The Erling-Persson Foundation supports projects within scientific research, tuition and education, and the development of children and young people. The Foundation receives applications from all over Sweden and works continually to drive development forward in its chosen areas.
STEFAN PERSSON
The
Erling-Persson Foundation has its origin in the Persson family’s interest in entrepreneurship and how entrepreneurship can contribute to real social change.
The Erling-Persson Foundation works to use education to promote entrepreneurship, to give children and young people a good start in life and to enable research to push the boundaries of our collective knowledge. The Foundation has its origin in the Persson family’s interest in entrepreneurship and how entrepreneurship can contribute to solutions that benefit our society.
A curious, creative and solution-oriented approach to the world around us is important in both entrepreneurial and scientific contexts. It is also a good attitude for young people to have when finding their way in life. By helping young people access their curiosity and creativity we also hope to contribute to the regrowth of both skills and drive that are important for a sustainable society.
The Foundation’s work gives us as a family the opportunity to come together in our community engagement and in our conviction that knowledge is a resource with the power to change lives and that should benefit many. Our focus areas also reflect themes that are close to our heart.
In 2024 the Foundation continued to support several initiatives to promote entrepreneurship. Stockholm School of Economics was granted an additional SEK 50 million to develop the premises where House of Innovation operates. The F1RST Foundation’s activities are aimed at young people from backgrounds unfamiliar with higher education, providing them with information and inspiring them to consider studying and, by extension, stimulating diversified entrepreneurship. F1RST has been awarded SEK 6 million over three years.
The Lilla Akademien music school was given support for developing its educational offering to children and young people. The Nobel Prize Museum received support for its public activities based on science, literature and peace that aim to spread knowledge to both schoolchildren and the general public.
During the year historic donations were also made to two of the country’s major music institutions: Konserthuset Stockholm and the Royal Swedish Opera. Focusing on making culture accessible to more people and to future generations, Konserthuset Stockholm was granted SEK 100 million in support of its 100th anniversary in the 2026/2027 season. The Opera received a donation of SEK 100 million to enable its upcoming expansion, which includes a second stage for children’s and youth audiences. The family is very pleased to be able to contribute to these two musical venues being able to accommodate an ever wider audience well into the future.
For the first time the Foundation is supporting the upcoming Järvaveckan 2025 – a week-long event for socially engaged businesses, associations, authorities, politicians and citizens – and specifically the week’s cultural initiative Kulturbron (‘Culture Bridge’), which aims to lower the thresholds to culture and cultural experiences for everyone.
To promote the health of children and young people in war-torn Ukraine, the Erling-Persson Foundation is supporting a Nordic initiative called the Nadija Children’s Foundation. On the ground in Ukraine the initiative focuses on trauma care for young people. In a collaboration between Astrid
Lindgren Children’s Hospital, Beredskapslyftet and the Okhmadyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, the Foundation is also contributing support to Okhmadyt, which suffered a Russian bombing attack in summer 2024. The hospital is Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital and the support aims to strengthen expertise and to replace or improve equipment at the hospital.
Within Sweden, several grants have been awarded to facilitate children’s and young people’s participation in meaningful leisure time. Among various other great projects we are pleased to support Fritidsbanken’s activities – which take place all around Sweden – over a four-year period.
By supporting researchers at Swedish seats of learning, the Foundation hopes to contribute to increased knowledge that makes a difference to people’s health. During 2024 a total of SEK 68 million was donated for research in Sweden. In this area support is mainly given to medical research, and 10 projects with a medical focus were supported during the year. In some cases the research concerns the development of new potential treatments for cancer, but also inflammatory bowel disease, stem cell therapy to combat Parkinson’s disease and individualised treatment of multiple sclerosis.
In total the Erling-Persson Foundation donated more than SEK 400 million to its focus areas during 2024. In this annual review we interview some of the people behind the projects that have received support. We get to hear some very different stories, but the desire to achieve good things for our fellow human beings and society is a factor that unites them all.
Stefan Persson Chair of the Board
“The Foundation’s work gives us as a family the opportunity to come together in our community engagement and in our conviction that knowledge is a resource with the power to change lives and that should benefit many. Our focus areas also reflect themes that are close to our heart.”
THE FOUNDATION IN BRIEF
Since the Erling-Persson Foundation was formed in 1999 it has made more than 340 donations totalling SEK 5.8 billion. The long list of recipients includes Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm School of Economics and Fryshuset.
In 1947 Erling Persson established the company that has developed into the global H&M Group we know today. In 1999 the Erling-Persson Foundation was formed in memory of his many achievements in retail and enterprise, financed by donations from the Persson family.
The family is passionate about entrepreneurship as a positive force in society, so supporting education in this area was a natural initial focus area for the Foundation. Before long two more focus areas were added, aimed at equipping society better for the future: support for research and support for the development of children and young people.
The Foundation sees meetings and collaboration as important for stimulating new thinking and new solutions. It is therefore pleased to support interdisciplinary ventures and projects that link together different sectors of society.
The Foundation’s commitment to the projects supported is based on confidence that the project owner has the capability to expand the boundaries of our shared knowledge and understanding, and a sure and certain belief that knowledge changes and improves lives. More than 340 donations have been made to date, with the Foundation having given SEK 5.8 billion to causes that benefit society.
The largest single donation so far, SEK 600 million, was made to the Nobel Center Foundation in 2022. The donation will enable the construction of the new Nobel Center at Slussen in Stockholm. Along with its contents, the building will inform, inspire and stimulate.
Various entrepreneurship courses have together received around SEK 1.4 billion, with Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) as major recipients. A donation of SEK 75 million from the Foundation also enabled the start of education and research in a new subject: fashion studies. The Centre for Fashion Studies is now well established at Stockholm University.
In the scientific field, research into type 1 diabetes is the area where the Foundation has made its largest contribution, amounting to around SEK 433 million to date. Significant support has also been given to research in areas such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, antibiotic resistance and neurological disease.
Fryshuset was the first children’s and young people’s organisation to receive support from the Foundation for its activities. So far, its projects have received funding from the Foundation totalling around SEK 195 million, helping Fryshuset to develop into a highly valued centre for children and young people within sport, knowledge, leisure activities and more. Organisations for children and young people have together received around SEK 700 million.
At the end of 2024 donations to the three focus areas were distributed approximately as follows: 41 percent to research, 47 percent to education and 12 percent to children and young people.
1999
Erling Persson established the company that has developed into the global H&M Group we know today. In 1999 the Erling-Persson Foundation was formed in memory of his many achievements within retail and enterprise.
250
The largest donations to date of a humanitarian nature were awarded in conjunction with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2022 the Red Cross and Save the Children each received SEK 125 million in support of their efforts for people affected by the war.
75
In 2006 the Centre for Fashion Studies was established at Stockholm University, aided by a donation from the Foundation of SEK 75 million. Since 2018 fashion studies has been an independent academic discipline at the university.
200
The Foundation receives more than 200 applications for project support every year. Around 150 of these are research applications.
700
By 31 December 2024 the Foundation had granted funding to 92 projects that promote the development of children and young people, amounting to SEK 700 million in total.
41%
Nearly half of the total funds distributed by the Foundation, or SEK 2 billion, has been awarded to research projects led by Swedish universities and colleges.
138.5
Education and research in the areas of climate and the environment are important for being able to build a sustainable future. Through various initiatives the Foundation has donated SEK 138.5 million to these areas.
2.8
Over the years around SEK 2.8 billion has been awarded in the area of Tuition & Education, representing around 47 percent of all funds donated.
5.8
Since the Foundation was formed in 1999 a total of SEK 5.8 billion has been awarded in three focus areas.
2 in 5
Applications for support for research are received from all over Sweden. Just over 40 percent of all main applicants are women.
10,000
A donation of around SEK 400 million was made to Karolinska Institutet in 2010 and enabled the building of the Aula Medica, a 10,000 square metre complex serving the needs of research and education.
4
The Foundation’s board holds its regular meetings four times a year.
The Foundation is leaving behind a year in which it became clear that new challenges may require new approaches to the world, but that in each change it is also important to manage wisely the experience and knowledge that has already been acquired.
New encounters, new knowledge, new collaborations. That’s how the year 2024 at the Erling-Persson Foundation could be summed up. The new elements have their value, of course, there are also others such as relationships over time and long-term efforts.
Some projects are being conducted in collaborative constellations that are wholly or partly new. F1RST’s study and career promotion activities see schools, universities and the business community working together to help young people find their way into higher education and working life. Since autumn 2024 the H&M group has been a new knowledge partner in the project.
A partnership between Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital and the Okhmadyt children’s hospital in Kyiv had to take on a new shape after the Ukrainian hospital suffered a bombing attack in the summer of 2024. The skills exchange that was already taking place has been reinforced and, through contributions from both private and public funders, the support now also includes additional equipment for the Ukrainian hospital. For this to work, the non-profit association Beredskapslyftet is playing an important role as an administrative hub.
The Nadija Foundation, initiated by Anne Berner, brings together Nordic funders in an endeavour for children’s health and well-being in situations of war and conflict. The initiative is taking place in dialogue with the Ukrainian authorities and the medical profession.
In this annual review we tell you more about these cross-sectoral partnerships, in which each actor contributes its strengths and skills.
During the past year the Foundation granted historically large grants to two of Sweden’s cultural
institutions, Konserthuset Stockholm and the Royal Swedish Opera. Grants of SEK 100 million to each institution will contribute to both Stockholmers and visitors to the city continuing to benefit from music and dance even far into the future. New ways of working are being found in order to attract new groups of visitors. The Opera says that this could include something as concrete as accompanying children on their metro journey from school to the Opera House. At Konserthuset Stockholm new groups of young people can be seen in the audience who seem to be seeking an authentic experience of the music they might have found through digital channels.
Hardly anywhere else is the relationship between established knowledge and new questions as evident as in research. It is absolutely essential to start from existing knowledge in order to ask questions about its gaps or weaknesses and thereby enable new knowledge to be developed. This year’s recipients of research support include groups questioning why one chronic disease can take such a different course in different patients, and whether another can be cured with a new protocol for stem cell therapy. In one cancer project, the perspectives are reversed: we know that something has gone wrong in the cancer cell, but could the explanation for this lie outside the cell itself, in its environment?
We are delighted to tell you here about these and various other innovative projects with a thirst for knowledge that were supported by the Erling-Persson Foundation in 2024.
Ylva Linderson Programme Manager
SEK 6 M / 3 YEARS
Ulcerative colitis is an intestinal condition that currently plagues around 40,000 Swedes. One possible cause is the protective mucosal barrier that lines the gut being too thin, leading to the intestine becoming inflamed. The researchers want to restore better mucosal formation, for example via beneficial bacteria.
Our intestines are estimated to contain 300 trillion bacteria, known as gut flora or intestinal microbiota, which can be made up of a thousand different types of bacteria. In an adult, together they account for 200 grams of body weight. The bacteria making up the gut flora are able to break down nutrients into smaller components that can be more easily absorbed by the body, for example, and can also produce vitamins, as well as protecting the intestine from being colonised by disease-causing bacteria (pathogens).
“Scarcely anywhere on the planet is populated as densely with bacteria as inside our bodies. It fascinates me that such dense colonisation normally works so well,” says Björn Schröder, a biochemist and associate professor within the Department of Molecular Biology at Umeå University.
In ulcerative colitis, however, the situation is different, as the mucosal barrier becomes inflamed and fragile.
“We believe that when the mucosal lining that normally protects the intestine becomes too thin, the bacteria get too close, which in turn triggers inflammation,” he says.
Lifestyle factors such as a low-fibre diet and antibiotics increase the risk of suffering ulcerative colitis. Björn Schröder describes how people who move from preindustrial areas to the Western world are at increased risk.
“Similarly, the number of cases also increases when a geographical area is ‘westernised’ and people move to a lower-fibre diet,” he says.
The prevalence in the Western world, as in
Sweden, is currently estimated to be around 20 per 100,000 of the population.
“It’s difficult to say how many cases there were before the advent of industrialisation,” says Björn Schröder.
He mentions an overview study which reports that the first case was described in 1859. But from a handful of documented cases, its prevalence increased in the early 20th century to affect millions of people in North America, Europe and Oceania.
“Scarcely anywhere on the planet is populated as densely with bacteria as inside our bodies.”
That the amount of dietary fibre in the diet plays a role is because bacteria that are normally found in gut flora break down the large sugar structures that make up dietary fibre. However, if levels of dietary fibre are low, the bacteria instead supply themselves from the sugar structures making up the mucosal barrier.
In the current project Gut microbial mucus modulation during ulcerative colitis, Björn Schröder and his colleagues want to study what the mucosal barrier looks like in people with and without ulcerative colitis, and whether it is possible to affect intestinal mucosa production by means of a high-fibre diet.
In previous studies the researchers saw that mice fed a ‘Western diet’ – similar to fast food and low in fibre – had a composition of gut bacteria that caused damage to the mucosal barrier.
Stool samples taken from individuals who have eaten different diets are stored at minus 180 degrees. Among other things, the researchers will analyse which bacteria are found in the gut flora.
The research group is using a method developed by colleagues in Gothenburg in which they can measure both the growth of the mucosal lining and its permeability. Growth is measured in living intestinal tissue taken via a biopsy. In healthy mice the mucosal lining was built up at a rate of 100–150 micrometres per hour, while its growth in the mice given a low-fibre diet was significantly less. Micrometer-sized plastic balls are also placed on the surface of the mucosal lining, these corresponding in size to a common bacterium. Using confocal microscopy it is then possible to see how quickly these pass through the mucosal lining, providing a measure of its permeability.
“We believe that when the mucosal lining that normally protects the intestine becomes too thin, the bacteria get too close.”
Protective bacteria were found in the gut flora of people who had a diet high in dietary fibre. After a faecal transplant to those mice given a low-fibre diet, these mice were also protected against damage to the mucosal lining.
“It was proof of concept that a healthy gut microbiome provides protection. We were also able to identify a bacterium called Blautia coccoides that stimulated mucosal formation,” says Björn Schröder.
The results were published in Nature Communications in April 2024.
The question now is what the situation is for people with ulcerative colitis. In a substudy the researchers will take tissue samples a few millimetres in diameter from the intestinal mucosa of three groups of people: from 15 people with ulcerative colitis who have ongoing inflammation in the intestine, from the same number who do not currently have inflammation and from a third group the same size who have not been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis but who undergo an endoscopy, for example as part of screening for possible bowel cancer. In the biopsies mucosal function is measured in the same way as previously carried out in mice, which will provide an answer to whether a thin mucosal barrier correlates with inflammation.
