Report 26–35 12 Chat GPT for everyone. 13 How to use AI in teaching. 16 Processions as crisis management. 18 Doing research about covid-19. 20 Denmark in the West Indies.
A necessary task we must undertake together
s some of you have surely noticed, I have now asked University Director Johan Johansson to move forward with developing a vision and plan for the work I announced before the summer – creating more efficient and cohesive administrative support. The background to this initiative is that the University of Gothenburg, like other higher education institutions in Sweden, is facing a challenging financial situation and must safeguard resources for education and research. Therefore, we have set the goal of reducing the proportion of administrative support costs in relation to the university’s total expenses by ten percent over a three-year period. This is a necessary task that we must undertake together. In September, we began communication and dialogue with managers across the university. The autumn will be devoted to concretizing the vision for future administrative support and producing an implementation plan.
In mid-September, I had the honor of conferring 27 jubilee doctors at the university’s special jubilee conferment ceremony.
It is a beautiful, warm, and moving tribute to the life’s work of remarkable individuals and to the importance of science for the development of society. Science has advanced enormously over the past 50 years, while many of the world’s challenges remain much the same. The importance of safeguarding curiosity and the free development of knowledge is greater than ever.
That same sunny week in September, the EAIE 2025 conference took place in Gothenburg, with over 7,000 delegates filling the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre, attending campus visits, partner days, seminars, and workshops. This was an enormously large event in the field of higher education internationally, and of course a great deal of planning lay behind it. Warm thanks to all who were involved and contributed.
Vice-Chancellor MALIN BROBERG
AI technology and teaching
avide Girardelli and Amy Wanyu Ou are two of the editors of a special issue of Frontiers in Communication focused on teaching with the help of AI. Teachers from the University of Gothenburg (GU) have contributed to the issue, and several of them are featured in an article in this edition.
Many are enthusiastic about AI’s rapid development and welcome the fact that GU now offers ChatGPT Edu to all employees – a move that can also be seen as a question of democracy.
At the same time, there is widespread concern about the consequences. One fear is that both students and teachers may turn to chatbots not out of genuine interest, but as a way to cope with a stressful everyday life.
What about the autonomy of higher education institutions? The universities in Gothenburg and Stockholm have been tasked by the government with helping the Swedish Council for Higher Education design a citizenship test. The assignment – and the tight deadline – has drawn criticism. The subtests in civics and Swedish reading comprehension are to be introduced no later than August 17 next year. Read more in this issue.
After dedicated work by representatives from four faculties, it has now been confirmed that Anja Huizink, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, will receive the highly prestigious Queen Silvia Professorship in Child and Adolescent Health. We naturally cover this news – but don’t miss the film produced by our photographer, Johan Wingborg!
Critical to political assignment
The University of Gothenburg will be participating in the project for developing the controversial citizenship test. The decision gives rise to questions about the role of academia in politically sensitive matters, where several people have raised concerns about restricting the autonomy of universities.
WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN an assignment but chosen not to accept it, says Vice-Chancellor Malin Broberg.
She stresses that the Swedish Council for Higher Education (UHR) is the body responsible for the test, while the University of Gothenburg will contribute their expertise in test design.
The task has fallen on the Department of Education and Special Education (IPS), which has extensive experience of designing national tests.
– It is logical to assign this task to us as we possess the expertise, in terms of both content and methodology. When designing a test, it is crucial that we maintain a high level of quality, says Christina Osbeck, Dean at the Faculty of Education.
The university was opposed to introducing a citizenship test but did point out in their review of the proposal that if the government decides to go forward with the test, it should be based on scientific expertise. According to Malin Broberg, you could see the assignment as part of the university’s social responsibility:
– WE CARE ABOUT interacting with society as a whole and about contributing scientific knowledge. At the same time, I share the concern voiced by many about a shift in the relationship between the government and universities, and I believe that politics and academia should stay at arm’s length from one another.
She points in particular to the statement made by the Minister for Migration about the government deciding over the universities and the universities must obey:
– It is certainly correct in the formal sense, but it is very unusual to use it expressly as an argument. The law establishes the universities’ autonomy and academic freedom, and this freedom must be safeguarded.
Both Malin Broberg and Christina Osbeck warn that the tight schedule and will threaten the quality of the work as well as the rule of law. The university also stresses the importance of reasonable resources in order to undertake the task in a responsible manner.
AS FAR AS THE GU Journal has learnt, neither the government nor the UHR has amended the proposed schedule. A pilot study must be completed by September 30.
The Vice-Chancellor of Stockholm University, Hans Adolfsson, has openly criticized the government in the media. He argues that there is a risk that universities will be used as a political tool.
– I think it is wrong by the government to task us with this. But it is a government remit – we answer to the government – and thus we cannot refuse. In addition, the time-frame is far too short to produce a test that is correctly quality-assured and validated. It is very apparent: We hold elections in September next year and the government clearly wants to show that what is included in the Tidö Agreement will be implemented during this term of office.
