SCAS News - 23 November, 2018

The Collegium Hosts a Meeting of Swedish Think Tank Humtank

On 9 November, SCAS hosted a meeting of the members of the Swedish think tank Humtank, a meeting
dedicated to a discussion about the role and impact of the research institutes in Sweden. Humtank is a joint
initiative and collaborative project between fifteen Swedish universities, with the aim of influencing research
policy and changing attitudes towards the humanities within and outside academia.

The event was largely organised as a panel discussion, and panelists were Gustaf Arrhenius (Director of the
Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm), Kerstin Rydbeck (Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Uppsala Univer-
sity) and Anna Lindström (Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Languages, Uppsala University and member of the
board of the Centre for Integrated Research on Culture and Society, CIRCUS, in Uppsala). In addition, SCAS
Principal Christina Garsten was also present and partaking. The panel discussion was moderated by Thomas
Karlsohn from the Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University, and also a member of Hum-
tank. The discussion mainly concerned the specific role of research institutes in knowledge production within
the humanities and the social sciences. Not least did the participants focus on the relationship between, on the
one hand, universities with their more abundant resources and organisational limitations and, on the other hand,
the smaller, autonomous and more flexible research institutes. After the panel discussion, Humtank continued
their members' meeting in the Collegium's Thunberg Hall.

Read more about Humtank >>


Text by Jenny Larsson, SCAS/Humtank.
Edited by Sandra Rekanovic, SCAS