All the participants are also to submit stool samples. These are transplanted into mice, making it possible to determine whether a different gut microbiome can cause mucosal defects.
In a second substudy 17 healthy women were given two different diets: either a diet based on the
Nordic nutritional recommendations, which includes a fairly large amount of fruit and vegetables, or a low carbohydrate, high fat (LCHF) diet that is very low in fibre. The women kept to these diets for two four-week periods and had to submit stool samples after each round. The gut flora will now be transplanted into special model mice that over time spontaneously develop inflammation in the intestine that resembles ulcerative colitis. The idea is to see whether the inflammation can be prevented or accelerated depending on which diet the women ate. The reason why only women were included in the study is because previous studies focused on men, often athletes.
In a third step the researchers will determine the species of bacteria found in gut flora from the first two studies.
“Here we want to see, for example, whether any bacteria are always present in cases of good mucosal function, and which may thus be protective,” says Björn Schröder.
The researchers also want to study whether it is possible to link good mucosal production in humans to certain degradation products, i.e. the substances formed when molecules are broken down. Through what is known as metabolomics, in which small metabolites are analysed, it is also possible to see which small molecules are produced at a certain time in order to get an idea of which degradation pathways are active.
“In mice we previously identified a certain bacterium and also some degradation products – a couple of short fatty acids – which are beneficial. We hope to find similar patterns in humans too,” he says.
The support from the Erling-Persson Foundation is of great importance.
“We were really delighted! We’ve been thinking about the study for a long time but didn’t have the funds to develop the methodology – but now we can finally begin to do so,” says Björn Schröder.
As a researcher he has worked in both Europe and the USA, but Umeå is a highlight.
“It’s so easy to collaborate with doctors and other researchers here! In the ongoing collaboration for the LCHF study, all the researchers are really enthusiastic about working together and combining our expertise – so Umeå really is the right place to do this study now,” he says.
In five years’ time he hopes that the project will have laid the foundation for developing new probiotics that may eventually help patients with ulcerative colitis.
“Either because we can give specific dietary advice in order to favour certain types of bacteria, or because we have found a degradation product that can in itself contribute better intestinal mucosa – one you can take as a tablet, for example,” concludes Björn Schröder.
FACTS / ULCERATIVE COLITIS
Ulcerative colitis is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
In Sweden around 40,000 people live with ulcerative colitis, slightly more men than women. People usually develop the condition between the ages of 35 and 40.
The symptoms are abdominal pain, diarrhoea and fever, and the disease often has flare-ups.
The current treatment is symptomatic and prolongs the time between inflammatory episodes.
Exactly what causes the disease is not known, but lifestyle factors such as a low-fibre diet and antibiotics are associated with increased risk.
Smoking was previously thought to protect against inflammatory flare-ups, but in recent years researchers have seen that smoking in itself seems capable of increasing the risk of suffering ulcerative colitis – so its impact is unclear.
Nicotine pouches, on the other hand, are not thought to affect the risk of inflammatory bowel disease.
200
total gram weight of intestinal bacteria in the gut flora of an adult person
100 –
150
micrometres per hour is the speed at which the mucosal lining develops in a person’s intestine
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Project lead: Björn Schröder.
40,000 is the number of Swedes living with the disease ulcerative colitis
Title: Gut microbial mucus modulation during ulcerative colitis.
What it involves: One cause of ulcerative colitis – an inflammatory bowel disease – is that the mucosal lining which normally protects the gut is too thin and permeable. The researchers want to investigate whether it is possible to create a gut flora containing beneficial bacteria that can alleviate or cure the disease.
Funding: The Erling-Persson Foundation is supporting the project with SEK 6 million over three years.
In living intestinal tissue it is possible to measure the growth of the mucosal lining using a specially developed method. Confocal microscopy allows Sandra Holmberg and the other researchers to study how permeable the mucosal lining is (the picture does not show a confocal microscope).
SEK 8 M / 3 YEARS
In Parkinson’s disease, dopamine-producing cells in the brain die off. From stem cells, researchers have been able to cultivate a high proportion of cells that cure the symptoms in animal experiments. In this project they want to grow cells on a clinical scale for future transplant studies involving patients.
More than 20,000 people in Sweden are living with Parkinson’s disease, which affects nearly two percent of the population over the age of 60. The problem today is that the drugs available become less effective over time. An attractive solution is therefore to transplant healthy cells into the brain, where they will be able to produce the dopamine needed.
“Such attempts were made in the 80s and 90s, including in Lund, but at that time cells from aborted embryos were used. Not only is that a complex ethical issue, but it is also difficult to standardise a treatment based on embryonic tissue,” says Johan Ericson, Professor of Developmental Biology at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Karolinska Institutet.
Since the early 2000s researchers have instead focused their attention on human pluripotent stem cells, in the hope that these cells can be converted into the specific cell type they want in a controlled and effective way. But it has turned out not to be quite that simple.
As a developmental biologist, Johan Ericson has spent 30 years understanding how the nervous system and various parts of the brain develop in early embryos.
“While many in the stem cell field have read the research articles we have written over the years, few are actually experienced in the hands-on work involved in guiding stem cells’ path to maturity,” he says.
The project Development of a therapeutically high-effective ATMP product for Parkinson’s disease aims to use a specially developed protocol to direct human stem cells to begin forming the cells needed in transplantation.
The cells wanted are mesencephalic dopaminergic neurons, a variant of the brain’s total of around 10,000 different kinds of nerve cells. Since the desired cells do not survive transplantation once they are fully differentiated, the trick is to develop stem cells into immature precursor cells, which are then expected to develop into functioning dopamine-producing cells after transplantation.
Under the method patented by Johan Ericson and his colleagues, the stem cells must be exposed for a defined period of time to retinoic acid – a signal molecule derived from vitamin A.
“Few are actually experienced in the hands-on work involved in guiding stem cells’ path to maturity.”
“Stimulating the cells for a specific period of time, rather than with a specific dose, is a more reproducible process,” says Johan Ericson.
That retinoic acid can be used to stimulate the development of dopamine-producing cells was published by them in Nature Communications in 2022.
The cells are then bathed in solution containing a small molecule that stimulates the so-called Wnt signalling pathway, to guide development towards the desired cell type. This signalling pathway is the one that other research groups have also relied on.
Johan Ericson and his colleagues are therefore using a combination of signals.
“We believe that our method better mimics the normal development of cells in an embryo, which in turn results in an improved cell product for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease,” says Johan Ericson, adding:
“It may sound simple, but developing our sequential method has taken us three years, plus the time to figure out how we should use retinoic acid.”
By analysing specific cell markers the researchers can see that the yield in the graft ends up at 60 percent mesencephalic dopaminergic cells. This can be compared with other methods that are currently under clinical trial, where the yield is a few percent and the grafts mainly contain unwanted cell types – making the graft volume greater without having any positive effect.
“Our grafts in preclinical animal experiments are one cubic millimetre in size. Those from others can be up to fifteen times larger,” says Johan Ericson.
“We believe that our method better mimics the normal development of cells in an embryo.”
To investigate how the cells function in the brain, the researchers use rats. The animals are given a controlled injury in one hemisphere of the brain that causes Parkinson-like symptoms in that half of the body. The researchers then try to ‘cure’ these with transplanted nerve cells. When the animals are able to use both halves of the body equally again, their injury is considered to be cured.
“Even though our grafts are small, we cure our rats in half the time – in three months rather than six months. This rapid effect is because most of the transplanted cells develop into dopamine-producing cells, so the grafts contain a very large proportion of therapeutic cells compared to alternative methods,” says Johan Ericson.
Today there are a few clinical studies ongoing that use stem cells developed according to other protocols.
Within the project Johan Ericson and his colleagues now want to cultivate stem cells according to their own protocol but on a much larger scale and demonstrate that the production process is reproducible. When 500,000 stem cells are seeded into culture bottles they should form towards 675 million cells – enough to treat 50 to 100 patients – and the cells must then be frozen in ampoules.
“If this works as expected, it’s then easy to scale up the process to industrial proportions,” says Johan Ericson.
Since the cells are intended for use in humans in the future, no animal products must be present during the cultivation process. It is also important that each batch of cultured cells is of consistent and high quality.
“Our immediate goal is to drive the project to clinical studies, and it’s only then that we can compare the outcome with the methods that are currently under clinical evaluation with any certainty,” he says.
Transplanting nerve cells sounds like a complicated and expensive treatment, however. Is it reasonable to believe that it could nonetheless become routine in healthcare? Here Johan Ericson draws a parallel with CAR T-cell therapy in cancer, in which the patient’s own T-cells are genetically modified outside the body and the cells are then cultured. When the modified cells are then put back, they can hunt down cancer cells in the blood and kill them. A treatment can cost millions of kronor, but only needs to be done once.
“In the case of Parkinson’s disease it’s also a onetime treatment. In the most successful studies based on transplantation of embryonic tissue it was seen that some patients became virtually symptom-free and that dopamine-producing cells remained at the patient’s death 20 years after the procedure,” he says.
The brain’s immune system also does not need to be on the alert in the same way as in the rest of the body, as it is protected by the blood-brain barrier. Stem cells kept ready in the freezer can therefore be used in combination with immunosuppressive treatment for one year in conjunction with transplantation.
“Unlike today’s CAR T-cell treatment, you do not necessarily have to start with the patient's own stem cells – and nor do you risk the strong immune reactions that are a serious side-effect of these treatments,” he says.
Johan Ericson emphasises the importance of the support from the Erling-Persson Foundation.
“It’s fantastic. Although our results look very promising, it has proved difficult to obtain financial support for driving this project from basic scientific research towards clinical application. The grant we’ve now received gives us three years in which to do what we want and gives us the chance to wrap things up,” he says.
Johan Ericson says that while the question of how stem cells are to be controlled has been solved theoretically, continuous methodological refinement and improvement are important – especially for researchers who are not ‘first movers’, but above all for the patients affected.
“It’s like if the development of mobile phones had
stopped in 1984 with the large and bulky portable phones we had then, instead of being continued and developed further into today’s smartphones. Even within academia there needs to be room for continued research and development,” he says.
If the outcome of the project is as the researchers believe, he also hopes that it will give a lift to the research field itself.
“I never thought that as a developmental biologist I would be able to actually take a potential treatment all the way to the clinical stage,” says Johan Ericson.
Parkinson’s disease (PD) occurs when nerve cells that produce dopamine die in specific parts of the brain.
Ten million people around the world are living with Parkinson’s disease, around 20,000 of them in Sweden. The disease affects around two percent of the population over the age of 60.
Common symptoms are difficulty moving, speaking, swallowing and talking, and those affected have reduced facial expression. One common symptom is a ‘pill-rolling’ tremor – repeated movements with the hand.
The current treatment alleviates the symptoms, but over time the drugs become less effective. However, some patients benefit greatly from deep brain stimulation, where certain parts of the brain are stimulated using implanted electrodes.
1
cubic millimetre is the size of the cell implant that is to be used – 15 times smaller than in other studies
the proportion of dopamineproducing cells contained in the grafts in preclinical animal experiments, as compared with yields of a few percent published by other groups
ABOUT THE PROJECT
3
months is how long it took for rats that had cells transplanted to become symptom-free
Project lead: Johan Ericson, co-applicant Per Sveningsson.
Title: Development of a therapeutically high-effective ATMP product for Parkinson’s disease.
What it involves: The researchers have produced a method for converting immature stem cells into dopamine-producing nerve cells that are to be transplanted into patients. Early experiments in animals show a much better yield of the particular type of cells wanted. As part of the project they now want to develop methods to scale up cell culture and demonstrate a high therapeutic effect in animal experiments in order to be able to work with a commercial partner to start clinical trials.
Funding: The Erling-Persson Foundation is supporting the project with SEK 8 million over three years.
Kristian Pietra’s goal is to be able to treat even triple-negative breast cancer. The idea is to get the cells to form the receptors that are targeted by current drugs.
SEK 6 M / 3 YEARS
Now researchers want to reprogram the tumour cells to begin expressing such receptors, to enable current drugs to work again.
Individual cells losing control and then being changed into tumour cells is an ancient phenomenon. In August 2020 researchers reported finding that a 76 millionyear-old fossil of a Centrosaurus with an apple-sized tumour on its fibula had suffered from osteosarcoma – a type of bone cancer. But the human race has lived with cancer for millennia too.
“In a modern imaging survey of a woman who lived in Egypt in around 2400BC, sections of disintegration were seen in the skeleton. This is characteristic of what it looks like when breast cancer has spread,” says Kristian Pietras, Professor of Molecular Medicine at Lund University.
Every year more than 10,000 women in Sweden are diagnosed with breast cancer, just over a tenth of whom have what is known as triple-negative breast cancer. This is characterised by the fact that the tumour cells lack receptors for hormones on the surface, which in turn makes the disease difficult to treat. Kristian Pietras describes how the research community has therefore tried to find other points of attack in order to create targeted drugs.
“But we approached it from the other direction: we already have good drugs for cancers that are hormonesensitive, so why not try to get the triple-negative form to also start expressing such receptors?”
This is precisely the goal of the project Targeting cancer-associated fibroblasts in triple negative breast cancer: from patients to biology and back again.
Kristian Pietras has looked into not only the tumour cells themselves, but everything surrounding them – the tumour’s entire microenvironment. This
includes such things as how the tumour receives its blood supply and nutrients, but also the role played by the body’s connective tissue cells.
“Connective tissue cells have been considered a bit boring because it was thought that they mostly provide stability, but they have been shown to have a variety of functions,” he says.
“Why not try to get the triplenegative form to also start expressing such receptors?”
Five years ago his research group described a new signalling pathway in triple-negative breast cancer, a kind of conversation between the tumour cells and certain types of connective tissue cells. The connective tissue cells turned out to be behind the fact that triple-negative tumour cells maintained their characteristic of lacking receptors for hormones. But once the researchers could block the signalling pathway – or the conversation, if you will – then the tumour cells began to express receptors for oestrogen on the surface. This made them sensitive to hormone therapy with established drugs such as tamoxifen and letrozole; something that worked in both model mice and in mice that had patients’ triple-negative tumours placed in them. The results were published in 2018 in Nature Medicine. They were later able to show that the whole thing worked the other way too: tumour cells that initially had oestrogen receptors on them stopped expressing these if they were exposed to the connective tissue cells’ signals, as published in Oncogene in 2024.
