Karolinska Institutet-Solna Campus

Karolinska Institutet is one of the world’s foremost medical universities. Our vision is to make a significant contribution to the improvement of human health; our mission is to conduct research and education and to interact with the community. As a university, KI is Sweden’s single largest centre of medical academic research and offers the country’s widest range of medical courses and programmes. Since 1901 the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has selected the Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine. Karolinska Institutet was founded by King Karl XIII in 1810 as an "academy for the training of skilled army surgeons". Today, Karolinska Institutet is a modern medical university and one of the foremost in the world. With our close relationship to the clinical milieu, a well established infrastructure and a stable financial situation, Karolinska Institutet has excellent prerequisites for sustaining high quality research and education.

Karolinska Institutet offers the widest range of medical education under one roof in Sweden. Several of the programmes include clinical training or other training within the healthcare system. The close proximity of the Karolinska University Hospital and other teaching hospitals in the Stockholm area thus plays an important role during the education. Approximately 6,000 full-time students are taking educational and single subject courses at Bachelor and Master levels at Karolinska Institutet. Teachers at Karolinska Institutet often carry out research in parallel with teaching. This ensures that students are involved in the latest advances within the medical field. Ambitious students, teachers and researchers together create an interesting and stimulating environment. We also offer good opportunities for international exchange, which gives students the chance to work abroad for a period of time.

Most of Karolinska Institutet´s programmes have established student exchange networks. KI uses the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) when converting qualifications for overseas studies. Research at Karolinska Institutet spans the entire medical field, from basic experimental research to patient-oriented and nursing research. Karolinska Institutet is Sweden’s single largest centre of medical academic research and offers the country’s widest range of medical courses and programmes. Research at Karolinska Institutet is conducted in 22 departments, most of which are situated or adjacent to Stockholm's teaching hospitals. This creates ample opportunities for translational research in which new experimental results are rapidly implemented for patient benefit, and where clinical observations provide a basis for new research ideas.

Karolinska Institutet carries out 12% of Swedish doctoral/third cycle education at universities or university colleges. Over 330 students take their PhD degree each year at Karolinska Institutet, after studies corresponding to four years of full-time study. Many of Karolinska Institutet´s doctoral students have taken their first-cycle education abroad. In 2016, 2,267 individuals were active doctoral students whereof 58 percent were women. 331 doctoral degrees were issued. KI's doctoral students have backgrounds in all academic areas, and a large proportion comes from other countries. Doctoral studies at KI takes place in an international environment and usually within international collaborations, either informal between research groups or formal collaborations between the two universities.

Karolinska Institutet has collaboration agreements in research and education with a large number of universities the world over, with companies in the biomed and biotech sectors and also with individual countries. Karolinska Institutet has developed a unique innovation system to identify ideas and support commercialization and exploitation of innovations so as to maximize utilization of research findings in medicine and health. The Karolinska innovation system comprises a number of actors that provide complementary competences and services so as to optimally utilize ideas arising from research. The innovation system also provides the means to identify ideas with development potential and see that they come all the way to commercialisation. The system provides education and coaching in entrepreneurship, the development of innovations, forming start-ups and making licensing deals. A science park provides the infrastructure and support for both small start-ups as well as mature Life Science companies with a portfolio of drug development projects including a number in clinical phase development. The innovation system also provides support for corporate collaboration and outreach to industry.

Karolinska Institutet strives to operate at all times in a spirit of professionalism, equality and diversity. In 2016, Karolinska Institutet had 5,334 full time employees. In addition to this a large number of people without formal employment, especially visiting scientists, fellows and unpaid docents were active at KI.