Innovation Europe > News > Innovation EU Vol1-1 > Malmö University

What makes Malmö University different?

Two short answers: strong engagement with society and social responsibility. But these are not just empty statements. From this strong link with the real world comes a constant need to innovate, to deal with the new issues that real life keeps presenting. This innovative approach is a consistent theme within the University, that runs through our research and also our professional training.

New Media

What happens when a report by a “citizen journalist” using a mobile phone is seen by more people than something that a mainstream media outlet produces? Malmö University is taking its analysis of new media onto the streets.

Our innovative research has been recognised by the Knowledge Foundation a government agency for strengthening Sweden’s competitiveness. The Foundation sees our New Media research as one of the distinctive areas of national excellence that they want to support. In 2009 we established MEDEA, an institute for collaboration with enterprises and the public sector. This means Malmö University is leading the way in creating innovative forms of knowledge and models for taking advantage of new technology.

New Thinking in Teacher Training

Malmö is a well-established centre of pedagogical education – the second largest in Sweden, in fact. Our aim is to be at the cutting edge, through constantly pushing the field into new areas.

Malmö is the site of the development of indepth educational science. For example, a lot has been written about the possibility of computer games as teaching aids – usually such games aim to be either entertaining or educational, but fail in both. Malmö is participating in research to create mobile phone-based games that meet the needs of both teachers and students. This is a Nordic-wide project, and our partners include phone maker Nokia.

Solutions for a Tiny World

Industry and government are backing Malmö University, as we tackle the extremely small but incredibly vital world of biofilms. These bacteria formations are active in a huge number of areas, which makes our research relevant for work in areas stretching from the human immune system to corrosion and construction materials. Our multidisciplinary and problem-focused approaches, coupled with our state-of-the-art equipment, are well suited to address this area. The backing we receive from both companies and Sweden’s Knowledge Foundation will pay off in the development of applications in the medical, dental, food and environmental fields.

Sustainable cities and processes of global change

Over half of the world’s population now live in cities – many in the haphazard shanty towns that have grown up around cities. How will these new city dwellers be supplied with food, water, electricity? What are the implications for democracy? Malmö University is addressing these issues through multidisciplinary research crossing academic departments – and also crossing geographical boundaries by hosting a research network that all interested researchers can join.

Improving on the Office

Creating healthy workplaces and successful organisations, that’s the aim of research at our groundbreaking centre on work life. Created in 2007 the two main themes right now are marginalisation and victimisation in the workplace, looking at this in the context of migration, ethnicity and gender; and good and bad health in the workplace, looking especially at the impact made by the structure of an organisation, and by the attitudes displayed by management.

The Center for Applied Worklife Science has received almost half a million euros from Vinnova – the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems. This will fund research into the role of Swedish business leadership – and the focus is to be the operations of Ikea in China.

Malmö University
205 06 Malmö
Sweden
Tel: +464 0665 7000
Fax: +464 0665 7155
Website: www.mah.se