“But
because that made it all into a kind of smoothie, you could only see that banana and strawberry were present – not where and in what proportions. Today there are techniques for creating three-dimensional maps of tissues and then we see a fruit salad instead, where perhaps banana and strawberry always appear together.”
The research group headed by Kristian Pietras will investigate whether it is possible to ‘reprogram’ the patient’s cancer cells prior to surgery.
In the current project the researchers are to investigate whether it is possible to ‘reprogram’ patients’ tumours before surgery. They have initiated a window-ofopportunity study called I-CONIC. In healthcare today there is a waiting period between patients being diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer and having surgery. Within this time window the researchers want to insert a drug called imatinib. In short, this blocks the signalling pathway between the connective tissue cells and the tumour cells. The drug is approved for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia, but in this case the women are given it for 10 days before surgery.
“So we have small tissue samples from the tumour at diagnosis and samples are then taken again during the operation. This gives us data for before and after treatment with imatinib, telling us whether the tumour cells have started to form oestrogen receptors,” he says.
With each person therefore being their own control, 20 women are enough in the first part of the study.
“To complicate the picture there are at least four main groups of connective tissue cells, and we want to map what the different types do.”
As the tissue samples taken before surgery are small, the technology for analysing these needs to be refined. To get a picture of the tumours before and after the treatment, a routine test called PAM-50 is used which analyses the expression of 50 genes in the tumour cells. The researchers also use RNA sequencing to see different gene expression patterns in the tumours.
Another part of the project uses material from an ongoing study at Lund University called SCAN-B, which covers a large proportion of Swedish breast cancer patients who are based south of the Mälardalen region. This currently includes data from 20,000 women. In addition to biopsy material stored in a biobank, the researchers also gather information about each tumour’s genetic expression as well as data about the woman and her progress.
This large body of material identifies patients with triple-negative breast cancer in order to investigate the interaction between connective tissue cells and other cells in the stored tumour samples.
“But of course nothing is that simple, so to complicate the picture there are at least four main groups of connective tissue cells and we want to map what the different types do,” says Kristian Pietras.
The researchers therefore want to investigate the tumour samples in three dimensions in order to understand the interaction between tumour cells and other cells, such as connective tissue cells. Previously the tumour was crushed and was found to contain different types of cells.
“But because that made it all into a kind of smoothie, you could only see that banana and strawberry were present – not where and in what proportions. Today there are techniques for creating threedimensional maps of tissues and then we see a fruit salad instead, where perhaps banana and strawberry always appear together,” he explains as an example.
Being able to produce so much information about the make-up of triple-negative tumours and which cells in them interact, and being able to correlate tumours’ different properties with different outcomes is a unique combination, says Kristian Pietras. His hope is that the project will end up making it possible to reprogram triple-negative tumours so that they become hormone-sensitive.
“To do this we would need to confirm the findings in a larger clinical study, where for example we can carry out the treatment to reprogram the tumours for a longer period than the 10 days we are currently doing,” says Kristian Pietras, continuing:
“We’re doing basic research, but our goal is to be able to make a difference for patients with breast cancer.”
The support that the project is now receiving from the Erling-Persson Foundation is very much welcomed.
“It means a great deal to us. It means we can maintain the high level of expertise we have built up in the research group, which is important as clinical studies in particular require a long-term perspective. Now we know that we have support for three years,” says Kristian Pietras.
Breast cancer is classified into four main types, the most common being hormone-dependent breast cancer which accounts for 70 percent of cases.
Triple-negative breast cancer accounts for around 10–15 percent, with the proportion varying somewhat across the world – probably based on genetics.
It is described as ‘triple negative’ because the tumour cells lack three receptors on their surface: receptors for oestrogen and progesterone as well as HER2, which stands for Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor-2.
Every year in Sweden between 1,000 and 1,500 women are diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, which has a worse prognosis than hormone-dependent cancer. If the woman has a relapse after treatment, the cancer is often incurable.
The current treatment is chemotherapy and radiotherapy as well as surgery. Immunotherapy is also increasingly used, although opinion varies as to how effective this treatment is.
4,200
the age of one of the oldest findings of breast cancer that has spread to the skeleton
20,000
the number of women in the SCAN-B study where the researchers have full information about the tumours’ genetics, about the women and the disease outcomes – one of the world’s largest collections of breast cancer data
ABOUT THE PROJECT Project lead: Kristian Pietras.
10 –15%
the proportion of all breast cancer cases that are triplenegative breast cancer
Title: Targeting cancer-associated fibroblasts in triple negative breast cancer: from patients to biology and back again.
What it involves: Triple-negative breast cancer is not responsive to hormone therapy. The researchers want to reprogram the tumour cells so that they develop such sensitivity. They will treat 20 patients with a previously approved drug and analyse the tumours before and after, and will also study the microenvironment of triple-negative tumours.
Funding: The Erling-Persson Foundation is supporting the project with SEK 6 million over three years.
SEK 6 M / 3 YEARS
In multiple sclerosis the immune system damages tissue in the central nervous system. Many benefit from today’s drugs, but individualised treatment requires better knowledge of markers –such as those that predict aggressive or difficult-to-treat disease.
The disease multiple sclerosis (MS) affects more than 600 people in Sweden each year. From the time the disease was first described in the late 19th century until the mid-1990s there was no treatment, which led to doctors often shying away from even making the diagnosis. In 1993 it was finally reported that a substance called interferon beta could slow down the disease. Fredrik Piehl is a Professor of Neurology at Karolinska Institutet and a neurologist at the Karolinska University Hospital, and specialises in neuroimmune diseases.
“Neuroimmunology attracted me because it combines the two complex fields of immunology and neurology. I’ve seen MS go from incurable to treatable,” he says.
But the knowledge has taken time to spread. Fredrik Piehl talks about a patient who had MRI brain scans carried out privately for several years, with MSlike changes in the brain having been observed for a decade. But it was only after a skiing accident that a diagnostic investigation was carried out.
“When she came to me she was understandably frustrated that no-one had reacted to the changes, but the medical professional at the private clinic hadn’t thought it worth mentioning because nothing could be done anyway...”
Since interferon beta was approved 30 years ago, a number of immunosuppressive and symptomrelieving drugs have seen the light of day, including biologic drugs such as various antibodies.
Sweden stands out by primarily treating with the antibody rituximab. This knocks out the immune
system’s B cells and the drug is approved for rheumatoid arthritis and cancer, but is used ‘off label’ in MS.
Fredrik Piehl and his colleagues have shown in several studies that rituximab has as good or better effect than today’s approved MS drugs. In a comparative study, for example, rituximab surpassed dimethyl fumarate, as published in Lancet Neurology in 2022.
In 2016 Fredrik Piehl received a large US grant equivalent to SEK 86 million and the following year started CombatMS, a long-term research project aimed at characterising the course of the disease in MS. The study includes 4,100 Swedish MS patients.
“I’ve seen MS go from incurable to treatable.”
“In several aspects it can be said to be the world’s best characterised MS cohort. In addition to neurological function assessment and self-reported scales, we also have access to MRI images, biomarker data from blood samples and spinal fluid, as well as genetic information for many of the participants,” he says.
Based on data from CombatMS the researchers could see that rituximab had a better effect than several comparable MS drugs, as published in Annals of Neurology in 2024.
“In addition, we save a billion kronor a year because rituximab is significantly cheaper. In 2023 the WHO began recommending rituximab for MS, making an effective and relatively inexpensive treatment available globally – a decision very much based on Swedish studies,” says Fredrik Piehl.
He highlights two current questions in the field of MS: what triggers the disease and what causes some people to suffer progressive illness?
The answer to the first question is that it seems to be an unfortunate mix of a particular viral infection and certain kinds of genetics, combined with hereditary and environmental risk factors.
“We know that you first need to be infected with the Epstein-Barr virus, which is best known for causing glandular fever. If you also have certain genetic factors, which includes the ‘wrong’ variant of the transplantation antigen HLA, MS can be triggered,” he says.
When infected, so-called helper T cells in the immune system detect what the HLA protein looks when combined with protein fragments from the virus. Other T cells, which are supposed to track down and kill intruders, then learn to recognise this as foreign to the body and the B cells in turn begin to form targeted antibodies. However, some HLA variants, particularly one called DRB15, increase the risk that the T cells and antibodies mistakenly damage the nerve cells’ axons and the myelin required for the nerve signals to proceed.
“It’s the virus protein EBNA1 that, combined with HLA, resembles one or more proteins found in the brain. Which ones is not known, but there are some candidates,” says Fredrik Piehl.
That antibodies created in contact with a virus may also incorrectly recognise a body’s own protein in this way is called cross-reactivity.
Getting glandular fever as a teenager or young adult, compared to as a young child, seems to increase the risk of MS, along with environmental factors such as shift work, obesity and smoking.
Why MS develops in some of the patients into a difficult-to-treat and steadily deteriorating disease is unclear.
“Men have a greater risk of progressive disease and often you see signs of such deterioration already from the age of 30 to 40, but we want to find clear markers to catch these patients earlier. Not only in order to optimise the treatments that we have access to today, but also for trials with new drugs,” says Fredrik Piehl.
Today phase III studies are under way with new so-called BTK inhibitors, which seem to be able to reduce the inflammation that is found locally in the brain.
“At the moment it looks like these drugs may become available clinically from the end of 2026. They could be very significant for those with progressive
MS,” says Fredrik Piehl.
In the project Enabling personalized medicine in Multiple Sclerosis, four research groups will address both of the two main questions above. The project has three main parts and is largely based on data generated within CombatMS and from the European multicentre study MultipleMS.
“BrainAGE indicates how old the brain looks. If you get the answer ‘50 years’ that’s great if you’re 60, but less good if you’re 35.”
In the molecular genetic part of the project, Fredrik Piehl and Maja Jagodic's groups are working on data analysis. The researchers will use a range of methods that will allow them to link epigenetic signatures to disease progression, for example, but also to map HLA variants in the patients.
“We want to find markers so that we can predict the development of the disease and individualise the treatment,” says Fredrik Piehl.
They also want to study cells and antibodies from patients in order to determine which proteins in the brain are targeted in the cross-reactivity mentioned above.
The second subproject focuses on epidemiology and biostatistics, with epidemiologist Thomas Frisell analysing disease development, comorbidity and lifestyle. This is based on CombatMS as well as data from the Stockholm region, from the national MS register and from the European project MultipleMS. It is already known that the importance of lifestyle increases the older the patient is.
“For those under 40 years of age, medical drug treatment is paramount. But after 40 it’s important to start keeping an eye on your blood pressure and to exercise, and physical activity becomes even more important from the age of 50,” says Fredrik Piehl, continuing:
“So when patients in middle age ask how they will fare in the future, the answer is ‘it’s a shared responsibility’”.
Physical activity can be tough, as many people with MS experience persistent tiredness or fatigue.
“But here we already have good studies showing that medical treatment has little impact on general well-being, while lifestyle factors and physical activity are all the more important,” he says.
Neuroradiologist Tobias Granberg is leading the
part of the project that involves advanced and partly AI-based models being applied to thousands of MRI examinations performed on people with MS at Karolinska University Hospital. Since 2023 the hospital has also had access to a camera that can generate magnetic fields of as much as seven tesla to provide extra high-resolution images. In collaboration with colleagues in Oslo, raw data from the MRI images will be used to validate an AI-based measure called BrainAGE.
“BrainAGE indicates how old the brain looks. If you get the answer ‘50 years’ that’s great if you’re 60, but less good if you’re 35,” says Fredrik Piehl.
The idea is that the age determination will provide an indication of the type of disease that the patient has – for example, if it looks like a disease type where the current treatment works less well.
“This data is also good for reassuring patients who wonder what things will look like for them over the next 10–20 years. Then we can say ‘your brain does have some changes, but corresponds to what a healthy brain of the same age looks like’ – important information for the patient in the here and now,” he says.
The support from the Erling-Persson Foundation is very welcome.
“It’s money that will really make a difference. We can piece together various subprojects where we have previously generated a large amount of data,” says Fredrik Piehl.
In three years’ time he believes that it should be possible to identify those who are at high risk of developing progressive MS.
“Here I believe that in a clinically relevant way we’ll be able to supplement MRI information from BrainAGE with markers in blood and spinal fluid so that we can capture these patients and can give them other medicines,” he says, and continues:
“In addition, the epidemiology will give us better data on the long-term outcome for different types of comorbidity and lifestyles, which in turn means that we will be able to give each individual patient better advice.”
In Sweden 20,000 people are living with the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis. The disease affects 2 in 1,000 people, and twice as many women as men.
Onset is typically in the early 30s, but the diagnosis can also come much later.
The first symptoms in young people are numbness in an arm, a leg or the face. Another common symptom is inflammation of the optic nerve. Those over 40 years of age are more likely to experience spinal symptoms, such as back and leg fatigue.
Blood tests and analysis of spinal fluid allow the degree of inflammation and damage processes to be monitored over time, including by monitoring levels of the protein neurofilament light (NFL), a marker of ongoing nerve damage.
Some variants of HLA are linked to increased risk of MS, such as HLA-DRB15:01. To develop the disease, however, infection with the Epstein-Barr virus is first required, and some environmental factors such as smoking increase the risk.
In Sweden the main treatment given is the antibody rituximab, which destroys B cells. The drug is not formally approved for MS but has been shown in studies to work as well as or better than approved MS treatments.
Often the treatment with rituximab can be spaced out, as the disease can be kept in check even if some B cells remain. Longer intervals between treatments reduce the risk of infections and help the immune system respond better to vaccines.
90%
the proportion of all adults that have been infected with the Epstein-Barr virus; infection is required to develop MS, but is not sufficient by itself
1
how many billions of kronor the Swedish healthcare system saves per year by using rituximab, which is cheaper than today’s approved MS drugs and is at least as effective
4,100
the number of patients in the CombatMS study where the researchers have MRI images as well as a biobank with blood samples for genetic data; there is also spinal fluid from 2,100 patients
Project lead: Fredrik Piehl, with co-applicants Nicolas Ruffin (in Fredrik Piehl’s group) and Thomas Frisell, Tobias Granberg and Maja Jagodic.
Title: Enabling personalized medicine in Multiple Sclerosis.
What it involves: The researchers want to use existing data to find markers – by means of molecular genetics, epidemiology and neuroradiology – that can better predict disease progression. The aim is individualised treatment.
Funding: The Erling-Persson Foundation is supporting the project with SEK 6 million over three years.