BUT HANS ADOLFSSON agrees that the universities do possess the expertise:
– Yes, we have the expertise, but we use it for tests
»It is logical to assing this task to us as we possess the expertise .... «
Christina Osbeck
that directly relate to our core business, such as tests for eligibility to education and research. A citizenship test has no connection whatsoever to either education or research, he says.
He argues that the test thereby becomes a political task with no relevance to the core mission of universities.
– PASSING A CITIZENSHIP test does not make you eligible for our programmes. Therein lies my main criticism of the government’s proposal, says Adolfsson.
Sverker Lindblad, Professor Emeritus in Education, does not think that the University of Gothenburg should accept this assignment. He warns that the university runs the risk of legitimising political categorising of individuals: – Personally, I am reminded of the creation of an institute for racial biology at Uppsala University in 1922. At the time, science was used to categorising people for political purposes. Of course, the citizenship test is a different thing, but it is a reminder of the danger of mixing academic know-how with political governance.
AND SO, THE DEBATE about the citizenship test has grown into a larger public discourse on the role of universities in relation to the government. Should institutes of higher learning contribute their expertise to politically sensitive projects in order to ensure the quality, or should they maintain a clear boundary in order to protect their independence?
– The University of Gothenburg needs to determine how we relate to a new situation in which we may need work harder to defend our autonomy, says Malin Broberg.
Allan Eriksson
Sverker Lindblad
Hans Adolfsson
Christina Osbeck
Malin Broberg
European visit at GU
On September 8 representatives from 230 partner universities gathered in the Vasaparken auditorium for a partner day, organised in connection with the EAIE conference (European Association for International Education). Among other things, a part of Gothenburg’s history was explained.
– THE UNIVERSITY PLAYS a very particular role for transparency, global collaboration and the exchange of knowledge. Europe’s future is dependent on investments in research, education and academic partnerships, explained Vice-Chancellor Malin Broberg in her welcome address.
Next item on the agenda was the history of Gothen-
burg. The host of the morning session, Nils Pasi Nävert, International Centre, explained by designating the right half of the audience as Norwegians, the left half as Danish, and the carpet along the centre aisle as the Göta Älv river, the link to Europe that 17th-century Sweden desperately wanted control over.
AFTER KING GUSTAVUS
Adolphus had finally managed to decide where the city should be located, a panel discussion on academic freedom followed. Moderator was Karolina Catoni, International Centre. According to Oscar Bresin, former Vice President of the University of Gothenburg’s student unions (GUS), freedom means the same thing for students as for researchers and teachers. – It is about being able,
»But lack of time and resources impose limits ...«
David
Brax
within reasonable limits, to decide by yourself what to study and which matters to delve into. Questioning the curriculum and the contents of the teaching must also be permitted.
Academic freedom is extensive on paper, argued David Brax, from the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research.
– BUT THE LACK OF time and resources impose limits on the freedom. Another problem is that around 40 percent of Sweden’s university teachers are subjected to harassment, according to a survey by the secretariat. This leads to many people
refraining from contributing to public discourse.
Striking a balance between individual, creative freedom and collegial responsibility is important, said Henric Benesch, Dean at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts.
– MY PREDECESSOR WAS fond of saying that being Dean is like herding cats. Freedom is necessary, but as teachers and researchers we have obligations as well.
The conversation also revolved around responsible internationalisation. Deputy Vice-Chancellor Max Petzold talked about his many partnerships with Eastern Europe.
– Of course, after the invasion Ukraine all partnerships with Russia and Belarus have been halted. But in general, I believe that we should also
The panel discussion was led by Karolina Catoni and participants were David Brax, Henric Benesch, Max Petzold and Oscar Bresin.
collaborate with dictatorships and authoritarian states. It is through the exchange of knowledge and trade that we will be able to influence other countries, isolation should be avoided.
THERE WERE MANY international participants as well, such as Mojca Maher Pirc, project manager of EUTOPIA at the University of Ljubljana.
– I am here both as a representative of EUTOPIA and for the EAIE conference. And I am interested in how the University of Gothenburg is organised, it seems to be better than at my university. I am also happy to see that the conference has a cultural aspect, where you learn things about the host country. Sweden and Slovenia are fairly similar to one another, both of us are lagom and enjoy fika, even if we use different words.
Alison April, Director of the Stellenbosch University Representative Office in Brussels, explained that she sees herself as a representative of the African continent.
– It is very rewarding to meet colleagues from Lund, Warwick and Paris at the same location. We are all of us working towards the same goals, democracy, freedom of speech and human rights. Collaborations can take many shapes,
they can be between countries, regions and perhaps even port cities – such as Gothenburg, Rotterdam and Cape Town.
