The Faculty of Health, Science and Technology
News
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2026-10-01
EXACT Research School Autumn Meeting
Cleaner process air, efficient energy use, and clothing made from recycled textile waste were among the topics in focus when the EXACT Industrial Research School brought together PhD candidates and industry partners for its autumn meeting at Gammelkroppa Forest School on 30 September.
During the autumn meeting, doctoral students presented their ongoing research projects, while industry representatives provided insights into current challenges and development needs within their sectors. Participating companies included Absolent, Thermia, Blue Ocean Closures, Lixea, Nordic Paper, Rottneros and Circulose.
A common theme throughout the day was the transition towards a more sustainable and resource-efficient industry.
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2026-10-01
New model aims to improve pain management for people with dementia
Pain management in people with dementia is complex. Pain can manifest itself in many different ways, and changes in behaviour may have several different causes. New research indicate that the solution is not a single assessment tool, but rather a more structured and person-centred care process that helps healthcare staff identify, assess and follow up on pain.
“Small deviations from a person’s usual behaviour can be important signs of pain. But recognising them requires both knowledge and staff who know the person well,” says Caroline Kreppen Overen, PhD student in nursing and one of the researchers behind the study.
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2026-09-30
Regional Test Arena to Strengthen Companies’ Digital Development
Many companies see the opportunities offered by new technology but lack the support needed to make use of it. That is why Karlstad University, together with Compare, is launching a joint test arena where research and technology will be made more accessible to companies and the public sector.
Small and medium-sized enterprises in Värmland need to be able to take advantage of AI, digitalisation and cybersecurity in order to continue developing and strengthen their competitiveness. At the same time, requirements for information security and digital resilience are increasing. The new arena will make it easier for companies and public-sector organisations to access new technology, knowledge and expertise.
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2026-09-25
French Students Explore Future Building Materials
How can recycled wood fibres be used to create sustainable construction materials that also store carbon for long periods of time? This is one of the questions being investigated by two exchange students from France.
Aylal Gaultier and Robin Grandzinski are engineering students at Supmicrotech in France. They are spending six months at Karlstad University through an international collaboration led by Marcus Vinícius Tavares da Costa, Assistant Professor of Building Technology.
“Supmicrotech is a French higher education institution that trains engineers, and we would like to strengthen our collaboration with them. Aylal and Robin are currently studying here as exchange students, and we hope to welcome more students to Building Technology in the future,” says Marcus Vinícius Tavares da Costa.
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2026-09-21
From Old Clothes to New Fibres
Every year, millions of tonnes of cotton are produced worldwide, while vast quantities of textiles are discarded or incinerated. Although cotton consists of almost pure cellulose, only a small proportion of the material is recycled into new textiles.
In her mid-term study, Elise Meurs, an industrially associated PhD candidate in the EXACT Research School, investigates how cellulose pulp derived from recycled cotton behaves during the initial stages of the viscose process, the industrial method used to produce regenerated cellulose fibres. The aim is to enable the large-scale use of textile waste and thereby reduce the need for virgin raw materials from forests or cotton cultivation.
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2026-09-10
Research Reveals Where the Internet Really Slows Down
When a video call stutters, an online game lags, or a webpage feels slow, internet speed is not always the problem. More often, the issue is network delays, known as latency. In his doctoral thesis, Simon Sundberg investigates how such delays arise and develops new methods for measuring them.
Most people associate network performance with bandwidth, that is, the amount of data that can be transferred per second. However, for many of today’s digital services, latency is just as important.
“If you are downloading a large film, bandwidth is usually the main factor determining how long it takes. But for interactive services such as video calls, online gaming and virtual reality, latency has a much greater impact on the user experience,” says Simon Sundberg.
