Energy storage has become a global concern in modern society. With his ERC Advanced grant, Prof. Östling, an expert in solid state electronics from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, is trying to develop emerging devices based on silicon technology but with other materials than silicon, such as graphene and its analogue MoS2. These unique materials offer opportunities to novel applications, especially those related to energy storage. Prof. Östling and his team have recently developed an efficient inkjet printing technique to reliably deposit these materials at high resolution. They have been able to directly print graphene-based supercapacitors with good performance. In the new PoC project, they will employ the inkjet printing techniques to demonstrate a novel type of energy storage devices which are expected to possess both high energy density and high power density, and establish initial commercialisation steps. Although the novel devices have complicated structure, the full-printing solution will not evidently increase the production cost. Considering the improved performance, the effective cost is actually reduced. Furthermore, the printing solution facilitates scaling up during commercialisation. These printed ultrafast batteries have great potential to meet the urgent and increasing demands from the rapid growth of portable electronic devices and electric vehicles.

Membrane proteins constitute a third of the human proteome and their relevance to disease has led these proteins to make up more than half of all current drug targets. However, despite this push to identify agents for membrane proteins, the number of established disease-associated targets are limited. The 'open' and solvent-accessible nature of most membrane protein orthosteric sites often results in limited specificity of potential drugs. The Trans-Membrane domains (TMD) while displaying greater variability among membrane proteins were however long considered lacking in specific interactions. But significant developments in experimental techniques are now identifying this domain to interact and be actively regulated by the diverse lipid components of the membrane. This Lipopeutics project attempts to determine if the analysis of the protein's Lipid interactions can be a pathway to the development of allosteric drugs targeted at these bilayer-exposed pockets. Unfolding in three major steps, the project first aims to identify specific lipid binding sites with the TMD through the use of long-timescale coarse-grain Molecular Dynamics simulations. Subsequently, the role of this lipid binding event in the protein's functional modulation is validated through atomistic simulations using the Markov State Modelling approach. Finally, cheminformatic screening is used to design lipid-mimicking compounds that are capable of binding within the hydrophobic pocket and stabilizing specific protein functional states.

This interdisciplinary project, EQUBUILD, investigates architectural strategies that enhance democratic social equality in public buildings Sweden, from 1921 to the present, yet not fully understood and thus, will contribute to empower architects, urban-planners, decision-makers and citizens with new knowledge and practical recommendations to fight inequalities for a more cohesive society. To reinforce citizens’ opportunities for equality through public buildings, promoting more balanced living standards and peaceful cities, we urgently need new architectural design knowledge and actionable design strategies. Public buildings can be a tool for the administrations and society to support citizens’ equality as a basic human right, a global concern addressed by UN SDG 10 and a core value of the EU. However, there is scarce knowledge and no thorough studies on how to promote social equality through evidence-based design strategies in public buildings. Bridging this gap, I will innovatively conduct the 1st systematic case study analysis of public buildings in Swedish cities, unveiling what and how design strategies enhance societal equality in each case. I will leverage on feedback from international and interdisciplinary experts, a mix-methods methodology linking archival research, field work, interviews, theory and practice and my experience as researcher and practicing architect. EQUBUILD will deliver new knowledge, presenting architecture as an active tool in implementing equality measures: a novel theory, database, relational maps, network diagrams, and an array of recommendations and design strategies to influence contemporary architectural designs, architects, urban designers, policy-makers, researchers and the rest of society. The impact of implementation of results will: open new research paths in EU, contribute to UN SDGs; consolidate a novel field in architecture; facilitate gender equality, reinforce citizens’ equality, balanced and peaceful cities.

Online media is an important part of modern information society, offering a podium for public discourse and hosting the opinions of hundreds of millions of individuals. Online media are often credited for providing a technological means to break information barriers and promote diversity and democracy. In practice, however, the opposite effect is often observed: users tend to favor content that agrees with their existing world-view, get less exposure to conflicting viewpoints, and eventually create information silos and increased polarization. Arguably, without any kind of mediation, current social-media platforms gravitate towards a state in which net-citizens are constantly reinforcing their existing opinions. In this project we will develop theoretical foundations and a concrete set of algorithmic techniques to address deficiencies in today's online media. We will develop methods to discover structure and patterns of segregation, conflict, and closeness in social-media systems. We will address the issues of reducing bias and polarization, breaking information silos, and creating awareness of users to explore alternative viewpoints. We will also study the effect of different design features to the willingness of the users to explore viewpoints that conflict their opinion. The project is structured along three interwined research thrusts: knowledge discovery, exploration, and content recommendation. To accomplish its aims the project will formulate novel problem representations that provide a deeper understanding of the undesirable phenomena observed in online media and allow for effective remedial actions. Strong emphasis will be given on designing algorithms that are scalable to large data, are able to deal with uncertainty, and offer theoretical guarantees. The end result will be a set of new methods and tools that will contribute to increasing exposure to diverse ideas and improving online deliberation.