The following day it was time for Campus Experience: 100 pre-registered conference participants were given a guided tour of one of the universities that are part of the consortium that arranged the conference, namely GU, Chalmers and the universities in
Borås, Skövde, Halmstad and Jönköping. The conference was then inaugurated with an opening ceremony at Liseberg.
THE PLANNING OF the conference has been going on for several years, says Lena Pedersen at the International Centre.
– The original plan was to hold the EAIE conference in Gothenburg already in
2021. But then the pandemic came and the event had to be postponed. To finally be able to arrange a meeting with colleagues from other countries who all have different conditions, opportunities and challenges is of course very rewarding and fun.
Text: Eva Lundgren
Photo: Allan Eriksson
→ Facts:The European Association of International Education (EAIE) is a member-driven organisation that each year holds one of the world’s largest conferences on higher education. This year’s conference was held in Gothenburg on September 9–12 and hosted around 7,000 attendees.
Lena Pedersen, International Centre, GU, coordinated the consortium that hosted the conference: GU and Chalmers, as well as the universities in Borås, Skövde, Halmstad and Jönköping.
Welcome speach by Vice-Chancellor Malin Broberg.
Alison April from South Africa and Mojca Maher Pirc from Slovenia.
For the good of children
At two stages of human development a window opens when the opportunities to influence physical and mental health are excellent: during pregnancy and immediately following delivery, and during the teenage years.
– At these moments, when a lot of changes occur, harmful factors can have considerable impact. But positive interventions can also have significant effects. That is why those periods are of a particular interest to me, explains Anja Huizink. In February she will take up the prestigious Queen Silvia’s Professorship in Global Child and Adolescent Health. →
Text: Eva Lundgren Photo: Johan Wingborg
he is a Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam since 2012 and supervises 12 doctoral students, four of whom is in Kenya. But having ended up where she did is partly due to coincidences, says Anja Huizink.
– Due to my interest in the human body I studied physiotherapy, a fairly practical programme but also with a few basic courses on theory. I learned about different types of massage and physiotherapy, but not much about how the treatments worked or why some people preferred some of them before others. Later, when I had neuroscientist Ben van Cranenburgh as a teacher, I was fascinated by his lectures, such as about how cerebral haemorrhages affect behaviour. I realised that this was something I wanted to learn more about.
From 1991–1994 Anja Huizink got her master’s degree in both physiological psychology and neuropsychology, subjects she previously had not even known existed. From 1996–2000 she worked on her PhD in child psychiatry.
– My thesis concerned how infant development is affected by stress in the pregnant mother. My main fields since then have been the perinatal period, in which I focus on the mother during pregnancy and after giving birth, as well as the teenage years.
When Anja Huizink from 2000–2003 had her postdoctoral position at the VU Medical Center Amsterdam, she became aware of the importance of providing good information to the public.
In 1992 the news that an Israeli Boeing 747 had crashed into a residential area in Amsterdam made headlines around the world. At least 47 people lost their lives and a rumour started about the authorities having covered up the health risks that the emergency workers had been exposed to.
– Following a government decision eight years later my research team conducted a study where we compared the health of the policemen and firemen that worked on the scene of the accident with the health of other emergency workers that had also been under great stress. We found no significant differences between the groups. The fact that we were independent researchers who openly reported our results was important for building trust with the public and putting an end to all the rumours.
In 2003 Anja Huizink was appointed Associate Senior Lecturer and later Associate Professor at the Department of Child Psychiatry, Erasmus MC Rotterdam.
– My colleagues were involved in important areas, such as anxiety, depression and schizophrenia among young people. They had collected a large amount of data in their studies, on things like patients’ use
of drugs, such as tobacco, alcohol and cannabis. My thought was that this data could be used in other ways as well. That is how I came up with the idea of a study showing that anxiety or depression during childhood increases the risk of ecstasy abuse in teenagers.
In another survey Anja Huizink’s research team tested 10–12-year-olds’ reactions to stress, for example by letting them solve difficult maths problems. The aim was to investigate the correlation between sensitivity to stress and future use of cannabis.
– There were already surveys that showed that adults with low stress tolerance used drugs to a greater extent than others, so we thought the same would be true of children as well. We became rather surprised when our study indicated the opposite, that the children who tolerated stress well were the ones who started using drugs earlier, and more quickly transitioned into regular drug use. Getting results that contradict what you expect is always interesting, it forces you to think again! One explanation could be that very stress tolerant children, who in some instances may even have a serious behavioural disorder, may need extra stimulation in order to really feel something. They may also be less sensitive to what people around them think about their behaviour, such as their parents.
Results that counter what you thought you knew are interesting – but sometimes also a bit of a disappointment, Anja Huizink admits.
– A number of years ago we conducted a study on how you can use information to support pregnant low-income women to quit smoking. We divided the subjects in to two groups where on was given access to an app about stress management as well as a plan for quitting smoking, while the other was only given recommendations about a website with information on pregnancy, stress and smoking.