DEVELOPING THERANOSTICS AGAINST TROP2 TO TREAT METASTATIC CANCER
Thuy Tran, Karolinska Institutet SEK 8 M / 3 YEARS
The overall aim of the research programme is to develop what are known as radiotheranostics. The programme is based on a unique combination of diagnostics and treatment with radiolabelled monoclonal antibodies specifically targeting TROP2 (Trophoblast cell surface antigen 2) in solid tumours with metastases. The project focuses in particular on difficult-to-treat cancers including certain types of breast cancer, cancer of the urinary tract, certain types of lung cancer and other cancerous tumours of the pancreas, prostate, cervix and ovaries. The innovative method has the potential to significantly improve the outcome for patients with these severe diseases and can thus give new hope to those affected. It is hoped that clinical trials involving anti-TROP2 therapy can be started in 2027.
COMBINED DIAGNOSTICS AND TARGETED GENE THERAPY FOR MALIGNANT BRAIN TUMOURS
Fredrik Swartling, Uppsala University SEK 6 M / 3 YEARS
Malignant brain tumours have a very high mortality rate and there is a great need for new treatment methods. The project focuses on developing a platform that offers a diagnostic kit for predicting the risk of relapse, and in the next step developing a cell-killing gene therapy using modified viruses.
Cells identified in the first step as having a particularly high risk of forming metastases undergo a second therapeutic step, receiving a new gene that can kill the cancer cell even when it is dormant and is not creating problems for the patient. The aim is to build evidence and a platform for a Phase 1 trial in 2028.
IMPROVING BREAST CANCER DETECTION BETWEEN SCREENINGS: INTEGRATING MOLECULAR AND IMAGING MARKERS FOR ENHANCED PROTOCOLS
Kamila Czene, Karolinska Institutet
SEK 6 M / 3 YEARS
Around 30 percent of breast cancer cases in women who have mammograms are detected between screenings; these are known as interval cancers. They include both missed tumours and rapidly growing tumours with a particularly poor prognosis. Previous research has shown that interval cancers in women with low mammographic density are particularly aggressive and may have unique genetic charac teristics.
The project therefore has the following aims:
1. Explore hereditary genetic factors by analysing mutations linked to interval cancers.
2. Analyse blood samples taken prior to diagnosis to detect molecular indicators of interval cancers.
3. Analyse the imaging characteristics of missed interval cancer tumours.
4. Combine genetic, molecular and radiological analyses with clinical data to improve risk assessment.
By identifying women at high risk of developing interval cancers the goal is to improve breast cancer screening.
ATLAS OF GUT FLORA AT DIFFERENT AGES, IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE
Fredrik Bäckhed, University of Gothenburg SEK 6 M / 3 YEARS
The microbiome in the gut – the gut flora – has a great impact on digestion, produces important vitamins, protects against infections and educates the immune system. In recent years, changes in gut flora have been linked to various medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies, autoimmune conditions and mental illness.
In this project the researchers are compiling an atlas of the gut flora of healthy Swedes through their lives and monitoring how it matures over the first 17 years in the same individual. The information about the development of healthy gut flora will be used for comparison with various well-defined cohorts of patients to investigate whether the gut flora can predict disease development and whether it changes before disease develops.
This could provide answers to whether the bacterial composition in the gut is a potential cause of the disease.
PRESSURE CHANGES IN THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM RELATED TO PERCEPTION OF POSITION AND MOVEMENT – PROPRIOCEPTION
Laurence Picton, Karolinska Institutet SEK 15 M / 5 YEARS
Proprioception is the ability that allows us to perceive the positions and movements of our own body parts. This ability is an important part of our body perception and is closely linked to our movement control. For a long time it has been believed that proprioceptive sensory neurons are only found in the periphery – in our muscles, tendons and joints. However, shifting between movement and rest also leads to changes in both tension and pressure in intricate patterns in the spinal cord. Nerves run through the spinal cord and, together with the brain, make up our central nervous system (CNS).
The research group has found that nerve cells in the spinal cord have a receptor, Piezo2, on the cell surface that can sense mechanical changes in the form of increased pressure. Now they want to investigate whether these nerve cells in the CNS play a role in proprioception along with peripheral neurons.
KERSTIN BRISMAR AWARD
Rolf Luft Foundation for Diabetes Research SEK 1 m / 1 YEAR
Translational research in diabetes is crucial for transforming laboratory results – representing basic research – into solutions for patients’ everyday needs. It allows new discoveries to be quickly implemented in clinical practice. The treatment of diabetes is improved and the risk of complications reduced.
The Kerstin Brismar Award is given to researchers who have contributed to translational research in diabetes. The aim is to improve the care and quality of life for people living with diabetes.
has been leading the operations at F1RST since it started in 2023. Today she is joined on the team by several colleagues.
SEK 6 M / 3 YEARS
In the longer term, pairing up talented young people with representatives of the creative industries will increase diversity in business.
There is a large gap between those whose parents completed post-secondary education and young people who come from homes where the parents did not access higher education. As examples of this, Sabinor Haas Lönnroth, Executive Director of F1RST, mentions two geographical areas of Stockholm.
“In Vasastan 75 percent have an academic background, but if you take the metro to Järva that percentage falls to 24 percent. That’s a huge drop, and what you lose is the career paths that young people see ahead of them and the step into higher education,” she says.
F1RST was established in 2023 by the Daniel Sachs Foundation and the Stockholm School of Economics, and its goal is for young people from households without a university background or from underrepresented groups to take the step into higher education and choose non-traditional study paths.
Last autumn F1RST received its largest donation to date: SEK 6 million from the Erling-Persson Foundation. At H&M Group, which is joining the initiative as a knowledge partner, Åsa Agebäck is Chief HR Officer.
“The Foundation is opening up an opportunity for us to contribute and make a difference in matters that are important for society, and at the same time come into contact with future talents. When we heard about F1RST, which is passionate about making a difference for young people from different backgrounds, it felt good to be a part of and support that work,” she says.
Ethel
Ghirmai, Global Head of Employer Branding
at H&M Group, adds:
“It’s an excellent opportunity to establish a relationship early on. Lots of young people are about to enter the job market, so we can show them that there are more roles with us apart from working in a store and that our global presence offers many career opportunities. We can show who we are as an employer and demonstrate our culture.”
F1RST was a spin-off from the financial sector and this collaboration opens up new opportunities.
“We know that the creative sector has been inaccessible, mainly due to the lack of role models that give young people the courage to take the leap: ‘If she can do it and she looks like me, then so can I’. There’s also a lack of open doors – they don’t know how to get in,” says Sabinor Haas Lönnroth, continuing:
“Young people often tend to choose professions that they are already familiar with through parents or others.”
“We’re also keen to find out more about H&M Group’s many female leaders. Our female students at Stockholm School of Economics and Stockholm University thought it sounded inspiring and wanted to get a conversation going.”
At the beginning of November 2024 F1RST and H&M Group held a kick-off event in the atrium at the company’s headquarters in Stockholm city centre. This brought together around 20 members of F1RST and
just as many business partners from different sectors.
“We talked about H&M Group and the many different opportunities that exist in the company, and many of the young people were surprised – both that we are such a large company with so many nationalities, but also at the diversity in our corporate culture,” says Ethel Ghirmai.
Åsa Agebäck adds:
“I was in contact with several of the young people afterwards. Now that we’ve posted our internships on our website – in other words, our summer jobs – I would think that some of them have applied,” she says.
“Once you’re a few steps further on, then you give back too and mentor those younger than yourself.”
They also presented the first mentors, one of whom was Karl-Johan Persson, chair of the board at H&M Group.
“As a first step we are offering three mentors, which may not sound much given our scale. But these three mentors and three mentees will then pass on the knowledge to their networks, to their friends and classmates. This is a better quality way to spread information and gives us a better understanding of ourselves as an employer,” says Ethel Ghirmai.
Young people often tend to choose professions that they are already familiar with through parents or others.
“That’s the gap we want to reduce – many don’t even know that you can apply for internships at H&M Group,” says Sabinor Haas Lönnroth.
She points out that it is a mutual exchange between F1RST and the companies they partner with.
“We hope these companies will make contact with a target group that can be difficult for them to reach when recruiting. Our members are talented and ambitious young people who do not have their future path set out, but the drive is there. We want the companies to see our talent pool, attract them and hire them in the future – that’s our long-term hope,” she says.
In addition to mentoring and internships, F1RST and H&M Group have discussed job shadowing, work experience and trainee programmes.
“Trainees are introduced to the company and get practical insight. I also think this mentoring has helped them understand what a working day looks like – what you do in practice – and that’s not so easy
to learn in a classroom,” says Ethel Ghirmai.
Sabinor Haas Lönnroth explains that in the F1RST Connect mentoring programme, university-level participants have mentors from companies and then themselves act as mentors for younger members of F1RST who are at upper secondary school. F1RST offers programmes from around age 14-15 onwards, right through to upper secondary school and university.
“We start at age 14 to 15 because we know that upper secondary is too late if we’re to inspire people to study at a higher level. We partner with schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas or where we see a lower proportion of parents with an academic background,” she says.
The school programme for ages 14–16 and for upper secondary level (ages 16–19) is called F1RST Step. Here teachers can nominate talents, but students can also sign up themselves. The programme includes workshops as well as visits to Stockholm School of Economics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University. The school pupils get to meet students who they can relate to but who are a few steps further on from where they are themselves.
“Once you’ve set foot in a university or college, taking that step is not as scary. Then we have company visits, where they get to listen to and meet people with different roles – we want to make more career paths visible,” says Sabinor Haas Lönnroth.
At university level the aim is to clearly reduce the gap to working life, through contact with businesses.
“Members need to know ‘How do I build my network? How do I land this job? What can I work as once I’ve completed my studies?’” she explains.
Sabinor Haas Lönnroth describes it as an ecosystem.
“Once you’re a few steps further on, then you give back too and mentor those younger than yourself.
“If everyone can find their inner calling and what they’re good at, the effect will be all the greater.”
People who come from a disadvantaged background often have a desire to give back,” she says.
And the efforts are making a difference.
“Some of our young people have changed direction. One example is a student who was studying economics at Stockholm University. Via F1RST, they got in touch with the media company IN/LAB and now they work there.”
Having the opportunity to be matched with a mentor in the business community who can share their journey and open doors lowers thresholds and is a good way to expand your network.
The change of course is not always appreciated, however.
“For example, I got a call from a parent who said ‘My son got into Stockholm School of Economics and is going to study economics – throwing away a safe and secure future as a doctor. What have you done?’ In that case we take the call and say that the most important thing is for your child to be happy, but also that other study and career paths are not wrong. If everyone can find their inner calling and what they’re good at, the effect will be all the greater,” she says.
Sabinor Haas Lönnroth says this is long-term work.
“If a member aged 14 or 15 attends an event or meets a university student who themselves had a mentor, the effect can come much later. So you need to be patient. We believe that education is the way forward, but we also want to show that there are many options to choose from.”
She points out the importance of their meetings.
“There’s an incredible amount of company information on websites, for example – but our target group needs that conversation, that meeting. As a minority, sometimes people don’t dare to take up space,” she says, continuing:
“I know that Stockholm School of Economics collaborates with H&M Group for the students it takes on its retail management programme, but our events are smaller and have a big focus on inclusion,” she says.
“We believe that education is the way forward, but we also want to show that there are many options to choose from.”
Ethel Ghirmai mentions that generations take in information in different ways.
“In campaigns TikTok may get the majority of the attention, while LinkedIn is not nearly as receptive – it shows where the future generation hangs out,” she says.
Åsa Agebäck fills in:
“The younger generations care about what companies stand for – matters such as their purpose, diversity and sustainability are key. They don’t just want a job, they want the company to represent their values. It’s important for us to live up to our commitments and high goals, and of course we hope these will chime well with the expectations of talented
young people. It’s important for us to be a responsible and attractive employer.”
She also emphasises the breadth within H&M Group.
“We have colleagues from many different backgrounds who love working here as we can offer many different roles and perspectives. Lots of people from other backgrounds love working here, because we can offer both in an inspiring way,” she says.
So what does the support from the Erling-Persson Foundation mean? According to Sabinor Haas Lönnroth, there are two elements to it.
“It’s partly financial – it means we can have a larger team. Both so that we can measure effects, but also we’ve hired a project manager to focus exclusively on the age group below upper secondary level, which means we can offer our programmes in a wider geographical area. There can be some mistrust of projects, but we’re in it for the long term and we know that you need to be patient and work with younger age groups,” she says, continuing:
“Getting H&M Group as a knowledge partner has been equally as important. After all, not everyone wants to go into banking or become a consultant – so we can showcase H&M Group as a potential employer with all the different roles that exist in the company.”
Åsa Agebäck highlights the importance of consensus.
“As an employer, one of our core values is ‘we believe in people’. That means we’ve always seen the spark in people’s eyes no matter where they come from, and I feel that our values chime well with F1RST,” she says.
The partnership began last autumn but is already spreading ripples.
“Our next round of the mentoring programme is now open and more people are writing ‘I want to get into the creative industries’. Before it was always consultants, finance and lawyers – so just doing something small can have a clear effect,” says Sabinor Haas Lönnroth.
The F1RST Foundation was founded in 2023 by the Daniel Sachs Foundation together with Stockholm School of Economics. It collaborates with schools, colleges and universities as well as with companies – primarily in finance, consultancy and law.
The goal is to make educational paths visible and lower thresholds to higher education for talented young people who do not come from such a background, to increase diversity in academia and business.
F1RST recruits members around the age of 14–15 and follows them through upper secondary school and on to university. Today it has a presence at Stockholm University, Stockholm School of Economics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Uppsala University and the University of Gothenburg.
There are currently 1,600 members and four full-time employees work within the organisation.
In the new partnership, three talented mentees are each assigned their own mentor from H&M Group every semester.
The company Hennes & Mauritz was founded by Erling Persson in 1947.
It is from Erling Persson that H&M Group gets its values, which include belief in people, teamwork and offering great opportunities within the company to grow and learn.
Today H&M Group employs 140,000 people in 79 countries, 92 percent of whom are employed outside of Sweden.
According to H&M Group’s Annual and Sustainability Report 2024, at the end of the financial year women made up 74 percent of the workforce. In senior roles such as store managers and country managers, 64 percent were women.
H&M Group offers summer internships in design, tech and finance that are aimed at university students about to go into their final year.
24%
proportion of those from families without an academic background who go on to higher education, compared with eight out of ten from homes with parents who have post-secondary education
proportion of those in the financial sector who represent a background with no history of higher education
total number of mentors provided within the F1RST network
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Leads: Sabinor Haas Lönnroth (F1RST), Åsa Agebäck and Ethel Ghirmai (H&M Group).
