Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation has granted a total of SEK 704 million to 21 research projects considered to be of the highest international level, and potentially leading to future scientific breakthroughs.
“The project grants are the largest annual funding made by the Foundation. The grants go to cutting-edge independent research in Sweden. We want to give researchers the opportunity to try out new and bold ideas over an extended period,” says Peter Wallenberg Jr, Chairman of Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.
Project funding is granted primarily for basic research in the field of medicine, technology and the natural sciences.
Research into chronic pain, shrinking Arctic sea ice, bacteria that may yield new antibiotics and vaccines, studies of cell functions and changes due to global warming, improved X-ray imaging, and also studies that may shed new light on the evolution of humankind, are some of the research topics for which grants have been awarded.
The Foundation employs a strict peer review procedure in which applications are assessed by the foremost international researchers in each field.
“Funding is awarded to the most excellent researchers in Sweden. Their projects should be innovative and of high international class. This year’s applications have been evaluated by over 300 reviewers in different disciplines,” explains Göran Sandberg, Executive Director of the Foundation.
Project funding awarded in 2016 by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation:
More information about the projects is available on the websites of the respective institutions.
Natural sciences
Project: “Arctic climate across scales”
Grant: SEK 29,900,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Michael Tjernström, Stockholm University
Project: “Epigenetic and metabolic control of flowering time”
Grant: SEK 28,680,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Markus Schmid, Umeå University
Project: “Regulation of mammalian mtDNA gene expression”
Grant: SEK 47,000,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Nils-Göran Larsson, Karolinska Institutet
Project: “1000 ancient genomes”
Grant: SEK 40,400,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Mattias Jakobsson, Uppsala University
Project: “Catalytic composites for sustainable synthesis”
Grant: SEK 35,785,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Belén Martín-Matute, Stockholm University
Project: “Physical chemistry of peptide-lipid co-assembly: from lipid-rich to peptide-rich”
Grant: SEK 30,670,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Sara Snogerup Linse, Lund University
Project: “Physical constraints for accessing genomic information”
Grant: SEK 37,850,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Johan Elf, Uppsala University
Project: “Climate change induced regime shifts in northern lake ecosystems”
Grant: SEK 36,970,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Jan Karlsson, Umeå University
Medicine
Project: “Decomposition of pain into cell types”
Grant: SEK 17,175,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Patrik Ernfors, Karolinska Institutet
Project: “Characterization of the antibody response against epitopes at the core of host-bacteria relationships: the protein-protein interaction interfaces”
Grant: SEK 16,565,000 over two years, with the possibility of a three-year extension
Principal investigator: Dr. Johan Malmström, Lund University
Project: “New in vivo adapted approaches to reveal molecular mechanisms of bacterial persistence”
Grant: SEK 28,740,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Maria Fällman, Umeå University
Project: “MicroRNA control of neural development: Dissecting biological function with atomic resolution”
Grant: SEK 33,520,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Dr. Katja Petzold, Karolinska Institutet
Project: “Characterization, surveillance and targeting of cancer stem cells”
Grant: SEK 45,250,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Sten Eirik Waelgaard Jacobsen, Karolinska Institutet
Technology/physics/mathematics:
Project: “Fundamental magnetic processes in the solar chromosphere”
Grant: SEK 33,950,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Dr. Jorrit Leenaarts, Stockholm University
Project: “Probing catalysis in operando conditions and real time”
Grant: SEK 32,000,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Anders Nilsson, Stockholm University
Project: “Molecular X-Ray micro imaging”
Grant: SEK 33,090,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Hans Hertz, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Project: “Mastering morphology for solution-borne electronics”
Grant: SEK 28,750,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Ellen Moons, Karlstad University
Project: “Approximability and proof complexity”
Grant: SEK 32,235,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Johan Håstad, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Project: “A new generation of slow light systems”
Grant: SEK 36,420,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Stefan Kröll, Lund University
Project: “Nanothermodynamics for optoelectronic semiconductor devices”
Grant: SEK 47,500,000 kronor over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Heiner Linke, Lund University
Project: “Multifunctional fiber optics”
Grant: SEK 31,790,000 kronor over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Fredrik Laurell, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation is Sweden’s largest private research funding body. In 2015 the foundation awarded grants totaling SEK 1.7 billion for Swedish research.