The research team spent a lot of time and money on the app, which they designed together with the group of intended users.
– It turned out that both groups cut down on their smoking more or less equally, which of course we felt was a bit of a letdown for us. One explanation could be that the very participation in a research study provides sufficient motivation to change your lifestyle, perhaps simply because you become more aware of your own behaviour. Another explanation could be that many people have difficulties finding information online, but once they are given credible and simple advice, they have no problem following it.
More recently, Anja Huizink grew interested in other forms of behaviour, such as young peoples’ dependency on games and social media.
– Last summer I went camping with my partner and
our fifteen-year-old twins in a place in the USA which was so far out in the sticks that we had no internet connection. Our son, who mostly uses his phone for gaming, managed just fine. But for our daughter, who missed the daily contact with her friends, it was more difficult. Many people worry about young peoples’ phone dependency but they forget that the internet can also mean new opportunities, not least in making new contacts. Of course, new technology is neither good nor bad, it all depends how it is used.
In February Anja Huizink will take up Queen Silvia’s Professorship in Global Child and Adolescent Health with specialisation in mental health. The appointment of the professorship was preceded by a careful selection process conducted by a committee comprising representatives from Sahlgrenska Academy, the School of Business, Economics and Law as well as the Faculties of Education and Social Sciences.
– I am well familiar with the medical, psychological and pedagogical perspectives. What will be new to me are the financial ones, which are of course very important; and mental health is a vast field!
Anja Huizink turned out to be the perfect choice for the university – but she is also personally very happy.
– My partner and I have thought about moving to Sweden for several years, and preferably to Gothenburg, so when I saw the ad it almost seemed to be written for me.
Because since childhood, Anja Huizink has a very strong connection to Sweden: Her mother is Fenno-Swedish from a region north of Vasa in Österbotten, and Anja Huizink spent her school holidays in both Sweden and Finland.
– For the past ten years, their family have also had a summer home outside of Ulricehamn. It is located out in the countryside but is still only an hour’s drive from Landvetter Airport. When the whole family goes there we take the car and also bring our two cats, and on a good day we can be there in one day. For one year I was a visiting researcher at the University of Skövde and the house was very convenient to commute from. My family also stayed here for six months which meant that our children attended a Swedish school. We spend as many of the kids’ school holidays as we are able here, even in the winter. But the summers are particularly lovely with walks in the forest, going swimming in some lake and with squirrels, foxes, elks – and unfortunately the occasional snake – around the house. tyvärr också en och annan orm, runt huset.
Watch the film here: www.gu.se/anja-huizink
ANJA HUIZINK
Currently: In February 2026 she will take up Queen Silvia’s Professorship in Global Child and Adolescent Health with a focus on mental health.
Family: Married, twins, 15 years of age.
She lives in: Amsterdam but hopes to be able to partly live in Gothenburg. Summer home outside Ulricehamn.
Hobbies: Reads 80–100 books a year, for example, she has read almost all Dutch translations of Finnish literature. She also enjoys outdoor activities, such as hiking, cycling, swimming.
On October 9, Anja Huizink will be participating in a round-table talk on the mental health of children and adolescents in the main university building, Vasaparken. Her Majesty the Queen Silvia is expected to attend.
On October 10 a symposium is held on the same subject.
Chat GPT for everyone
From September 1, the University of Gothenburg will provide all employees with free access to the AI tool, ChatGPT Edu. The decision is part of the digitalisation strategy 2025–2027 and is expected to cost around ten million krona per year. 2,100 employees have already acquired a licence.
–AI LANGUAGE models contribute a transformative change. In order to give an opportunity for the entire university to understand the future and gain insight into what AI entails, we need to invest in this, Susanna Vinlund, Business Developer at the IT Unit, which has provided support to the university management in drafting the decision.
PREVIOUSLY, each department/unit had to bear their own licensing costs, which created an unfair situation. Some employees were given access to the Edu version, while others were denied it. The management therefore chose to centralise the cost and add it to the university’s basic invoice for IT. The total amount is estimated at 8.7 million krona annually.
– This is also a democratisation project. All employees – researchers, lecturers, doctoral students
and administrative staff will benefit from using AI tools in their day-to-day work. It can be about better assisting colleagues and exchanging ideas, or about more handson tasks such as translating text or quickly summarising documents, says Susanna Vinlund.
COMPARED TO THE private commercial and free versions, the professional university version of ChatGPT Edu provides a safer and more secure environment. Material that is being uploaded is not used to train the Open AI language model, and the university has produced guidelines governing what may be uploaded.
– You need to be careful about the information you upload. Processing sensitive information and confidential data in ChatGPT is not permitted.
There are challenges surrounding privacy and the dependency on a major American corporation, which give rise to concerns in light of the ongoing process in the European Union regarding the AI Act and stricter requirements for data sovereignty.
