The enterprise is set to begin in 2013, and in collaboration with Stockholm University, the Karolinska Institute, the Royal Institute of Technology, and Uppsala University. That was the message delivered by Minister of Education Jan Björklund during a press conference on April 3. The institute is to be “world class”.

“The goal is to lure top researchers from all over the world,” Björklund said in an interview with DN.se. He continued to explain that to do so they will offer research on a very high level as well as generous grants. In total “a thousand” researchers will be commissioned to the institute.
“I think it is important to get as many foreign researchers as possible to come here, however the main part of them will be Swedish,” Björklund said.

The institute will be interdisciplinary, with the main disciplines being medicine, biology, chemistry, technology, and mathematics, and the research conducted there will be on diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and Alzheimer’s, as well as antibiotic resistance. The Swedish state will be the foremost donor, according to Björklund, but monetary aid will also come from the business sector and among the financiers is the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. “We have already today made the decision to put aside 220 million SEK (close to $30 million) for this year and the next for Science for life,” said Peter Wallenberg during the press conference. The pharmaceutical company Astra Zeneca will also help with funding for the research. “What we are out to find is the basic biology to understand the emergence of problems in these diseases and to find new treatment alternatives,” said Astra Zeneca’s CEO Anders Ekblom. The institute will be housed in new facilities that are being built close to the Karolinska Institute in Solna. Part of the research will also be conducted at the universities involved.