KTH at the forefront in the U.S.

“This is a long-term initiative that will extend over a number of years, initiated by the President of KTH, where we aim to put KTH and our brand on the map in several key regions in the U.S. For example, we want to take our collaboration with a number of different top American universities a step further.”

What are you going to do?

“At the end of January next year, a delegation of 15-20 people will travel to the U.S. and we will start with the area to the east of the Rockies. We will have a larger event at the Swedish Embassy in Washington D.C., visit the Consulate General and university in New York, along with Washington D.C, Boston, Boulder, and Purdue University. Joining us on the trip will be researchers from Viable Cities, WASP, Digital Futures and KTH Live in Lab, members of KTH management, plus representatives from the City of Stockholm and property company Einar Mattsson.

This will then be followed by similar trips to the West Coast and the South the following year.”

What do you hope to achieve?

“We are going to show that KTH has a great deal to offer when it comes to research, education and collaboration, and to increase our visibility in general in the U.S. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that our results speak for themselves, but we need to be daring enough to showcase our know-how within research and not least the outstanding collaboration and impact of Swedish universities and KTH. We hope that this will lead to a series of new and exciting collaborations within everything from research to cooperation and the education of the future, to name a few examples. If not on the tip of everyone’s tongue, the name KTH should at least be well-known within the arenas that are important for developing collaborations, such as universities and financing bodies.”

Why the U.S.?

“We already have a series of collaborations at researcher level today and also with MIT within the parameters of the Senseable Stockholm Lab. The US is a large and strong innovation and research nation where there are many possible collaboration opportunities for us.

For example, we are going to visit the University of Colorado in Boulder that is said to be able to possibly become a new hub for innovation and high tech on a par with Silicon Valley and that is home to a number of large national research centres.”

Does there seem to be much interest?

“Plenty. Everyone is very welcoming and pleased that we are coming. One good sign is that the Director of the National Science Foundation has accepted our invitation to be one of our plenary speakers in Washington.”