RESEARCHERS HAVE also for some time pointed to the risks of generative AI. The language models can “hallucinate” and provide convincing-looking but incorrect answers, which requires the user to be involved in the process and apply critical thinking to the results. There is also some concern
»AI tools are here to stay. We need to learn to use them wisely and to share our knowledge with one another.«
Susanna Vinlund
that academic abilities –writing, critical thinking and working independently – will be weakened if AI tools are used uncritically. A report from the OECD (2023) warns that higher education may fundamentally change if AI becomes a shortcut rather than a supporting tool.
– THE UNIVERSITY OF Gothenburg has chosen to provide one of the leading tools available today, but it does not imply that this is the tool we will be using in the future. We need to always adopt a critical approach. AI can save time and provide new perspectives, but we are still responsible for what we feed into it and for checking the result, regardless of the AI tool we use.
One limitation is that the students are not included in the initiative.
– The costs were too high for that. The aim of the management is of course to eventually extend the use of the tool to students on the same terms, Susanna Vinlund points out.
In order for the implemen-
tation to be more than just a technical solution, the university is planning various training initiatives. A committee has been appointed with representatives from lecturers, researchers and support services. We plan to offer hands-on training, workshops and examples of how IT can be used wisely and responsibly.
– WE WANT TO CREATE opportunities for employees to exchange experiences and ideas with one another, and to develop a skill set in the long term by using the expertise already available in-house at the university.
Despite the risks, many people argue that this development is necessary. AI is already beginning to change both research, teaching and administration. Several departments at the University of Gothenburg have changed their exams in order to manage a reality in which ChatGPT is an obvious resource for students.
SUSANNA VINLUND stresses that ChatGPT Edu is only a first step.
– We cannot stop progress. It is better for our employees to learn how to use the technology in a critical and professional manner than to leave them behind. Used correctly, ChatGPT Edu is an incredibly powerful tool that will enable more efficient as well as new and creative ways of working.
Allan Eriksson
TEACHING WITH AI
What is it really like to teach and hold examinations using AI? What new possibilities will the technology provide and how can we manage the problems? The special issue Teaching and Assessing with AI: Teaching Ideas, Research, and Reflection covers these and very questions along with many others. The GU Journal has spoken with five lecturers at the University of Gothenburg who contributed to the journal: Bernard Geoghegan, Lisa Åkervall, Klara Källström, Anna-Lena Fredriksson and Maarit Jaakkola. →
Text: Eva Lundgren Photo: Johan Wingborg Illustration: Amanda Åkerman
It concerns a special issue of the journal Frontiers in Communication for which university employees Davide Girardelli and Amy Wanyu Ou are the editors, together with Kelly Merrill Jr, from the University of Cincinnati.
– We have been working on the journal for one year and have encouraged colleagues from around the world to contribute. We have three types of articles: teaching ideas, providing creative inspiration for teachers, research papers, presenting results and paths forward, as well as reflective essay, questioning, reviewing and engendering new ideas. The articles that were accepted have undergone rigorous peer review. I am proud of the many articles from prominent researchers at the University of Gothenburg, but we also have received articles from Oxford, Berkeley and Columbia University, Davide Girardelli explains.
One of the contributors is Bernard Geoghegan, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Applied IT.
– I describe an experiment in which we revamped the so-called Turing test or imitation game, which is said to test a machine’s intelligence based on its ability to get a human to believe they are speaking to another human, instead of an AI. In our version the students were placed in separate rooms, preventing them from seeing whether they were speaking with another student or with a language model. However, the focus was on how the language “constructs” models of intelligence and reasoning. The students started exploring how and why they described the use of language by one interlocutor or another as human, and realised that there were many cultural factors – slang, rhythm, humour, specificity – that they perceived as indications of human thinking.
– So it really turned into an experimental study of language, where “the game” acted as a window to a more comprehensive survey of how language shapes our impression of others.
Lisa Åkervall, Associate Professor of Film Studies at the Department of Cultural Sciences, explores how AI-generated images can be used to critically examine visual cultures.
– My article discusses a classroom exercise where students have generated photo-realistic portraits using AI tools and compare them with archived images or real portraits. What happens if the students ask a model to create an image of a refugee, a climate activist or a criminal? How will a machine-learning system construct and code for identity categories such as ethnicity, class and gender?
– The students often know that AI tools have a bias, but they are usually less aware of how their own instructions will affect the result and can reinforce these biases. What norms are built into the models themselves? And what prejudice will the students introduce when they enter their instructions?
Klara Källström, Senior Lecturer in Photography at HDK-Valand and a doctoral student of informatics, is interested in documentary photography.
– My contribution initiated a discussion about how statistical probability can take visual shape. We uploaded photographic material to a generative AI system and investigated how such models interpret images – not as representations, but as data points, structured in numerical patterns that follow probability distributions learned from large amounts of training data. This raised questions about indexicality and about the role played by the input data in generative AI, where the material is frequently strongly indexed,
while the output data appears to be disconnected from these ties. The discussion then progressed to how a documentary event can be understood and the relationship between so-called lens-based media and multi-modal models, which will change how we think about photographic practice and visual representation.
