“The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities is an important voice.”

Portrait photo of Maria Ågren.

Maria Ågren will divide her time between her work as permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities and her research project at Uppsala University. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt

From the beginning of the year, Maria Ågren, professor at the Department of History, has been the new permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. We asked her a few questions about her new assignment and whether it affects her research.

What attracted you to this role?

“The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities (Vitterhetsakademien) is an important voice when it comes to research in the humanities and social sciences. So of course it’s interesting to have the opportunity to work in a more concentrated way on such matters. That’s one aspect. And then of course, as with everything in the academic world, there’s a collegial responsibility. Someone has to do the job. So it’s appealing and fun, but I also feel a sense of duty.”

What are you most looking forward to doing in this role?

“What I’m looking forward to most is meeting new people. I’ve worked for a long time at Uppsala University, and through Vitterhetsakademien I come into contact with people at universities all across the country. Vitterhetsakademien also has a lot of international contacts. In recent years, we have started to work more within an association called Rifo, which brings together members of the Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament) and researchers. It’s a place where Riksdag members can get better information about what researchers are doing, and it’s important that the humanities and social sciences are also visible. So that’s an important aspect. And in addition Vitterhetsakademien works a lot to support younger researchers in particular, and that’s also a fun thing to be doing.”

How will you have time for your own research now?

“I have been given 50% leave of absence from Uppsala University for this role as permanent secretary. That covers all the teaching hours that I’ve had at the Department of History. The remaining 50% will be devoted entirely to leading this research project.”

What is the research project about?

“It’s called ‘Gender and work’ and we have been running the project here at the Department of History since 2008. In fact, it’s really a rather simple fundamental question that it’s based on, and that is to acquire better knowledge about men’s and women’s work and the division of labour between the sexes from the 1500s to the end of the 1800s. In particular, we are looking for information in legal records from this period. We have collected almost 50,000 such records, and created a specially designed database where this information is stored.”

Åsa Malmberg

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