Rektorsbloggen

During Linnaeus University’s Academic Ceremony on 30 January 2026 in Växjö, the vice-chancellor of Linnaeus University, Peter Aronsson, delivered two speeches. The first was a ceremonial address given at the academic ceremony, and the other a speech delivered at the formal dinner for specially invited guests held after the ceremony. Both speeches are published here in full.

Ceremonial address during the academic ceremony

We have been entrusted with an academy – Linnaeus University. A university is both a tangible reality and an ideal, the bearer of a hopeful vision that the free pursuit of knowledge creates a better world through:

• Teachers and researchers who freely seek new knowledge, collaborate with a critical eye and collegial responsibility, providing the best conditions for meeting the demands of our time and creating a better, sustainable future, while making research perspectives and findings useful in education.
  
• Students who freely and knowledgeably pursue their education and learning, making the most of their inherent potential and helping to meet external challenges in working life and the building of society.
  
• Through free exchange with others in the wider world – regionally, nationally and globally – creating and connecting our strongest forces for the greatest benefit.
  
• Staff and students together becoming active, knowledgeable and committed citizens of the academy, carrying these virtues forward for the benefit of themselves, the society and the future we ultimately serve.

We have a dream…

These ideals systematically build upon a historical vision of the power of enlightenment. The Renaissance’s interest in empirical research opened entirely new horizons of knowledge. The Enlightenment’s conviction in the power of reason (deserving quotation from Immanuel Kant in 1784):

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred as its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of determination and courage to use one’s understanding without the guidance of another. Sapere aude! / Dare to be wise! / Have the courage to use your own understanding! This is, therefore, the motto of the Enlightenment.”

The vision is realistic, but not without setbacks in society at large. Nor are these setbacks – which often occupy news broadcasts more than progress – anything new:

Freedom, fraternity and equality were ideals created in the American and French Revolutions of 1789 – but they were also followed by terror and the Napoleonic wars, and then by a century in which parliamentary democracy and industry emerged. Colonialism also grew, as did new tensions, totalitarian regimes and world wars – which in turn were followed by the end of the Cold War in 1989, with the fall of the Wall and a hopeful globalisation of democratic tendencies – which was followed by the world we live in today, with major threats, but also significant opportunities.

There will be swings. Those who promise quick and final solutions to difficult problems, who disregard knowledge and democracy in favour of hollow promises and brutal violence, betray the world. Our role is to stand firm for the hopeful path of development.

In 1800, the intellectual elite of the time gathered in Jena, a small, young university in Weimar – in the midst of the raging Napoleonic wars. Goethe, Fichte, Schelling, Novalis, Hegel – “everyone” – continued their work for human, cultural and knowledge-based development. This could then continue to Berlin, to Humboldt, and further on to the living legacy of modern research-based universities that we are now entrusted to steward and continue to develop with courage – and hope.

The challenges today are formidable. Issues of sustainability must be addressed and are already causing major problems. Geopolitical tensions are intensifying through an eroding international order and democratic backsliding in many places. Technological breakthroughs contain great opportunities but also significant challenges. What kind of future are we educating for? Which skills will be most important tomorrow and beyond 2030? The whole world, and Sweden, are affected. Linnaeus University needs to be, is expected to be, and is part of the solution. The demands and expectations are growing, but resources are not. This places great demands on transformation and development at the same time.

Long-term collaborations with external partners and funders are more important than ever. Today, with joy and confidence in the future, I can announce that in addition to our previous partnerships, we are now adding a collaboration with Länsförsäkringar in Kronoberg and Kalmar counties for a more resilient Småland.

Each year, we increasingly become a place where the university’s vision is realised. In the past year, we have operated as Linnaeus University for over 15 years. Next year, Kalmar and Växjö will celebrate 50 years as independent university colleges. Which means we move from being young and promising to entering adulthood. To record, carry and learn through historical knowledge is a future-creating act that we take seriously.

What can be said about the first 15 years (the 50 will have to wait until next year):

With a largely unchanged number of 2,000 employees, we have achieved more and more: a significant strengthening of competence at the university, for students, and in society and industry:

• The sixth most applied-to university in Sweden. Education for more than 300,000 individuals (9,588 teachers, 5,685 engineers, 5,720 police officers, 658 ship captains, the most sought-after optometry programme) – and an increasing number at advanced level.
  
• Research doubled (external funding up 145 per cent and publications up 134 per cent; number of professors up 61 per cent to 151 – with a reduced proportion of lecturers).
  
• Eight centres of excellence in research and ten challenge-driven knowledge environments established.
  
• Building a European University.
  
• Strategic partnerships established securing approximately SEK 500 million over ten years.
  
• Areas of strength: Forest Values and Welfare.

We do all this together – without research there is no new knowledge, without students there is no need for teachers, and without support there is no context for the work. Competition, collaboration and critical discussion take place within the framework of a shared institution: the academy. All of this is the miracle that every advanced society maintains – laying the foundation for both the transmission and creation of new knowledge, which in turn ensures that decisions are better than if they were based solely on opinion, fear or propaganda.

For me, this is the last time I have the privilege of standing here as a proud vice-chancellor. After nine years as Linnaeus University’s second – and so far “longest-serving” – vice-chancellor, the next link in the chain will take over this autumn and continue the work with this fantastic university, celebrate and begin the next 50-year period. I intend to be part of that as a committed professor of history, with a particular focus on the significance of cultural heritage – what could be more fitting?

During this academic ceremony, we celebrate the achievements of the academy, examples of which I have just given. We give particular recognition to the highest degrees through the conferral of 31 doctorates, and to the most highly qualified teachers through the inauguration of eight professors. We award distinctions for outstanding contributions and excellence in research, education, collaboration and support, as well as a medal for particularly meritorious service to Linnaeus University.

We do this every year. Not as repetition, but to celebrate progress – the contributions made during the year to a long tradition, and the building of an innovative institution capable of both carrying, accumulating and developing the power of free knowledge creation.

We truly set knowledge in motion for sustainable societal development!

The speech during the festive dinner

Today, we are celebrating the Academic Ceremony of 2026. The achievements accumulated over decades – and, in particular, the achievements of 2025, with doctoral degrees, inauguration of professors, achievements in research, education and support. 

The final part of the celebration is this gala dinner, with you. How come you have been invited? The university is not just these buildings and the organisation with more than 2 000 employed teachers, researchers and support staff. Not even if we add the 45 000 students represented by the Linnaeus Union it makes the university fully complete. You as well, who are seated around these tables, represent the history and the future of the university. You represent the government, public and private funding bodies, collaboration partners and sponsors, regionally as well as nationally. 

The academy is also a global institution that collaborates for the greater good, in Sweden but also far beyond in Europe and the world. I am especially proud that the general secretary of the International Association of Universities, for which I have been on the board for four years, represent this global responsibility – so badly needed in this time of division, and true to the legacy of Carl Linnaeus.

I will round off this welcome speech by letting Linnaeus, with his diverse wisdom, invite us to take our seats at the tables. He did not only define us as Homo sapiens, but demonstrated the wider spectrum of human capacity – by which I think we can be inspired to define what needs to be our human contribution to a world of AI:

1. Marvel at everything, even the most mundane things (Omnia mirari etiam tritissima). From that point of creative curiosity we can contribute to the rejuvenation of enquiry.
   
2. Advice 55 from Diaeta naturalis: ”It is beneficial to spend an hour after a meal sitting or lying down, engaged in pleasant conversation”.

So, we begin now in all humility: curious dialogue – for future collaboration and knowledge building for a better world.

A warm welcome!