Prominent research environments

The fact that the University of Gothenburg hosts the Swedish Institute for the Marine Environment and that the marine environment is a prioritised strong area implies that the Faculty of Science is strongly established at the forefront of marine research. Outstanding research environments within systems biology and climate and polar research have made the Faculty home to great diversity, international breadth and scholarly excellence.

Research within the area of marine environment involves research groups from many faculties. Most of the marine research is conducted at the Faculty of Science. This makes us the spider in the web of marine researchers and research projects – the Linnaeus Centre for Marine Evolutionary Biology, which follows species evolution in the Baltic Sea, and the EU project LIFECYCLE, which aims at developing European fish farming, are two examples. The modern laboratories and research vessels at the Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences at Tjärnö and Kristineberg are part of a new international network and attract marine researchers from around the world.

All our research areas are characterised by international collaborations. In 2008, the Sino-Swedish Centre for Tree-Ring Research was established in China. It is based on successful long-term cooperation in the global community of climate researchers. The cooperation was initiated by Professor Deliang Chen, a world-leading climate researcher from the Faculty who was appointed executive director of the international research organisation International Council for Science in 2009.

The process of climate change is evident not least in the polar seas. Our efforts in this area are both transboundary and interdisciplinary in nature: researchers in chemistry, earth sciences, marine ecology, zoology and mathematics collaborate in international polar research projects and expeditions.

EU-funded research is found in the field of systems biology as well. One example is the Lifewatch project where researchers from 18 countries are developing a ‘knowledge bank’ in the area of biological diversity. And in 2008, we hosted an international systems biology conference, which attracted more than 1000 participants.

Research evaluation 2010

For the first time ever, the research at the University of Gothenburg has been evaluated externally with a goal to identify strengths and weaknesses in the current and planned research activities.

Identified strong research areas at the Faculty of Science