Title: Future talents – partnership between the Erling-Persson Foundation and F1RST, with H&M Group as knowledge partner.
What it involves: The goal is to shed light on the educational opportunities and professional roles that exist within a creative company, and to bring forward talented young people who might otherwise be difficult for companies to find.
Funding: The Erling-Persson Foundation is supporting the project with SEK 6 million over three years.
SEK 100 M
Konserthuset Stockholm is the sky-blue concert hall majestically situated at Hötorget in Stockholm. It is hoped that a freshly cleaned façade and scrolling programme displays will attract spontaneous visitors, one goal being to reach even more children and young people while continuing to offer visitors a high-quality music experience.
In April 2024 it was revealed that Konserthuset Stockholm and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra would receive a record-breaking donation from the Erling-Persson Foundation that will be used to refurbish the façade and make the building accessible in order to reach new and younger age groups.
Last September Susanne Rydén took over from Stefan Forsberg as Konserthuset Stockholm’s Executive Director.
Konserthuset Stockholm’s annual report states: ‘A palace of music with low thresholds and high ceilings that will become even more welcoming and inviting through the generous donation awarded by the Erling-Persson Foundation to the concert hall foundation in 2024, with the aim of making the building and what goes on inside it more accessible.’
“A surface and a façade – whether of a building or a person – are interesting, but it is what’s on the inside that’s important. You can have an inviting exterior, but what happens on the inside – that’s crucial,” she says.
Every year Konserthuset stages more than 200 of its own concerts, plus around 40 by visiting musicians. A full 1,100 public events take place in total – in the form of tours, concerts, foyer concerts and summer programmes. In addition, in the coming years Konserthuset will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2026 and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra its 125th anniversary the following year.
“The celebrations will continue throughout the 26/27 season, with the sparking addition of guest performances from star soloists as well as celebratory programming, seminars, exhibitions and new types
of concerts all though the year,” says Susanne Rydén, continuing:
“The place and importance of music in society and in people's lives is at least as important today as when Konserthuset was first built in order to give the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra a home and enhance the city’s attractiveness.”
The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra often plays to adult audiences, but is also active in school, children’s and family concerts.
“Meeting different generations right from the start is something that’s deeply rooted in the DNA of the building and the orchestra.”
“The orchestra is the real hub. There has been a passion and a desire to put on concerts for children and young people ever since 1917 – even before Konserthuset existed. It’s like a warm current running through the building’s history,” says Karina Svensson, who has been responsible for Konserthuset’s children’s and youth activities since 2012. Susanne Rydén adds:
“Meeting different generations right from the start is something that’s deeply rooted in the DNA of the building and the orchestra.”
School concerts are an important part of this –a venture decided on when it became clear after the pandemic that it was taking a long time for schools to resume their visits.
“The concerts are free for everyone to attend and
enable us to live up to what is stated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child – that children and young people have the right to fully participate in art and cultural life,” says Susanne Rydén.
They tried these out in the autumn of 2022 and quickly realised they were hugely popular. Now the puppet ‘Mr van B’ guides schoolchildren into Beethoven’s world of music.
“The other week nearly 10,000 children were here, with three school performances a day, plus two public performances attended by over a thousand people. And it’s the same with the events we put on for the various preschool ages – there, too, we’ve seen a huge demand for public tickets,” she says.
The latest addition for a younger audience is ‘Classic with Baby’, which has an age limit of 12 months – in other words, the audience must be no more than a year old.
“But they’re allowed to bring an adult with them for safety,” Karina Svensson clarifies.
One target group that she says has been difficult to reach is one- to three-year-olds.
“We’re aiming to seal all the gaps in the chain of growing up with new events, and they’ve fallen between the cracks. Three- to five-year-olds play in the chamber music hall, while those up to 12 months get to listen to chamber music without us having to specially engage them. But one- to three-year-olds are a tricky group, so we’re now starting a special initiative to provide for them in an active, musical and playful concept that has not yet been given a name,” she says.
“One-to three-year-olds are a tricky group, so we’re now starting a special initiative to provide for them.”
As well as the concerts, Susanne Rydén highlights their sessions for trying out instruments.
“It’s where children can come and have a go, try things out. And we’ve been particularly successful here when we get demonstrations from young musicians, such as those from the Lilla Akademin music school or from other schools. That way, children see that there are other young people playing music,” she says.
Karina Svensson continues:
“Then it becomes real to the children – that people who look and talk like them are doing absolutely amazing things.”
A guiding principle is to reach out to everyone, which is made possible via Konserthuset’s website
– such as through the videos about each instrument in the symphony orchestra that schools throughout the country use as teaching material. The website also contains the Children’s Music Library, with performances and 37 different films available to anyone, aimed at children from the age of three. Another initiative is music paired with socially engaged subjects, so that the concert experience can be used widely in teaching.
An example of this is Baltic , a performance about an environmental robot that, together with the children, helps repair the environment around the Baltic Sea.
“It was fun to bring in voices from countries around the Baltic and pass on the message of working together to make it right. There is nothing radical in this, but it works – you learn to say hello in each other’s language and we convey a friendly feel,” says Karina Svensson.
The concept toured and was performed in Helsinki and Tallinn.
An important element is the collaboration with Stockholm School of the Arts, to reach children with an interest in music.
“Before our subscription concerts we invite people from different constellations to play in the foyer as the audience arrives. And then they get to go to the concert,” says Karina Svensson.
From next season a youth council will also be launched to strengthen the influence of young people. This will be made up of a group of engaged 16- to 21-year-olds who will also act as ambassadors. The idea is that they will listen to concerts, meet artists and absorb the current offerings, but also make their voices heard and to some extent have an influence.
“This is something that also happens among our colleagues out in Europe and shows the importance of giving children and young people influence – letting them in and taking their interests seriously,” says Karina Svensson.
But young people coming up with their own ideas is nothing new in itself, she says.
“For example, with our support they’ve organised pop-up concerts out in schools. They’ve found this music and are in turn passionate about it reaching more people.”
Both point to an increased interest in music among younger people.
“A survey from Finland shows that young people listen to classical music much more than their parents do – classical music is trending. We’ve noticed a big increase in young visitors – especially when it comes to
Karina Svensson and Susanne Rydén outside Konserthuset Stockholm, which will have a facelift for its upcoming anniversary. “The celebrations will continue throughout the 26/27 season, with sparking additions all though the year,” says Susanne Rydén.
In the Grünewald Hall visitors can eat their packed lunch. It is also where a full 440 young people gather each year for the Blue House Youth Jazz Festival. “That’s the limit of what our Grünewald Hall holds,” says Karolina Svensson.
piano concerts, which have an unusually large number of young guys in the audience. They then hang around to talk to our soloists and we usually try to ensure that those meetings take place,” says Karina Svensson.
One reason could be Spotify lists of quiet music that works well when studying.
“It’s like a lesson in classical music. My own son has chosen to go into economics and finance, but when he was studying he said that the best music to read to is actually Beethoven,” says Susanne Rydén as an example.
The feeling of authenticity in the moment of the concert is something special in the world that young people have grown up in.
“Their world is very digital, and here you get to be in a place that is completely non-digital. It’s a bit strange and special, but also wonderful. I think you meet many young people who are reflecting on that – being in the moment and seeing a need to put their phone away for a while,” she says.
Two weeks earlier, via the mentoring organisation Framtidssmedjan, they were visited by a group of young girls from disadvantaged areas.
“We try to identify these types of organisations and welcome them. This should be a building that is accessible to everyone, and the first experience people have of the orchestra is often transformative. They thought it was amazing to sit up close, behind the orchestra – after all, when the music makes everything vibrate it becomes a purely physical experience,” says Karina Svensson.
“When the music makes everything vibrate, it becomes a purely physical experience.”
In addition to classical music, this distinctive blue building offers popular music, world music and not least jazz, with 440 young people between the ages of 13 and 21 gathering each year for the Blue House Youth Jazz Festival.
“That’s the limit of what our Grünewald Hall holds, so we can’t fit in any more. They have workshops and seminars at the College of Music on the Saturday and listen to a concert here in the evening, and on the Sunday they compete,” says Susanne Rydén.
Karina Svensson adds:
“You can imagine the energy when 440 young people are competing! It’s great because they celebrate each other’s success – ‘Oh, you won! Yes!’ – there’s no
resentment. Being at that award ceremony gives you a warm feeling inside.”
Guided tours also enable visitors to encounter the art and architecture found within the walls of the concert hall.
“This environment is absolutely breathtaking, it’s so beautiful. On a tour you see things you otherwise wouldn’t think about. If you’re going to a concert you rush through, thinking about where you’re going to sit and where to hang your coat, and you might miss the fact that there’s a little dolphin at the top of the mirror,” she says.
“Right now, everything that binds us together rather than separating us is incredibly important.”
With the upcoming renovation of the façade, the exterior will also get a refresh.
“Replacing static poster cabinets with digital ones that have moving images will allow us to tell people about what’s happening inside in a better way and can attract spontaneous visitors,” says Susanne Rydén. So what does the support from the Erling-Persson Foundation mean?
“An infinite amount! It enables something we desperately need, but the fact that a well-established, respected part of our society sees what we are doing and what we can do shows a trust in us that will have a ripple effect – and we need to make the most of it,” says Susanne Rydén, continuing:
“I also think it’s an incredibly important signal that music and culture are a fundamental part of our society, so it has great value beyond the purely monetary impact.”
As the newly appointed Executive Director, her vision is to use the power of music as a cohesive factor.
“I’m fundamentally a singer who has travelled in large parts of the world. But whether in the intimate format of a small country church or at the Royal Albert Hall, it’s always about reaching people with the music and getting it across. That power is needed – it’s something we can gather around that gives us strength and energy and community. Right now, everything that binds us together rather than separating us is incredibly important. And age doesn’t come into it – it applies from the very tiny ones throughout the whole of life,” says Susanne Rydén.
The building was designed by Ivar Tengbom and opened in 1926. It is adorned by works by Isaac Grünewald, Carl Malmsten and Carl Milles.
Konserthuset Stockholm is a member of the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO), a coalition of 22 leading European concert halls, where it has inspired others with its efforts within gender equality and sustainability as well as its extensive children’s and youth activities.
Through ECHO the series Rising Stars takes place annually, with the concert halls nominating and then choosing which young stars will be given a chance to tour – an event that acts like a plant nursery.
40%
the percentage of featured composers who are female
1/3
the proportion of events aimed at children between the ages of three and 18
ABOUT THE PROJECT
10,000 the number of children who experience music during a school concert week
Project leads: Susanne Rydén, Magnus Ericsson (Financial Director) and Jeanette Hultstrand (Property and Security Manager).
Title: Upgrading Konserthuset Stockholm’s façade for future generations.
What it involves: In 2026 Konserthuset Stockholm will celebrate its 100th anniversary. The interior of the building has previously been refurbished, and now the outside is to be renovated and modernised.
Funding: The Erling-Persson Foundation is supporting the project with SEK 100 million.
The fact that the Opera House needs to be renovated has been known for decades, but now the start of the major redesign is scheduled for 2027. One part of this is a new stage for children and young people, with a public foyer facing Kungsträdgården that will attract new generations of visitors.
The Royal Swedish Opera is Sweden’s national stage for opera and ballet, and the Opera House as it looks today was completed back in 1898. Time has left its mark and visitors are now greeted by a building partially draped in plastic-covered scaffolding. In 2024 the Opera staff also had to deal with water leaks, drainage problems, closed lifts and window renovation, as well as painfully noisy breaking and drilling work. Despite all this, its artistic endeavours are flourishing.
“Now there’s a plan for continuing to develop and remain here – a plan that’s sustainable in the long term.”
In January 2025 it was revealed that Antonia Ax:son Johnson and family, the Erling-Persson Foundation and the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation would each donate SEK 100 million. One important initiative is a new stage dedicated to children’s and youth activities, as well as new ballet studios.
Fredrik Lindgren, CEO of the Opera since 2022, is very hopeful.
“In this area there will be a new, inviting entrance to make it easier to get new audiences to venture here. The extension is important for ensuring that this renovation and refurbishment works in the long term, and is not just a repaint and infrastructure upgrade that leaves us even more cramped as a result of installing new technology, ventilation and air conditioning. It gives us space for all our artistic collectives,” he says.
Ellen Lamm, Artistic Director of the Young Opera section since September 2021, agrees.
“At the Rotunda where we currently have our activities we’re tight for space, and can’t really invite schools to come when it suits them. There’s also nowhere for the schoolchildren to eat their packed lunch. So it’s not very suitable at all. In the new premises we’ll have other areas that allow for such things as workshop spaces – something that until now we’ve only been able to dream of,” she says.
Audiences number half a million annually, including in-person encounters both inside and outside the Opera House.
“We usually always do a concert in Haga Park on Sweden’s National Day, for example, and if the weather is fine there tends to be 30,000 to 40,000 people there. At our outdoor concert here at Gustavs Adolfs Torg in conjunction with the Stockholm Culture Festival there are usually 10,000-15,000 people,” says Fredrik Lindgren.
Audience data is also collected for digital broadcasts, such as via its own channel Operan Play or SVT’s televised performances.
Since 2003 there has been an initiative for children and young people called Young Opera.
“Our main target group is aged from five to 18 years, but we have put on performances for children as young as six months,” says Ellen Lamm.
In addition to the artistic projects, there are also educational activities.
“We reached 33,000 children in 2024 through performances aimed specifically at children on the
Rotunda stage and our educational activities alone –and in total the Royal Swedish Opera reached 63,000 children and young people,” says Ellen Lamm.
This includes guided tours for school classes, workshops in schools, concert programmes and festival visits. These are often interactive activities with themes such as opera singing, mime or ballet dancing.
“We’d like to provide each individual school with a package of different activities: first a workshop where our teachers come out and work on, say, opera singing, then a performance and finishing off with a guided tour – because if you present the activities in many different ways, that has the greatest impact,” she says.
Every year there are two productions specially aimed at youngsters, and there are also Children’s Saturdays at the weekends and activities during school holidays that families can take part in.
“Trying out ballet is popular, as is trying on costumes. Then we have outreach activities – right now in Botkyrka, for example – where children in recreation centres form Young Opera Choirs,” says Ellen Lamm.
A world premiere this spring is the opera Julius Caesar, aimed at the 10–12 age group.
“As a 10-year-old you should feel that it’s about something that’s relevant to you in your daily life,” says Ellen Lamm.
“As a 10-year-old you should feel that it’s about something that’s relevant to you in your daily life.”
