Awarded prize for her work with AIMday
Anette Persson Stache, project manager at the Division for Research and Partnership Support, in the crowd after receiving an award from UniLink for her work with AIMday. Photo: Malin Linngård..
UniLink’s 2025 Partnership Prize has been awarded to Anette Persson Stache, project manager at the Division for Research and Partnership Support, for her long-term work with and commitment to AIMday (Academic Industry Meeting Day) – a concept and digital tool that builds bridges between academia and the wider community in a unique way.
By creating a place where organisations’ needs meet research-based knowledge, she has helped to strengthen relationships, inspire new collaborations and spread the word about a model that generates real-life benefits, the jury writes in its citation.
AIMday stands for Academic Industry Meeting Day and is a concept and digital tool developed by Uppsala University. UniLink is a network that brings together Swedish higher education institutions (HEIs) and supports both the institutions and individuals working and studying at them to develop partnerships with the wider community.
Anette Persson Stache – congratulations on receiving UniLink’s Partnership Prize! How does it feel to win a prize for your work with AIMday?
“I’m extremely proud and happy about this acknowledgement. But the prize is not just mine – it’s recognition for all colleagues at higher education institutions, in Sweden and abroad, who have been curious about AIMday and helped spread the concept. That the University is continuing to use and develop the tool is what keeps AIMday alive.”
How do we work at Uppsala University with the AIMday tool?
“The journey began in 2008 when some of my former colleagues, who had experience from both research and industry, wanted to create a place to meet that focused on the challenges facing industry. The first step was Materials Day as part of the Ångström Materials Academy. Today, AIMday is used in all disciplinary domains and is popular with organisations outside academia, who get to discuss their challenges, as well as with researchers, who contribute their expertise.”
What can an AIMday event lead to?
“A concrete example is the PLATINEA project, which works with questions related to antibiotic resistance and started at the Anti Infectious Medicine & Diagnostics AIMday in 2016. That project will be celebrating ten years next year! It started with a preliminary study, has since been developed with the aid of external funding and is now a major collaboration project in its field.”
Why do you think AIMday has turned out to be such a successful concept at higher education institutions all over the world?
“I think the success lies in the combination of a clear process and a digital tool that is able to process registrations and create workshops based on what people are interested in. Our starting point is matching real challenges with individuals from non-academic organisations who participate and have the authority start up collaborations, which means that these matches can lead to concrete projects.”
Kristin Blom
AIMday
AIMday stands for Academic Industry Meeting Day and is a concept and digital tool developed by Uppsala University. AIMday can best be described as a structured process to match challenges and problems within companies and organisations to people with relevant knowledge and skills in academia.
These matches then lead to a day of meetings involving both organisations and researchers where the challenges are discussed in an efficient workshop format.
AIMday is used by universities all over the world, from the University of Toronto in Canada to Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.