Anna-Lena Fredriksson, Senior Lecturer in English at the Department of Languages and Literatures, has used LLM tools in her lectures for future upper-secondary school teachers.
– It is part of a course where the students practice on giving feedback, a challenging task that requires both theoretical knowledge and hands-on training. Perhaps an AI could do the teacher’s job? On my course we worked with authentic text material and compared our feedback to feedback generated by an AI tool. Many of the students had very little previous experience of working with LLM tools in this manner, and were quite sceptical of the technology and of how it could be used in a classroom setting. This led to a lot of discussion where the students not only accepted the AI-generated answer but also maintained a critical approach.
Maarit Jaakkola, co-director at Nordicom, has contributed an article about her pedagogical experience of teaching journalism students, journalists and communicators how to use AI tools.
– For example, it is important to use the right LLM; someone who wants to create a comic strip maybe shouldn’t use Chat GPT. But above all, I stress the importance of having a personal relationship with the AI tool. I also describe what I call the 3E model: Enter – taking the first step, Experiment – testing it yourself, and Exit – Reflecting on the AI, such as when to use it and what you should be aware of.
Klara Källström and Anna-Lena Fredriksson. Davide Girardelli.
The importance of not only studying the literature on large language models but also trying it out yourself, is something that Bernard Geoghegan agrees with.
– Doing something tangible with AI, such as playing games or conducting philosophical experiments, makes teaching and learning about AI more fun and also easier for the students to understand. The Turing experiment, for example, did not only lead to discussions about how the language models uses language, but also to more general and practical insights into how we think about and use language ourselves. It became more clear as the students could compare their friends’ language to the language of a good but incomplete computer imitation – and could reflect on how we recognise language as natural or computer generated. This enabled the class to think about language overall, as well as about what it really means to call a machine intelligent.
Through hands-on experiments with AI tools, the students develop a critical awareness of the possibilities and limitations with AI, says Lisa Åkervall.
– The theoretical framework is important, but in order to be able to reflect on AI the students also need to experiment. This two-pronged approach creates both experimental and reflective forms of analysis; it involves thinking critically both about and with AI in order to understand how algorithmic expressions reformulates visual orders.
One difference between man and machine are the individual conversations you can have as a teacher with your students, Klara Källström points out.
– My courses usually include studio talks with each of my students where we discuss their work; that would not work with a computer.
Many people, both teachers and
students, think of the AI tools as question-answer machines, argues Maarit Jaakkola.
– Just as we need to teach students media literacy we need to teach AI literacy, i.e. how AI tools operate and can be used, but also how to relate ethically to the technology.
The final design of the special issue is not finalised, says Davide Girardelli.
– So far, we have three themes: AI as a teaching partner, a critical review of the AI tool, and AI in relation to authorship and academic honesty. But I am also curious about your take on the pros and cons of LLM technology?
– It is important to think about how AI is used in the classroom and how the technology can affect the relationships between teachers and students, but also between students. What kind of human-machine relationship does AI tools entail? Lisa Åkervall asks.
– Yes, there is a danger in the LLM tools being used irresponsibly, as a short-cut to knowledge instead of investigating the questions yourself, says Maarit Jaakkola.
– Transparency is important, i.e. that you reveal if you have used AI technology, and it applies to both teachers and students. The students often know more than the teachers when it comes to certain technology, which the teacher should be open about, argues Bernard Geoghegan.
– AI tools can facilitate things but there are several ethical issues, such as exploitation of people. We should give this more attention, says Klara Källström. The many discussions about AI in higher education often focus on challenges, possibilities and ethical issues, Amy Wanyu Ou concludes.
– But the opinions of teachers who
actually use AI in their teaching have garnered less attention. In this special issue we have chosen to use short articles in order to create a platform where teachers can easily share their innovations, experiments and reflections. As a bonus, we have also started cross-disciplinary talks between such different fields as communication, business, language didactics, film production, media and career development, which is very exciting.
Facts: Teaching and Assessing with AI: Teaching Ideas, Research, and Reflection is a special issue of the freely and openly available journal Frontiers in Communication. The three editors are: Amy Wanyu Ou, the Department of Languages and Literatures, David Girardelli, the Department of Applied Information Technology, and Kelly Merrill Jr, University of Cincinnati. They have been working on the issue for one year and have asked for contributions from readers.
A total of 20 articles have been accepted. Several of these were written by employees from the University of Gothenburg. The special edition is available with open access at Frontiersin.org.
A Large Language Model (LLM) is a particular AI that has been trained on enormous amounts of text and has learned statistical patterns. On such example is Chat GPT.
Maarit Jaakkola.
Bernard Geoghegan and Lisa Åkervall.
