Unique opportunities for interdisciplinary research on learning

Lund University is in a good position to start a unique interdisciplinary research collaboration on learning, according to Assistant Vice-Chancellor Sven Strömqvist, who is pushing to get such a collaboration started. Research connected with learning is carried out at a number of faculties in Lund. In the humanities, there is cognitive science and the new subject education sciences; the Faculty of Social Sciences has psychology research on learning; in medicine there is research on how the brain learns; and LTH studies both machine learning and learning of people with disabilities (at the Division of Rehabilitation Engineering, Certec). However, the majority of the research is in the humanities and social sciences, which Sven Strömqvist thinks makes it extra special. "The large groups that have received funding in recent years are otherwise in engineering, medicine and science. Here we are deliberately trying to highlight a field that is important to society and that has its research base elsewhere." Sven Strömqvist believes that combining the latest research findings from different disciplines could lead to new teaching methods, new technical teaching aids and new testing and diagnostic tools. There are also good opportunities for collaboration with the business sector.