UGOT Challenges
UGOT Challenges is a unique research initiative where the University of Gothenburg invests 300 million SEK in six multidisciplinary research centres.
UGOT Research Challenges
The research fields span a large number of subjects. Some have clear cross-disciplinary elements. Some initiatives are new, others are based on previous research structures that have been expanded as a consequence of the perspective of challenges in our society.
This is the largest investment where the Universtiy of Gothenburg is investing SEK 300 million in cross-disciplinary research centres. Below, you can find out more about the UGOT Challenges and our researchers with strategic grants.
UGOT Challenges will be in place for six years, and began in 2016.
UGOT Challenges is a six year initiative that began in 2016. Since the initiative is nearing its end, a final evaluation has been completed by an international evaluation panel. The evaluation report can be downloaded to the right.
AgeCap – Centre for Ageing and Health
The number of people over the age of 65 will triple over the next few decades. Having more and healthier older people is a major global success, but also a major challenge as it will, for example, mean that more pensioners will have to be provided for and the number of people suffering from dementia will increase.
AgeCap wants to use research to contribute to maintaining the well-being, ableness and participation of elderly people for as long as possible and to the greatest possible extent.
CARe – Centre for Antibiotic Resistance Research
More and more pathogenic bacteria are developing resistance to life-saving antibiotics. Around the world, common infections are becoming ever more difficult to treat. In addition, antibiotic resistance causes problems during surgery and in many forms of cancer treatment, where antibiotics are needed for prophylactic purposes.
CARe’s vision is to use research to contribute to limiting mortality, morbidity and the socio-economic costs related to antibiotic resistance from a global perspective.
CCHS – Centre for Critical Heritage Studies
Critical heritage studies is a growing cross-disciplinary field of research, which critically studies how the past is mobilised for various purposes. These events, in which the past is selectively mobilised to create new types of heritage, can be called heritage processes. One challenge is thus to investigate how the past can be used in the present in order to build the future.
The objective of the research is to present alternative and critical interpretations of how we perceive a globalised world.
CeCAR – Centre for Collective Action Research
Several of the threats and challenges the world is currently facing require collective solutions. It concerns social issues, environmental issues and health-related challenges. But large-scale collective action is difficult to achieve and not particularly well researched.
CeCAR is a research centre that will search for answers to how collective action is incentivized and under what conditions large-scale cooperation can be achieved.
FRAM – Centre for Future Chemical Risk Assessment and Management Strategies
There are currently hundreds of toxic chemicals in the environment, in bodies of water and even in our bloodstream. Current chemical regulations do not take into account that many chemicals interact in the environment, and assume that the substance to be assessed is present on its own in an otherwise untouched ecosystem. This is particularly problematic, as even low, individually harmless, concentrations can contribute to a considerable mixture effect when the chemicals appear together, a so-called cocktail effect.
FRAM is a cross-disciplinary research centre that focuses on the cocktail effect of chemical mixtures and chemical pollutants in ecosystem services in rivers, lakes and coastal areas.
SWEMARC – The Marine Mariculture Research Centre
By 2050, the global population is expected to exceed 9.7 billion. Producing nutritional food for everyone on the planet – in an environmentally friendly manner – is one of our greatest challenges. Water covers 71 percent of the Earth’s surface, but only contributes a few percent to all the food that is produced. So, the oceans are a major unexploited asset.
The objective of SWEMARC is to use cross-disciplinary research that engages the public to increase cultivation of food from the sea in a sustainable manner.