”

Swedish solar power, neurostimulation and AI tools

For the second year running, the list includes SOLVE – Solar Electricity Research Centre Sweden. The centre is coordinated by Marika Edoff, a researcher in photovoltaic technology at Uppsala University. The list also includes a research project led by Sérgio Pequito at the Department of Information Technology. The project aims to test a new solution for improving the effectiveness of neurostimulation treatment for neurological diseases.

In addition to the four research projects led by Uppsala University, the University’s researchers are also involved in other projects in this year’s 100 list. One example is Nazar Akrami from the Department of Psychology, who is involved in Stockholm University’s Hatescan project. Hatescan is an AI model that can recognise toxic language in Swedish, and has been developed within the framework of several research projects. Hatescan is currently used to recognise toxic language in online chats and can, for example, alert writers to comments that may be perceived as toxic.