Research centres at KTH

KTH has extensive research activities that is conducted within it’s centres. A centre is a structured form of collaboration between academia, industry and society to focus on a specific research area. The group Strategic Initiatives and Collaboration (STRIV) at the Research Support Office (RSO) works closely with KTH's centres to ensure that they have the conditions and structure to develop good research environments and strategic steering committees.

What is a centre?

A centre is an informal organisational structure within the framework of KTH's line organisation and is organisationally part of a school. However, the centre, through its steering committee, has a limited influence on the direction and implementation of its activities, based on the mandate given to the steering group by decisions and agreements.

A centre cannot make decisions on behalf of KTH or decisions that conflict with the requirements of KTH as a public authority.

Since 2022, KTH has a new steering document, Guidelines on the Management of Research Centres, which regulates the steering of and operations at KTH's centres.

Guidelines on the Management of Research Centres (docx 84 kB)

Different types of centres at KTH

• The term Research Centre is used both as a collective designation and as a specific term for Centres without funding from national research funding bodies. On behalf of a central government research funder it may also involve the task of primarily managing the assessment and selection of project proposals for a recommendation to decisions vis-à-vis these.
• The term Competence Centre is used for centres that are long-term funded by national research funding bodies, where the research funder uses this term in the invitation to submit proposals. Centres with central government funding to conduct activities in the strategic research area's (SRAs) are also included here.
• The term Resource Centre is used for centres whose task and responsibility is to operate, coordinate, or highlight opportunities for use in research infrastructures together with parties.
• The term Network Centre is used for centres whose function is to develop and maintain a network of stakeholders to build a project portfolio in a specific research area.
• The term Node is used when the main centre is established at another university and has underlying nodes that are themselves organised as research centres together with other parties.
• The term Interim Centre is used as a designation for the centre of a “trial character,” where the relevance of a Centre in the research area is tested for a limited period up to three years.