Amy Wanyu Ou
Crisis Management in the Ancient World
A laboratory for exploring how we might manage crises today – this is how Lewis Webb views his research on religion in ancient Italy.
He has now been awarded the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Pro Futura Scientia Fellowship to spend five years studying how prayers, processions, sacrifices, and other rituals affected the social resilience of Italian communities during the Roman Republic. Religion involved and impacted all men and women, the wealthy and the poor, the free and the enslaved.
There are many reasons wThat ancient Rome continues to fascinate, more than 1,500 years after its fall, has many reasons, says Lewis Webb, Associate Professor and Lecturer of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History.
– The Roman world is the foundation of much of our culture – language, law, poetry, politics, religion, and more. Several impressive buildings and works of art are preserved, and even the Roman road network still exists to some extent. It is a world that feels both familiar and foreign. My interest in this subject began when, as a young student of medical science and psychology, I took a course in Latin poetry and encountered the poet Catullus. A previously unknown world opened before me, and I realised that my interest in human behaviour, which had led me to psychology, could just as well apply to antiquity.
Since then, Lewis Webb has written his doctoral dissertation on status competition among Roman women, and he recently received a prize from The American Journal of Philology for an article on female visibility and religion in the city of Rome.
Lewis Webb’s current project examines how, in today’s society, we could be inspired by the Romans’ use of religion to cope with crises.
– For the Romans and other Italians, religion was something quite different from a belief in the afterlife. For them, gods and spirits were everywhere, part of the fabric of daily life; they intervened in human affairs and could be influenced through various rituals.
Rome’s central political institution was the Senate, with a meeting culture that Lewis Webb compares to that of today’s Sweden – that is to say, one full of committees and meetings.
– When it came to managing major disasters, such as earthquakes, famine, plague, and war, or interpreting omens, like strange celestial phenomena, the Senate consulted a religious committee called the decemviri sacris faciundis (eventually quindecimviri). This was a special collegium of ten priests (eventually fifteen) who guarded and interpreted the Sibylline Books, which were stored in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill. These books contained oracular statements, written in Greek hexameter. The priests studied the texts carefully and then delivered a written response to the Senate, containing the oracular statements and religious remedies.
The Senate then decided whether to publicize the response and implement the remedies. These religious remedies might, for example, involve processions throughout Rome, accompanied by prayers, hymns, and offerings, and often included animal sacrifices.
If the crisis was critical, or previous measures had failed, the Sibylline Books might recommend particularly lavish processions or larger sacrifices, sometimes even human ones. If worst came to worst, even the Vestal Virgins, six priestesses whose prayers were thought
to preserve Rome itself, risked death by live burial. The many ceremonies were costly and time-consuming, but in the end, they were deemed essential for Rome’s welfare.
The period Lewis Webb will investigate, 399–27 BCE, was a turbulent time during which Rome and other Italian communities were continuously exposed to crises, including famine, natural disasters, migration, political conflicts, and more. In addition, Rome was in constant conflict with the other peoples of the Italian peninsula, including the Umbrians, Oscans, Etruscans, and Greeks – groups with differing ideas about government, religion, and culture. However, the conflicts did not just result in violent clashes but also in the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and even gods, Lewis Webb explains.
– For example, when the Romans defeated the Etruscan city of Veii in 396 BCE, they performed a ritual, evocatio, in which they invited the goddess Juno Regina to leave Veii and move to a new temple dedicated to her in Rome. In this way, the Etruscans were deprived of the goddess’s protection – a kind of psychological warfare. The Magna Mater (Great Mother) was another goddess who, on the advice of the Sibylline Books, was imported from Anatolia in 204 BCE during the Second Punic War. She, too, was given her own temple in Rome.
As Rome’s empire expanded, ideas spread far beyond the Italian peninsula, Lewis Webb explains.
– The soldiers in Rome’s legions came from many different areas with diverse traditions and perspectives. That’s why a Syrian goddess could appear in Britain, and a Persian god could be celebrated in Italy.
Not all religions, however, were encouraged by Rome’s rulers.
– For example, there is a Latin inscription from 186 BCE describing how the cult of Bacchus was brutally suppressed
Lewis Webb
Position: Newly appointed Associate Professor and Lecturer of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History.
Current: Has been awarded the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Pro Futura Scientia Fellowship for the project Enduring Uncertain Futures: Constant Crisis, Religious Coping Practices, and Social Resilience in Roman Republican Italy. Pro Futura is part of RJ’s strategic priority to support capacity-building in the humanities and social sciences. The fellowship lasts five years, with one year at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) in Uppsala. In addition, Lewis Webb has been awarded the AJP Best Article Prize (formerly the Gildersleeve Prize) by the prestigious journal The American Journal of Philology for the best article of 2024. The prize-winning article is entitled Spectatissima femina: Female visibility and religion in urban spaces in Republican Rome.
across Italy. Perhaps as many as 7,000 people were killed.