The choice of Julius Caesar was because she wanted a performance for this age group that told a story about revenge and its consequences.
“It’s not an easy time in life. Children are sophisticated enough to be mean, but their capacity for empathy is not as well developed... We wanted a bloody drama that reflects the tough situations that can arise in a schoolyard, for example,” she says.
In 2024 there were two school productions on the big stage with tickets at reduced prices: Cinderella and Carmen
“We’re also seeing people who are used to visiting us bring their children to see, say, The Magic Flute, to introduce them to opera. But our intention is to reach all children democratically, regardless of background or origin, and we see ourselves doing this through our school activities and the larger collaborations that we have with municipalities,” she says.
She describes how their Children’s Saturdays can also be made extra accessible, with children from
YWCA/YMCA Bromma and Järvafältet having recently been invited to such an activity. Young Opera also collaborates with Rinkeby Folkets Hus.
“For that our teacher met up with them in Rinkeby and then came here together with the group, so that they really do come but also so that they learn how to get here. We’re here fore everyone, after all – we are the opera house for the whole of Sweden and all its citizens, so we need to lower thresholds and invite people in,” says Ellen Lamm.
So how did these two at the top first get into opera?
“In my youth I sang in a choir. Then I started taking singing lessons and dreamed of becoming an opera singer, but I found myself studying economics. I sometimes joked ‘I guess I'll be CEO of the Opera one day...’. But I can’t remember ever going to the opera with my parents,” says Fredrik Lindgren.
Neither did Ellen Lamm have early experience of opera. In 2007, however, she was asked to direct part of a television opera, and at first flatly said no – but then changed her mind.
“Once I tried it, I fell in love with opera as an art form. Having worked as a theatre director for a number of years it was fun to discover that there was something new that I could actually like just as much,” she says.
Despite previous jobs at other performing arts centres, she initially thought the Opera House somewhat difficult to approach.
“Although I may not have an outsider’s perspective anymore, I try to bring with me how incredibly important it is that we can give people the keys so that they dare to come here – both as a child and as an adult, but also as an educator. As a teacher, you don’t bring 30 children here if you don’t feel comfortable here yourself,” she says.
In 2024 Young Opera continued its collaboration with Stockholm University and its Centre for the Studies of Children’s Culture, where future preschool teachers and out-of-school educators are offered an introduction to its activities.
In January 2023 they premiered a musical for the first time: Sweeney Todd
“It’s the musical that’s most like opera. We might not want to put on just anything, but we’ll definitely work with a broad palette,” says Fredrik Lindgren.
Ellen Lamm adds:
“We had surprisingly few negative reactions – instead there was a lot of joy. People were in fact impressed at being able to hear this type of work with the Royal Swedish Orchestra and fantastic soloists and
choir – after all, we have phenomenal artists at the Opera House.”
Fredrik Lindgren jumps in to point out that many world-renowned opera singers have emerged from their activities.
“We can confidently say that there are probably very few – if any – countries that have produced as many world-class singers per capita as Sweden has, and continues to do,” he says.
The renovation will take place over the period 2027 to 2032. It includes a 2,300 square metre extension towards Kungsträdgården and a new entrance from Jakobs Torg that leads up to a public foyer and a spacious second stage. In addition, three new ballet studios are being built. And for the audience, a terrace is being created above the Café Opera. One downside of the extensive renovation is that their activities will become homeless for a while.
“We’re calling it the ‘care of’ period. In a way it would be nice to be able to fast-forward time, but it’ll be enjoyable too,” says Fredrik Lindgren.
“In a way it would be nice to be able to fast-forward time, but it’ll be enjoyable too.”
Not all the pieces of the puzzle are in place, but the major performances in opera and ballet as well as some school and family performances will take place in Gasklocka 2, a former gasometer in Norra Djurgårdsstaden.
Ellen Lamm says that their plan during the transformation is for as many as possible of Young Opera’s activities to continue outside of the Opera House. In the autumn they will collaborate with the community centres operated by Folkets Hus och Parker, among others.
“This autumn we’ll go to Sollefteå, Ulricehamn and Jönköping and offer our entire output – everything from workshops to trying on costumes – at the community centre in each location,” she says.
So what does the support from the Erling-Persson Foundation mean?
“I would describe it as absolutely necessary to bring about this development of the building that we so desperately need. It would have been devastating to slowly reduce our opportunities to put on opera and ballet, and enormously demoralising to come back to a building that, while it might have been repainted, did not function as well,” says Fredrik Lindgren.
Ellen Lamm adds:
“I also think that the input from the ErlingPersson Foundation and the other donors, to have
a dedicated stage for children and young people, is incredibly important. Having such a clear message feels very far-sighted.”
Fredrik Lindgren agrees.
“Yes, visionary. We have to remember that the Opera has been in this location for nearly 250 years. Now there’s a plan for continuing to develop and remain here – a plan that’s sustainable in the long term – and it feels amazing and so important, both for the city and for the whole country,” he says.
In 1773 Gustav III started the Royal Swedish Opera, with the first opera house being opened in 1792. In 1898 the building was replaced by the present opera house.
The Royal Swedish Ballet, founded in 1773, is the fourth oldest in the world and Sweden’s only professional ballet company. The Royal Swedish Orchestra dates back to 1526.
Audience encounters are estimated at 500,000 annually – in-person at the house and at other activities, but also via digital channels.
In 2024 Young Opera presented two of its own productions: the children’s opera Lost and the dance performance Forever, aimed at young people. There were 182 workshops in schools and 52 activities within and outside of the county of Stockholm.
The web series The Magical House makes the Opera’s activities available to a wider audience, mainly primary school students and their teachers.
2025 will see the premiere of a range of performances for children, young people and families: the opera Julius Caesar, which is aimed at the 10-12 age group; Who’s there?, which is a mini ballet for children; and Eatnama váibmu (The Heart of the Earth), a family opera with a Sami theme.
21%
percentage of visitors who attended children’s, family and youth activities
63,000
the number of children who took part in the Royal Swedish Opera’s activities for children and young people in 2024
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Leads: Fredrik Lindgren and Ellen Lamm.
89%
the average seats filled for ballet and dance performances
Title: Extension to house a new children’s and youth stage, with a public foyer and three dance studios.
What it involves: The existing opera house is in need of extensive renovation and, as part of this refurbishment, the building is to be extended and made accessible to more people, with the aim of attracting more children and young people to music and dance. Although the redevelopment of the Opera House is largely financed by the National Property Board of Sweden, the government wished some of it to be covered by private financiers. Three foundations have contributed to this.
Funding: The Erling-Persson Foundation is supporting the project with SEK 100 million.
ELLEN LAMM
“We’d like to provide each individual school with a package of different activities: first a workshop where our teachers come out and work on, say, opera singing, then a performance and finishing off with a guided tour – because if you present the activities in many different ways, that has the greatest impact.”
Lilla Akademien
SEK 10 M / 3 YEARS
Lilla Akademien and O/Modernt together create activities to lift Swedish music education to an international level. Sweden needs a vibrant music life and needs to be a prominent cultural nation in order to remain an outstanding industrial and tech nation. Lilla Akademien and O/Modernt want to manage, develop and build long-term sustainability into the growing activities in and around Queen Silvia Concert Hall – a musical meeting place for children and young people in an international centre for music and education. Over a three-year period the existing educational programme will be strengthened and several new specialisations will be added.
Glada Hudik Theatre Foundation
SEK 2 M / 1 YEAR
A film that tells of vindication, but also about courage and joy in life. Emma Örtlund and Ida Johansson from Glada Hudik Theatre take to the road in an old campervan with Pär Johansson to find out what it was like to live with an intellectual disability in another time: a time when terrible experiments were carried out at Vipeholm Hospital.
During the trip Emma, Ida and Pär are assisted by experts such as Ola Larsmo, Elin Bommenel and Kalle Lind. ‘It could have been us’ is a story of vindication, but also of courage and joy in life.
Stockholm School of Economics
SEK 50 M / 2 YEARS
Since 2017 Stockholm School of Economics has run House of Innovation (HOI) with support from the Erling-Persson Foundation. HOI is a multidisciplinary research and education envi-
ronment focusing on innovation, digitalisation and entrepreneurship. With additional support from the Foundation, the premises in the recently acquired property on Norrtullsgatan will be adapted to create modern environments for learning, inspiration and innovation.
The Nobel Foundation
SEK 10.1 M / 1 YEAR
As part of the preparations for the future Nobel Center, the Nobel Prize Museum is raising its ambitions as regards the quality of its operations and its impact in the city, the region, the country and internationally. The new venue will significantly expand and improve the physical platform for the Nobel Prize’s public activities. To implement this development the museum is currently investing in initiatives to test out new approaches and methods, which often go beyond the limits set by the current premises. Mostly this involves collaborating with selected other actors that can contribute in various ways to developing internal expertise, content and target group efforts.
Non-profit organisation Beredskapslyftet SEK 4 M / 1 YEAR
The project trains women and war veterans on the ground in Ukraine for shortage occupations, such as bus and truck drivers and forklift drivers. The aim is to strengthen opportunities in the job market for groups that are otherwise remote from employment and also to contribute to Ukraine’s ability to both rebuild and keep the economy going. The project expects to train around 800 people in 2025. To make it easier for those with young children to participate, it also offers day camps with activities for 100 children aged 6–12 years.
SEK 9 M / 5 YEARS
Fritidsbanken’s philosophy is simple: allowing everyone to borrow sports and outdoor equipment for free, so that they can do activities that they want to try out or that they do only occasionally. In 2023 this enabled two million hours of physical activity that otherwise might not have happened.
The idea of being able to borrow equipment for sports and outdoor activities in the same way that it is possible to borrow books from a public library was hatched in 2012. David Mathiasson is business manager at Fritidsbanken Sverige and says that the need became clear when Carina Haak, a deacon at Deje outside Karlstad who initiated the venture, was working with young single parents.
“It emerged that they couldn’t afford to buy the sports equipment needed for outdoor days at school –so rather than the child having to be ashamed of not having equipment, their solution was to write the child a sick note,” he says.
Fritidsbanken means Leisure Bank and its activities are based on three principles: anyone can borrow, everything is free and all equipment is reused.
“In our consumer society there is an abundance of sports and leisure and equipment that is no longer being used but that could be of use to others. The idea is as smart as it is simple,” says David Mathiasson.
One reason why there is a need for Fritidsbanken is that Swedes have become increasingly sedentary. According to Every movement counts, a public inquiry from 2023, the population spends an average of 70 percent of its waking time either sitting or lying down. Among 15-year-old girls, only one in ten is physically active for an hour a day.
“And nine out of ten children move too little in their everyday lives,” says David Mathiasson.
The incidence of ill health in the form of overweight and obesity is increasing in parallel, with diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and
cancer following in its wake.
The project Fritidsbanken – the 21st century public library for physical activity aims to lower the thresholds so that everyone, regardless of age, gender, socioeconomic situation, ethnicity or functional ability, can be physically active.
The very first Fritidsbanken that opened in Deje has now been followed by 130 more all over the country, from Trelleborg in the south to Kiruna in the north. Fritidsbanken is represented in every region except Blekinge, and the vision is to have a leisure bank in each of the country’s 290 municipalities.
“Nine out of ten children move too little in their everyday lives.”
For the past couple of years Fritidsbanken has also run pilot activities where schools have been able to borrow equipment for a whole season, which students can borrow at break times.
“That could be kick-bikes, helmets, balls or something else. The school writes down what is lent so that we get numbers for how many students get active,” says David Mathiasson.
In 2023 Fritidsbanken showed that it had contributed to a total of two million hours of activity across the country that otherwise might not have happened.
“It’s these hours that are particularly important, when someone who would not otherwise have been active actually becomes so,” he says.
The development also shows an increasing interest in borrowing equipment for physical activity.
Interest in borrowing sports and leisure equipment is increasing – in 2024, 1.8 million items of equipment were loaned out, twice as many as in 2022.
David Mathiasson himself ‘played a small part’ when the very first leisure bank opened its doors in Deje, and was the first to work on spreading the Fritidsbanken concept and developing the business.
“In 2024 the number of items lent was 1.8 million, double what it was in 2022,” he says.
A study from the Swedish Research Council for Sport Science shows that 48 percent of those who borrowed things would not have engaged in the activity if the opportunity to borrow equipment had not been there.
“This means that almost every second person would not have done it – and then often those who need the activity the most. It’s a straight pass to those municipalities that haven’t yet established a leisure bank – it can be assumed that every week there’s a large proportion of people who can’t engage in a certain activity because there’s no opportunity to borrow equipment,” he says.
“These hours are particularly important, when someone who would not otherwise have been active actually becomes so.”
One particularly disadvantaged group that he mentions is people with disabilities, who are also often worse off financially.
“We reviewed our operations and saw that there were few loans to people with disabilities, and at that time we only had 80 such pieces of equipment throughout the country,” says David Mathiasson.
They have therefore chosen to link up with Parasport Sweden, with the ambition that each leisure bank will have a basic range of adapted equipment. The aim is then to have a wide range of adapted equipment available regionally. The county of Skåne, for example, has a leisure bank in 11 out of 33 municipalities. Through these it will be possible to find equipment such as a beach wheelchair, a sports wheelchair or an adaptive ice skating sledge. A decision has also been made to adapt all premises to make them accessible.
“We want everyone to be welcome at our leisure banks, so that’s super important!”
On this theme David Mathiasson forwards a few lines from Megan Pettersson, who is the site manager at Fritidsbanken in Dals Ed. At the end of February they organised an ice skating disco on the lake, with as many as 500 people participating.
“A family showed up with their two children –both were in wheelchairs and couldn’t walk. I had with us an iceWISP, in other words a frame skater, and offered it to them. The guy was so excited that he nearly climbed out of his wheelchair to try it. I got a
little teary-eyed when I saw how much they enjoyed being part of the disco. So thank you for your support and funds so that we can offer parasport equipment – it is so appreciated!”
“It later emerged that the family were tourists from the Netherlands and this event, along with a warm welcome and community, made them decide to move to Dals Ed. Fantastic!”
David Mathiasson describes how he himself ‘played a small part’ when the very first leisure bank opened its doors in Deje, and was the first employee to work on spreading the Fritidsbanken concept and developing the business.
Today seven people work at Fritidsbanken Sweden’s office on business development and communication. Around 1,200 people a year work at the leisure banks in the municipalities – some in regular employment, but others through supported employment schemes and as holiday jobs.
