Celebration and solemnity at this year's Academic Ceremony

2025-05-16

Text + Film

The university's Academic Ceremony was celebrated to trumpet fanfare and warm applause. Alongside the joy of career milestones, academic successes, and awards, several speakers reiterated the importance of standing up for academic freedom.

The traditional elements of the ceremony are the conferral of doctorates and the installation of professors, which builds on a long academic tradition. The first doctorate recipients were celebrated by European universities in the 15th century and marked the occasion when they were first given the rights to teach. Today, the doctoral conferment ceremony is more symbolic and an occasion to celebrate the work that led to the doctorate.

At this year's ceremony, nine doctorates were conferred, six professors were installed, and eleven associate professors were celebrated with diplomas and flowers. In addition, Ia Williamsson was awarded the University's Pedagogical Prize. Vincent Nierstrasz, Professor of Textile Materials Technology, was this year’s Promotor.

"You are shaping the future of society"

Vice-Chancellor Mats Tinnsten reminded the audience of the university's mission – to educate to research and to research to educate, and to do this in collaboration with society at large. He also highlighted the importance of standing up for institutional autonomy and academic freedom.

Eva Gustafsson, Chair of the Research and Education Board, praised the new doctorate recipients for their efforts and hard work, noting that the university's research is beneficial and useful in both a local and global context.

Björn Hammarfelt, Professor of Library and Information Science, spoke about how academia needs to balance the right to be as wide-eyed and searching as a child while at the same time, in a time of mistrust and polarisation, it needs to be the adult in the room.

Linnea Sandberg, Vice-Chair of the Student Union of Borås, spoke about the teachers and researchers as the students' sources of inspiration and encouraged the newly installed and promoted researchers to continue to be curious and to remember what it is like to be new to the game.

The ceremony was followed by a pleasant reception and then a banquet for the participants in the ceremony with relatives and specially invited guests.

See the pictures from this year's celebration on 9 May