Sweden establishes centres of excellence with brief to collaborate with industry

Jons Jacob Berzelius: the 19th-century chemist is the inspiration for a series of new centres.

The centres, named after the early 19th-century chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius, who laid the foundations of the Periodic Table, will be funded for up to ten years.

To qualify to become a Berzelii centre, basic research groups had to demonstrate an ambition to develop active cooperation with industry.

The centres are the Stockholm Brain Institute at the Karolinska Institute, which integrates cognition, modelling and neuroscience to unlock the secrets of the human brain; the Exselent materials science centre at Stockholm University, which specialises in developing porous materials; the UPSC Centre for Forest Biotechnology, at the Swedish University of Agriculture; and Uppsala Centre for Basic and Applied Research in BioNanoTechnology at Uppsala University.

Public and private funding

Each centre will receive up to SEK 5 million per year from each of the Swedish Research Council and Vinnova, the Swedish economic development agency, and this must be matched by additional funds from universities, industry and the public sector.

Umeå Plant Science Centre is a world leader in plant biotechnology, where leading basic research is tied to the development of future products and processes in agriculture and forestry.

Exselent, based at Stockholm University, focuses on the synthesis of new porous materials. Under its Berzelii status the centre will to create nanomaterials for applications in catalysis and in controlled adsorption and desorption. Industrial partners include companies in the pharmaceutical industry and the foodstuffs, cosmetics, and chemicals industries, including AstraZeneca, Biovitrum, Perstorp, and Nobel Biocare.

The Uppsala Berzelii Centre for Basic and Applied Research in BioNanoTechnology, Uppsala University will study the pathology of complex diseases to attain a better understanding of disorders like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, pain, and drug abuse. The research will include a search for diagnostic biomarkers The centre involves a collaboration between Uppsala University, Akademiska University Hospital, GE Healthcare, AstraZeneca, Olink Bioscience, Affibody, and Gyros.

The Stockholm Brain Institute Berzelii Centre, at the Karolinska Institute will integrate world class expertise in cognition, computer models, and nervous system research to build an enhanced understanding of the brain. A key goal is to uncover the mechanisms underlying disorders such as ADD Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, dementia, and schizophrenia. Research teams at the Karolinska Institute, the Royal Institute of Technology, and Stockholm University are to collaborate with the Karolinska University Hospital, CogMed, AstraZeneca, IBM, Elektra, Carlson Research, and several smaller companies.

The total budget for each centre will be about SEK 170 million over a ten-year period, a maximum of SEK 100 million of which will be in the form of grants from the Swedish Research Council and Vinnova.