“Fritidsbanken is immensely popular among young people looking for summer jobs! They work at the leisure bank but also get out and about to attract more users – on the beach, for example, where they can bring things like fishing rods, lifejackets and frisbees,” he says.
The support from the Erling-Persson Foundation is very valuable.
“We’ve found a concept that we sincerely believe in and, with this support, we have the power to implement it throughout Sweden with good quality – which is exactly what’s needed,” he says.
In five years’ time he envisions there being a leisure bank in 60 percent of all municipalities, compared with 41 percent today.
“The guy was so excited that he nearly climbed out of his wheelchair to try it.”
“We’ll be the leading national player for equipment lending and will be in all regions. I can also see us having clear collaboration with the Swedish Sports Confederation and Swedish Outdoor Life.”
He says that project grants are often directed at short-term initiatives for trying out new things.
“It’s easy for such initiatives to end up rather scattered. We’ve found our way of working that we believe in and now we just have to keep at it,” says David Mathiasson.
millions of hours of activity in 2023 that Fritidsbanken contributed to, which otherwise might not have happened
the number of leisure banks in Sweden, and agreements have been signed with another 10 municipalities – the vision is for there to be at least one in each of the country’s 290 municipalities
40%
the proportion of borrowers that are children and young people under 20
Project leads: David Mathiasson and Erika Olkerud.
Title: Fritidsbanken – the 21st century public library for physical activity.
What it involves: Through Fritidsbanken anyone can borrow sports and outdoor equipment for 14 days. Borrowing is free and all equipment is donated by private individuals, clubs and businesses. This lowers the threshold for physical activity regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic situation or functional ability. Fritidsbanken Sweden is a member organisation that signs agreements with principals – in nine out of ten cases these are municipalities – which are then responsible for premises and employees.
Funding: The Erling-Persson Foundation is supporting the project with SEK 9 million over five years.
SEK 7.5 M / 3 YEARS
Even before the children’s hospital in Kyiv was attacked, a partnership had been established with Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital in Solna. The exchange allows Ukrainian doctors and nurses to come to Sweden for training, but also involves collecting equipment that is sent to Ukraine.
On the morning of Monday 8 July 2024 the Okhmadyt children’s hospital in Kyiv was attacked by a Russian missile. Since the invasion began the examples of Russian war crimes have piled up, but targeting a children’s hospital is a new low. Svante Norgren, paediatrician and head of Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital in Solna, agrees.
“It’s quite obvious that the Russians are targeting infrastructure such as dams and power stations, but also hospital facilities. There are reports that closer to the front they’re attacking hospital staff with drones while they’re on their way to their hospitals,” he says.
“He didn’t ask for a load of money, but instead said ‘We need a partner’.”
The time of the attack is also a factor.
“It’s well known that if you want to do as much damage as possible, you attack a hospital on a Monday morning when the week’s new intake of patients are there together with relatives, plus all the staff are at work. Normally the attacks have taken place at night, but this one stood out in terms of its timing – which makes you wonder,” says Svante Norgren.
After the attack he tried to contact his colleagues via WhatsApp but could not get hold of them all. In total, two hospital employees died, 300 people were injured and 70 percent of the hospital was damaged. Eventually he got hold of the director of the hospital, Volodymyr Zhovnir.
“So I asked, what can we do? What can we help
with? He replied ‘I think we can do surgery again in a couple of weeks, there are parts of the hospital that are intact’. And that was only a couple of hours after the explosion,” says Svante Norgren, adding:
“I got a stethoscope from one of the colleagues who had been with us – it’s distorted and the metal is kind of broken, but they all made it.”
But first let’s go back in time. It was in 2023 that both Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital and the Okhmadyt children’s hospital in Kyiv joined the European Children’s Hospitals Organisation (ECHO), an interest and cooperation organisation that has one member hospital from each of 15 countries. The two hospital directors both sit on the board and ended up next to each other at a dinner.
“So I asked, what is it that you actually need? And what really surprised me was that he didn’t ask for a load of money, but instead said ‘We need a partner’. So that’s how it came about,” says Svante Norgren.
On 1 December 2023 an agreement was signed for deeper cooperation between the hospitals.
The support that was requested was above all help with training young doctors and nurses. In Ukraine it takes less time than in Sweden to become a qualified paediatrician, so ‘their knowledge is quite narrow’, as Svante Norgren puts it.
“Being a paediatrician is a broad speciality in Sweden, which is good because children don’t come with a diagnosis on their forehead. The Ukrainian paediatricians get good at a small range of things very quickly, so they wanted help with broadening that,” he says, adding:
“They’re so young that you kind of feel like a father to them. They’re younger than our specialist registrars in Sweden, born around the turn of the millennium, and many of them have never worked in peacetime at all.”
Activities at the Ukrainian children’s hospital were split into 10–12 areas of medicine, such as surgery, x-ray, intensive care and gastroenterology. Then a clinical lead was appointed for each area in Ukraine and Sweden.
“We then said we can take four employees at a time – we call them fellows. Our Ukrainian colleagues select the candidates and send detailed CVs specifying what the candidates are capable of and what they’d like them to learn. When they come here for two months they work individually with our colleagues, and when they return they become bridges between the hospitals,” he says.
When the first round of fellows was on its way in April 2024 Svante Norgren was tipped off about the organisation Beredskapslyftet, which has a great commitment to Ukraine – including by helping refugees in Sweden to enter society and the labour market. He then met Fredrik Hillelson, which led to today’s collaboration in which Beredskapslyftet raises funds for the children’s hospital and its activities and also directly pays for interpreters, for example. It was also via Beredskapslyftet that they came into contact with the Erling-Persson Foundation.
“We learned during the pandemic that healthcare can be helped by other parts of society. And also the benefit of us, a government-run organisation, collaborating with philanthropists – they can contribute money here and now. It’s very much based on personal contacts and personal responsibility – that we can vouch for the money ending up in the right place,” says Svante Norgren.
An important part of the support, in addition to the training, is healthcare equipment.
“We’re in the process of looking at equipment in detail, such as whether the threads on oxygen cylinders fit. We have Excel sheets for each area with 60 products on each – from something that costs a million right down to consumables. If a precise brand is not available, we need to find an equivalent that works with what they already have,” he says.
It’s like how stereo systems used to be, explains Svante Norgren, when you had to put together a turntable, tape recorder and amplifier.
“If we send advanced x-ray and intensive care equipment there, it has to be able to connect to their data environment. I have links with some hospitals in Africa and Central America too, but there it’s completely
different because they have nothing. In Ukraine, paediatric healthcare is much more advanced. And then there can be ridiculous things – for want of a small consumable, a machine costing tens of thousands can’t be used,” he says.
“I think the fellows who come here get a watering hole to rest at.”
He says that Ukrainian colleagues are careful not to ask for things they don’t need.
“I might think it would be good to have an extra one of a certain piece of equipment, but they say ‘there are probably others who need it more’.”
Sometimes his Ukrainian colleagues have had problems getting the medicines and chemicals needed for x-ray examinations.
“Then we send it in their luggage when they go home – I wrote a covering letter and told them ‘if you get stopped at customs, you can show them this’. We also have to give them a letter of confirmation for when they’re travelling here, so that their authorities don’t think that they’re deserters,” says Svante Norgren.
And not everything that is sent to the children’s hospital in Kyiv is medical equipment.
“We’ve sent Astrid Lindgren books down there too. I tried to get hold of The Brothers Lionheart, but it wasn’t available in Ukrainian at that time,” says Svante Norgren.
He says there is relatively little child psychiatry in Ukraine, so there are plans for deeper cooperation. At Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital there is a sensory room for children who for various reasons cannot handle too much stimulation at once, such as after a brain injury or if the child is in an extremely stressful situation. The room has a waterbed, subdued lighting, music and calming imagery on the walls in the form of soft light which can be activated gradually. The room can also be made mobile.
“If we have patients who are too sick to come down to the sensory room, we can bring a ‘light version’ to their room. We’re going to bring a child psychiatrist from Kyiv here to show them how we work. In Sweden it's the law that there must be play therapy, school and child psychiatrists, but they don’t have that – I think it could be of great value to them,” he says.
Support is very important when an entire generation of children are traumatised.
“You see the children drawing angels that spread out their wings to protect them from falling bombs,” says Svante Norgren.
Healing environments are important because many children are traumatised. “We’re going to bring a child psychiatrist from Kyiv here to show them how we work.”
To be able to provide good care, the staff must also feel well.
“It’s easy for it to get so medical when thinking about what we can help with. But I think the fellows who come here get a watering hole to rest at. They make friends and also see that people care – that’s just as important, especially now that they’re being bombed every night,” he says.
“They’re interested in how they will organise medical universities in the future – in other words, relationships between hospitals and universities.”
During the day it is usually quiet, but to come home and not get rest is stressful in itself.
“Nearly everyone also has family or friends at the front or in an occupied zone. And many have post-traumatic stress disorder. But several of them have spontaneously told us that after just a couple of nights they sleep so well here – even if they do react to the hospital’s helicopter when it lands at night,” says Svante Norgren.
He believes that personal contacts can also make a big difference.
“They’re taking care of the children who have the most severe malformations and after surgery, complications can arise. But you can do a great deal with today’s IT solutions – look at images and discuss patients by email or a call. We’re in contact with some of them almost daily,” he says.
In November 2024 the Ministry of Health of Ukraine held a conference in Lviv to highlight medical partnerships.
“We were the example they gave for paediatric healthcare, and then Mrs Zelenskyy, the German Minister of Health and the Ukrainian Minister of Healthcare all spoke,” says Svante Norgren.
He describes how the fellows who have visited Sweden are now also starting to look ahead.
“Until now it’s been education and pure healthcare, but they’re interested in how they will organise medical universities in the future – in other words, relationships between hospitals and universities. I can envisage them continuing to build bridges and having research projects or research studies,” he says.
So what does the support from the Erling-Persson Foundation mean?
“It’s absolutely crucial. When there’s an urgent need, as in this case, it’s an advantage to have quick
decision paths. Money is always good, but a limited amount that comes quickly can have as much effect as a larger amount that you plan for in the future. Just hours after the attack I received payment guarantees from the Foundation, via Fredrik, so that patients could be taken in. At the same time, we have a personal responsibility to ensure that the support ends up in the right place and where it is most effective. The fact that philanthropists and authorities can work together is incredibly valuable,” says Svante Norgren.
And through the ongoing partnership, the exchange also goes in both directions.
“We have a huge amount to learn from Ukraine. In all the years I’ve been in healthcare, we’ve never prepared ourselves as much as we are doing now –we’re organising exercises for disaster and crisis management and creating new procedures. For example, what would we do if we didn’t get all the equipment? It’s about learning to adapt to crisis and wartime conditions,” says Svante Norgren, adding:
“They’re more authoritarian, so I’ve had to tell them ‘I don’t want to be called by my surname’. But a lot of that is to do with having clear leadership in such a situation, and I’m impressed by how well they stick together and get people to perform.”
FACTS / THE TWO HOSPITALS
Okhmadyt National Specialised Children’s Hospital, Kyiv: 720 beds, 11,000 surgical procedures per year, 21,000 in-patients per year and 2,346 employees. It is Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital and its most highly specialised. It falls under the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the director reports to the Minister of Health.
Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital, Stockholm: 189 beds, 10,700 surgical procedures per year, 13,700 in-patients per year and 1,600 employees.
9 in 10
of the 6.3 million refugees who have left Ukraine, 9 in 10 are women and children
1.7
million children do not have access to clean drinking water
ABOUT THE PROJECT
100
the number of Ukrainian patients admitted to Karolinska University Hospital, of which a handful are children
Project lead: Svante Norgren from Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital in close cooperation with Fredrik Hillelson at Beredskapslyftet.
Title: Medical partnership between two children’s hospitals in Sweden and Ukraine.
What it involves: The Ukrainians requested training for young doctors and nurses, as well as help with medical equipment and materials. The training has taken the form of fellowships, in which four participants per semester (three doctors and one nurse) come to Sweden. For two months they have a personalised training plan in which they shadow a Swedish colleague. They also train in Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), which is an advanced heart-lung machine that oxygenates the blood outside the body. A large amount of material has been sent to Kyiv in the form of advanced medical equipment along with consumables, but also tents, heat pumps and evacuation equipment. This work is ongoing.
Funding: The Erling-Persson Foundation is supporting the project with SEK 7.5 million over three years.
To reduce the damage caused by the war and with a particular focus on children, the project aims to create a virtual hospital, a physical rehabilitation hospital and the world’s first research centre for studying how best to treat children during ongoing wars and disasters.
On 24 February 2022 Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour Ukraine, an assault that took large parts of the world by surprise. Anne Berner, chair of the Nadija Foundation, had just stepped down after 10 years chairing a foundation where she worked to get a new children’s hospital built in Helsinki, as well as a pain clinic specially for children.
“I immediately thought ‘Could we do something similar for the children in Ukraine?’” she says.
At first she was doubtful – working in a country in the middle of a fierce war is a great challenge – but the plans took shape and during the spring of 2023 she brought more like-minded people on board.
“I was at a conference in India and mentioned my thoughts to Vicky Ax:son Johnson. She said ‘If you do it, I'm in!’ – so that’s what happened,” says Anne Berner.
The foundation that they created was given the name Nadija, which means ‘hope’ in Ukrainian, and set three goals: to create a digital platform in the form of a ‘virtual’ hospital, to build a physical rehabilitation hospital on the ground in Ukraine and also to create a research institute.
As a first step, they wanted to raise EUR 10 million in the Nordic countries of Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Thanks to the support of the Erling-Persson Foundation, that goal is now very close to being met.
“We’ve reached our fundraising target in Sweden and Finland, but we’re continuing to work in Norway and Denmark,” says Anne Berner.
She explains that she has just talked to the Ukrainian company that is working to set up the
digital platform that will host the virtual hospital. The idea is to offer telemedicine, such as online CBT, both individually and in groups, and to be able to monitor patient flows and measure treatment outcomes. But there is also room for children to meet each other in peer groups, rehabilitation-related game functions and school elements – to learn about various kinds of mental illness, for example.
“The virtual hospital is intended to function as a ‘digital twin’ to a real hospital, and be accessible to all children who need it,” she says.
The idea is also scalable, making it possible to use elsewhere as well.
“All the technology we will use is known, but how it is put together makes it something completely new.
“The virtual hospital is to function as a ‘digital twin’ to a real hospital, and be accessible to all children who need it.”
As soon as we’ve made it all work, similar projects can be set up in other places where children are hurt in war, or in other crisis situations such as climate disasters or famine,” says Anne Berner.
