Two New Support Schemes to Advance Interdisciplinary Research

Uppsala University’s Future Institutes (UUniFI) were established to strengthen the University’s capacity for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research. Open to researchers across the University, UUniFI is now introducing two new support schemes.

“UUniFI brings together researchers from different disciplines in an environment that encourages original thinking and creates space for scientific risk-taking. Through these two schemes, we can give researchers the opportunity to develop ideas with significant potential and pursue funding opportunities that might otherwise have remained out of reach,” says Tobias Sjöblom, Director of UUniFI.

A Fast Track and a Powerful Catalyst

Project Elevator is designed to accelerate the development of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research ideas over a relatively short period, with the goal of helping projects secure external funding.

“It provides both financial support and expert guidance. The scheme helps research teams develop projects and prepare funding applications to a standard that improves their chances of attracting external funding. UUniFI particularly encourages projects within the institutes’ thematic areas, but I would like to emphasise that, through UUniFI Circus, we welcome applications from all research fields,” says Tobias Sjöblom.

Collaboration Catalyst focuses on UUniFI’s thematic areas of Artificial Intelligence, energy transition, goal conflicts, migration and precision health, and provides support over a longer period of up to two years. The initiative is intended to bring together researchers with complementary expertise and allow promising collaborations to develop further. Projects are identified by the directors of the respective institutes, and each institute is expected to support three to five ongoing projects from 2027 onwards.

“Funding may, for example, be used to carry out pilot studies that generate preliminary data for larger applications for external research funding,” says Tobias Sjöblom.

Helping Promising Projects Reach the Next Stage

“UUniFI is not intended to provide long-term support to the same researchers, nor are we aiming to build discipline-specific centres of excellence. That work is already being done within the University’s departments. UUniFI’s role is to connect people. We provide researchers with a meeting place, bring them together around pressing societal and scientific challenges, and offer a shared environment for interdisciplinary research and collaboration,” says Tobias Sjöblom.

Seminar Series and Workshops This Autumn

Throughout the autumn and winter, UUniFI’s institutes will host a range of seminar series and related activities.

“Anyone interested in becoming involved in UUniFI, or curious about the issues that the institutes currently regard as particularly important, is likely to find these seminars both informative and inspiring,” says Tobias Sjöblom.

Seminars, workshops and other events are continuously published in UUniFI’s online calendar at uu.se/uunifi.

 Text: Marie-Louise Olsen