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News

• 2025-11-13

  Siri Jakobsson Störe receives national research award for groundbreaking sleep research

  Siri Jakobsson Störe has been awarded the Swedish National Committee for Psychological Sciences’ prize for outstanding young researcher in psychology 2025. She receives the award for her research on insomnia and how sleep difficulties can be understood and treated.

  – I’m very honoured, says Siri Jakobsson Störe, senior lecturer in psychology at Karlstad University. Being recognised in national competition, and in a context where universities nominate their most promising researchers, means a lot both personally and professionally. I’m also pleased to be representing Karlstad University in this forum for the first time.

• 2025-11-12

  New research project to increase knowledge about mental illness among transnational adoptees

  Forte awards funding to research on mental illness among transnational adoptees. A new project aims to provide answers and improve support from healthcare services.

  – The project is the first of its kind and aims to strengthen research and improve suicide prevention efforts within the healthcare sector, says Tobias Hübinette, docent in intercultural education and senior lecturer in intercultural studies at Karlstad University, who leads the project.

  The research group also includes Mattias Strand at Karolinska institutet and Clara Iversen at Uppsala University.

• 2025-11-12

  New research project to explore the invisible roots of literature in Nairobi

  In a new project, researcher Nicklas Hållén will map the invisible paths of literature in Nairobi.

  The project examines how literary expressions are shaped by people’s movements between different cultural forms – for example, from oral poetry, theater and music to literary publishing. The focus is on how “invisible” cultural practices, such as slam poetry in Nairobi’s less affluent areas, influence the “visible” literature that reaches magazines, bookstores and stages. The aim is to understand how style and form spread between different parts of the city and different cultural contexts.

• 2025-11-11

  Karlstad Business School takes the lead in legal geography

  Gustav Stenseke Arup, senior lecturer in jurisprudence at Karlstad Business School, has served as guest editor for the Journal of Property, Planning and Environmental Law. The special issue focuses on legal geography – a relatively unexplored area within law.
  – This is a first step toward establishing Karlstad Business School as a center for legal geography, says Gustav Stenseke Arup.

  Explain the field of legal geography

  – In legal geography, cultural geography theories and methods are used to understand geographical phenomena. It can involve how legal rules shape or are shaped by different places and landscapes. For example, researchers explore how borders are constituted and how law is understood differently depending on location. It is also a useful perspective in land-use planning and biodiversity issues.

• 2025-11-10

  Preventing suicide is not only a human obligation – it is also a socio-economic gain

  Every year, around 1,500 people take their own lives in Sweden. Behind every statistic is a human being, a family, a community – and a tragedy that affects far more people than the individual who dies.

  Suicide is not only a personal tragedy – it is also a socio-economic concern. Recent studies show that prevention can save lives and significantly reduce costs for society. 

  Björn Sund, adjunct teacher in economics at Karlstad Business School and analyst at the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), has conducted research on efforts to reduce suicides in the transport sector.

• 2025-11-10

  SEK 36 million awarded to Karlstad University researchers

  In the autumn, several research funding bodies announce their decisions. So far, eight applications from researchers at Karlstad University have been granted a total of close to SEK 36 million.

  The Swedish Research Council – Sweden’s largest governmental research funding body – has granted funds to the educational science project “Generationsmöten på svenska folkhögskolan: relationer och lärande för livet”. The project is led by Satu Heikkinen, docent in sociology at the Department of Social and Psychological Studies. It has been granted funding of SEK 3,876,870.