Financially, this part of the project will be secure as soon as the first sub-goal for the fundraising has been achieved.
Her home country of Finland has its own expensive experience of the traumas that war brings, not least for the generation that is growing up.
Anne
where she is going to build a children’s hospital that will offer rehabilitation,among other services. “We want to make future life easier for the children affected physically by the war.”
“We now know that many children in Ukraine are suffering mentally and that anorexia, addiction problems and the use of drugs and alcohol are increasing along with other self-harm behaviours, but also things like depression and suicide attempts,” says Anne Berner.
She describes how some children are able to cope with the situation despite everything and show great resilience, while others are suffering terribly. Children living close to the front are estimated to have been forced to spend many thousands of hours underground since the start of the war, under persistent shelling and with ongoing threats and anxiety. A large part of the children are also internal refugees.
“Often they do not have access to schools because of inadequate protection from bombing. Many children also have to take care of siblings and injured parents –they become ‘little adults’ far too early,” she says.
The second leg of the project is the hospital that is to be built in Lviv, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and Lviv National Medical University. The hospital will focus on rehabilitation, primarily of children, but will also admit adult veterans. This will include reconstructive surgery to restore function or appearance.
“We want to make future life easier for the children affected physically by the war. The other element that the hospital will concentrate on is mental health care for children,” she says.
“We’re not talking about post-traumatic stress, but about an ongoing stress disorder.”
The hospital must offer beds for in-patient care as well as out-patient care, where patients are rehabilitated both physically and mentally during the day but sleep at home.
“We already have access to a plot of land and my dream is that it will become like a Nordic House centre for children,” says Anne Berner.
Alongside the hospital they also want to build a research institute dedicated to the study of rehabilitation efforts aimed at children during and after experiencing war.
“There is surprisingly little research on what is the right way to treat children in an uncertain and still volatile environment, and nowhere in the world has this research been collected together,” she says, continuing:
“It’s stress that is constantly ongoing – we’re not talking about post-traumatic stress, but about an ongoing stress disorder.”
She mentions research in the area of epigenetics, which studies changes in gene expression. It has been shown that such changes can be passed on to future generations.
“My dream is that it will become like a Nordic House centre for children.”
“How does war generally affect the children born to mothers living with war trauma, and how does it affect the genetics, behaviour and future life of the new generation? In Finland we know from the Second World War that trauma is passed on, and we want the right kind of intervention and treatment to reduce the damage for future generations,” says Anne Berner.
The geographical location of the hospital and research centre is because the Ministry of Health has designated Lviv as the national centre for rehabilitation, and the new hospital will form an important part of this. Anne Berner describes how Ukraine does not have a tradition of university hospitals, but that their hospital will be structured in this way.
“We’ve found a stable solution that provides the autonomy that university hospitals have, plus it will also be a training hospital. Now I hope that we can get started and build the hospital at the end of 2025,” she says.
Anne Berners’ own commitment is based on a lifelong interest in medicine and healthcare. She says that she harboured plans to train in healthcare herself at an early age.
“As a teenager, I read such an exciting book about a doctor that I then wanted to become a pathologist. I also spent two summers working in hospitals. But then my mother became ill and died, so I had to step in and start working in our family business instead,” she says.
At the time of writing it is three years since she had the idea – a short time considering the lead times for launching major infrastructure projects.
“But I’m impatient! When you know how tough they have it over in Ukraine, we should be getting even more done every day,” says Anne Berner.
She highlights the importance of the support from the Erling-Persson Foundation.
“It’s helped us a lot to be able to quickly implement the virtual hospital and get it up and running, so we’re very happy and grateful as the support has been crucial for us,” says Anne Berner.
In five years’ time she envisages the war being over and the hospital and research institute being in place.
“Then children will have access to rehabilitation, so that they can go back to a normal life as much as possible. And every child in Ukraine will be able to use the services of the virtual hospital,” she says.
She has a vision for the longer term, too – in 25 to 30 years’ time.
“Then those who are children today will have reached adulthood and we can follow up how the war has affected them. I hope that our work can alleviate the bad effects and enable a good and secure life for the first generation in the war – that they can have a family, be in work, stay living in Ukraine and feel safe,” says Anne Berner.
3 – 5
the thousands of hours that children near the front have been forced to stay underground since the war began – 1,000 hours a year equals 42 days, i.e. six weeks
1 in 3
number of Ukrainian children showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and/or depression
1.1
million Ukrainian children are displaced within the country
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Lead: Anne Berner
Title: Nadija Children’s Foundation
What it involves: The foundation is raising funds from Nordic governments, but also through private individuals, foundations and family-owned businesses, with the aim of implementing a three-pronged approach to reducing the suffering that the war in Ukraine involves for the country’s children.
First, a virtual hospital is being created – a kind of ‘digital twin’ to a physical hospital. Then a rehabilitation hospital will be built in Lviv, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and Lviv National Medical University, along with a research institute focusing on the study of rehabilitation efforts for children.
Funding: The Erling-Persson Foundation is supporting the project with SEK 20 million over two years.
Järvaveckan/The Global Village
SEK 1 M / 1 YEAR
The Järvaveckan Culture Bridge project developed out of the Järva Film Festival, founded in 2013 – broadening its focus to include new art forms, developing its long-term work with children and young people and strengthening the cultural scene in Stockholm’s suburbs. Its main target group is families, children and young people.
Järvaveckan Culture Bridge will host four evenings at Järvaveckan 2025 – held at the Spånga IP sports field – with free entry and including film screenings, dance and theatre performances, up-close sessions with artists, live discussions, play for younger children, ‘try out’ activities in culture and much more.
Järvaveckan Culture Bridge will offer activities and cultural content that have been carefully curated both to entertain and to highlight different cultures, perspectives and people’s different realities.
OPERATIONAL SUPPORT
– MENTOR SWEDEN 2025–2026
Mentor Sweden
SEK 4.4 M / 2 YEARS
Mentor Sweden is a non-profit organisation that offers mentoring programmes for young people aged from 13 to 17 years. The programme aims to strengthen young people’s self-esteem and belief in the future and also to expand their social networks, thereby supporting them in choosing a healthy and drug-free lifestyle.
Mentor’s core activities consist of mentoring programmes for young people aged from 13 to 17 years.
Mentor Programme – a structured individual programme lasting six months, in which young people are given their own adult mentor.
Mentor Boost – a half-day activity in which coaches from Mentor’s partner companies talk about their work.
Mentor Inspo – inspiration and school motivation
for future career choices. A digital presentation gives young people personal stories about career choices and routes taken to get there.
3
The Good Talents
SEK 627,000 / 2 YEARS
The Good Talents runs a social entrepreneurship programme during the school holidays for young people in areas with socioeconomic challenges, where young people develop ideas for solving social challenges that business can influence. Many young people are ambitious, but lack basic knowledge about the opportunities that they have in life. Neither are they aware that they have the power to change their situation.
The Good Talents wants to counter this by highlighting young people’s potential and helping them to become leaders to others while at the same time chasing their own dreams. This is being done by developing and running educational programmes in leadership and social innovation which give young people a stronger sense of their own power. In concrete terms, young people get a paid holiday job that includes a training programme in which they produce solutions to social challenges that business can influence. Meeting with people in power also gives young people a feel for how their ideas can be taken up and thereby influence future development.
SEK 3.77 M / 3 YEARS
Through the project ‘Scouting for all 2.0 Järva (Husby and Tensta)’ the Scouts, along with the district administration in Järva and schools in the same area, want to give children and young people access to scouting. This will take place both during school terms (e.g. at leisure clubs, recreation centres, in lessons and at outdoor days) and in the school holidays, when it will take the form of Scout day camps for younger children at which older youngsters are offered
paid holiday jobs as Scout leaders (the holiday job beginning with a week’s training in leadership). The aim is to break down social exclusion and develop more confident and responsible adults who strengthen society.
Each year the project expects to reach at least 100 children a week through regular Scouting activities and at least 50 children at each Scout day camp, and to give at least 15 young people training in leadership and a holiday job as a Scout leader each summer. Many adults will also be reached via family excursions.
Clownmedicin
SEK 1.19 M / 1 YEAR
Since 1998 Clown Medicine has been visiting children and their families at the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital. Clowns are at the hospital in Solna six days a week and in Huddinge three days a week, for 50 weeks of the year. In total nearly 30,000 children and their relatives are visited by the clowns each year.
The clowning has a real purpose – to make the hospital stay easier for the whole family, but also when necessary to make the work of the hospital staff easier so that the treatments go as smoothly as possible. The clowns provide a complete distraction from sickness and medication. A visit from a clown can act as a stressrelieving safety valve, giving the family a short break and distracting their thoughts for a while from things that are frightening and worrying.
FROM LEFT:
MATHIAS UHLÉN
Board member. Born 1954.
Mathias has an MSc in chemical engineering and a PhD from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. From 1999 to 2001 he was Vice President of KTH. Mathias is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA), as well as the National Academy of Engineering in the USA.
Since 1998 Mathias has been professor of microbiology at KTH, from 2012 to 2021 he was professor of biotechnology at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and since 2018 he has been visiting professor of neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet. He was director of the Science for Life Laboratory from 2010 to 2015 and has worked for industrial applications of the research through various corporate collaborations and entrepreneurial ventures. Mathias’ research on protein A is the basis for the export success of MabSelect SuRe, among other things.
Mathias co-founded the biotech companies Pyrosequencing AB, Affibody AB and Atlas Antibodies AB, among others, and is an advisor to the venture capital fund Healthcap.
CHARLOTTE SÖDERSTRÖM
Board member. Born 1977.
Charlotte studied market economics at Institutet för Internationell Utbildning (IIU). Up until the age of 21 she was an active competition rider in equestrian sport and today she runs the Stuteri Arch stud farm in Skåne in southern Sweden. The stud farm breeds, trains and sells jumping horses and in 2019 and 2021 the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (Fédération Equestre Internationale – FEI) named her as its Owner of the Year. Charlotte is also involved in the sponsorship project H&M We Love Horses as well as apparel brand All In Equestrian.
Board member at family companies and of Haga Gårdsförvaltning.
TOM PERSSON
Board member. Born 1985.
From 2006 to 2010 Tom studied at the European Business School and Metropolitan Film School in London. He subsequently worked on the production and financing of TV and film projects.
Since 2016 Tom has run investment company CoMade, which focuses on the media sector. Alongside his own company he works with around 10 other companies in film, television and sound.
Board member at family businesses and other companies including Playpilot AB and CoStudios.
ELISABETH TAMM
Board member. Born 1947.
Elisabeth has degrees in law and business administration from Uppsala University. After a period as a notary she was employed at the Swedish Tax Agency in Stockholm. She has also been head of tax and family law at Carnegie and Ålandsbanken.
Elisabeth chairs or holds other positions of responsibility at a number of foundations, including the Alba Langenskiöld Foundation associated with publishing house Langenskiöld, the Foundation for the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital, the Tranås Säteri Foundation and Sällskapet för Makarna Malmqvists minne.
STEFAN PERSSON
Chair of the Board. Born 1947.
1969–1973 Stockholm University and Lund University. 1976–1982 Country Manager for H&M in the UK and responsible for H&M’s expansion abroad.
1982–1998 President and CEO of H&M.
1998–2020 Chair of the Board at H&M.
Other board positions at family companies.
MARI-ANNE CRONSIOE OREFORS
Board member. Born 1957.
Mari-Anne has a degree in economics from Stockholm University. After graduating she worked for five years in H&M’s buying department. From 1985 to 2020 MariAnne had a key role at the Ramsbury family office as accounts and administrative manager. Mari-Anne was involved in setting up the Erling-Persson Foundation and has also been part of the H&M Foundation since it was established in 2007.
Mari-Anne is on the board of the H&M Foundation and has been responsible for running the accounting and administrative side of the foundation during its first 20 years.
SCIENCE & RESEARCH
Karolinska Institutet, Laurence Picton SEK 15 m 5 years
Karolinska Institutet, Thuy Tran SEK 8 m 3 years
Karolinska Institutet, Johan Ericson SEK 8 m 3 years
Uppsala University, Fredrik Swartling SEK 6 m 3 years
Umeå University, Björn Schröder SEK 6 m 3 years
Lund University, Kristian Pietras SEK 6 m 3 years
Karolinska Institutet, Kamila Czene SEK 6 m 3 years
Karolinska Institutet, Fredrik Piehl SEK 6 m 3 years
University of Gothenburg, Fredrik Bäckhed SEK 6 m 3 years
Rolf Luft Foundation for Diabetes Research / Kerstin Brismar Award SEK 1 m 1 year
TUITION & EDUCATION
Stockholm Concert Hall Foundation SEK 100 m
Royal Swedish Opera SEK 100 m
Stockholm School of Economics, House of Innovation SEK 50 m 2 years
Gundua Foundation SEK 0.3 m 3 years
F1RST SEK 6 m 3 years
Alba Langenskiöld Foundation SEK 2.56 m 1 year
Lilla Akademien SEK 10 m 3 years
Glada Hudik Theatre Foundation SEK 2 m 1 year
The Nobel Foundation SEK 10.1 m 1 year
Beredskapslyftet / Reskilling Ukraine SEK 4 m 1 year
DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN & YOUNG PEOPLE
Fritidsbanken SEK 9 m 4 years
Mentor Sweden SEK 4.4 m 2 years
The Good Talents SEK 0.63 m 2 years
Children’s hospital in Kyiv / Beredskapslyftet
SEK 7.5 m 3 years
Järvaveckan / The Global Village SEK 1 m 1 year
Scouts
Clownmedicin
SEK 3.77 m 3 years
SEK 1.19 m 1 year
Nadija Children’s Foundation SEK 20 m 2 years
*Refers to grants awarded but not yet paid out
**Refers to amounts approved, gross
Ylva Linderson, Programme Manager ylva.linderson@erlingperssonsstiftelse.se
Kristina Stenvinkel, Communications stenvinkel@ramsbury.se
The Erling-Persson Foundation
Drottninggatan 50 Box 1421, SE-111 84 Stockholm, Sweden erlingperssonsstiftelse.se
©Erling-Perssons Stiftelse, 2025
Photos: Henric Hemmerlind, Josefine Laul, Carl Hjelte, Christopher Hunt, Dmytro Zinkevych
Text: Lotta Fredholm
Graphic design and production: Open Studio
Printing and binding: Stibo Complete Typefaces: Brown Pro and Sabon
Paper: 285 g Woodstock Cipria and 150 g Munken Polar Rough