Inscriptions are among the more unusual sources that Lewis Webb intends to examine.
– An inscription is valuable because it offers us a snapshot of an event, individual, or community that is not typically anachronistic or heavily edited. Another key source is Roman drama, which, like religious processions, was a cultural expression accessible to all Romans, regardless of their social status or gender; these plays were often performed during religious festivals and staged before temples. Crucially, drama dealt with issues people could relate to and worry about, such as interpersonal conflicts, war, the destruction of cities, captivity, and slavery. In addition to texts in Latin, Umbrian, Oscan, Greek, and other languages, I also hope to study artworks, architecture, and other material objects. Using a diversity of sources, representing various groups of people – for example, women and slaves – provides a much more complex picture of antiquity than the established one.
Although the differences between ancient and modern societies are immense, similarities do exist: we, too, are affected
by war, natural disasters, political conflicts, and epidemics.
However, we no longer have a shared way of handling such crises in which everyone, regardless of who they are, has a place, Lewis Webb points out.
– Of course, Christmas, Midsummer, and semlor on Fat Tuesday are some of our shared rituals. Sports, especially football, can also create a sense of togetherness. But when it comes to the looming
crises on the horizon, not least due to climate change, our societies need to become much more cohesive and resilient. My hope is that a greater understanding of how crises were managed in the past, for example, in ancient Italy, can help us develop better crisis management strategies today.
Text: Eva Lundgren
Johan Wingborg
Photo:
Statue group of Capitoline Triad, Minerva, Jupiter, Juno. Guidonia, Rome. c. 160–180 CE. Photo: Museo Archeologico‘Rodolfo Lanciani’, Guidonia Montecelio.
Physician turned COVID researcher
The pandemic struck just as consultant Nelly Kanberg AlDury was about to start her doctoral programme. So she changed tack, was thrown into the most talked about research field at the time and saw her findings about COVID’s effect on the brain being discussed on television.
– It was intense and exciting. Everything had to be done quickly, because the world needed results, she says.
Spring 2020. Nelly Kanberg Al-Dury, who at the time was doing her residency as a consultant at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, was just about to start her doctoral studies at the University of Gothenburg, aiming to conduct research into infective endocarditis.
But the world was about to change –and with it her own ambitions.
– When the pandemic began we did not know how extensive it would become. We knew nothing about the disease, nothing about the new virus I realised it would be good to piggyback on something so new and up-to-date. So I knocked on Magnus Gisslén’s door and asked if I could conduct research into COVID-19 with him. I think he saw the same drive in me that he has himself, so he became my supervisor during my time as a doctoral student.
Magnus Gisslén, infectious disease consultant and Professor of Infectious Diseases – as well as Sweden’s former Chief Epidemiologist – already had several project ideas linked to the new virus. In partnership with Gisslén and Henrik Zetterberg, Professor of Neurochemistry, Nelly Kanberg Al-Dury started her unprecedented doctoral studies, now focused on COVID-19 and the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Initially she studied how COVID-19 affected the central nervous system during the acute stage of the disease. But beginning in the autumn of 2020, more and more reports came out about former COVID patients who had lingering symptoms, such as fatigue and brain fog, long after the disease outbreak.
– Patients with post-COVID can suffer from several different conditions that may also have psychological and social consequences. At the same time, the symptoms
are often vague and difficult to pinpoint, so it is truly a complex diagnosis.
Nelly Kanberg Al-Dury chose to again adapt her research and study one of the theories about the causes behind postCOVID.
– We wanted to see if post-COVID could be linked to a remaining infection in the brain or an active brain damage. For this reason, we looked at biomarkers for injuries to the central nervous system in patients who had had both mild, moderate and severe infections, she says.
The people in the study also included patients with and without diagnosed post-COVID, as well as controls who had never had the illness.
– Many of the people in the study were in contact with us at the infectious disease clinic where I worked. So in that sense, despite the restrictions during the pandemic, it was easier than if we had done research on other patient groups.
By analysing both blood samples and samples from lumbar punctures the research team was able to examine a number of different biomarkers from the people in the study.
The results surprised her.
Among the COVID-19 patients that had required hospital care the researchers could see an elevation in certain biomarkers during the acute stage of the illness. But six months later, the levels of these biomarkers had normalised for all the people in the study.
The findings do not indicate that postCOVID is caused by a long-term activation of or injury to the central nervous system.
– I was surprised and disappointed. As a researcher, you want to find something, be able to provide an explanation. But I received good support from Magnus Gisslén who said: “Not finding something is also finding something”. And that is true, of course. Now we have reviewed this theory and know that we need to try other ways of finding answers to what may cause post-COVID. I am happy about being able early on to contribute important knowledge on how SARSCoV-2 affects the central nervous system, she says.
The results indicate that something that happens during the acute stage of COVID-19 triggers post-COVID in certain patients. But precisely what happens and why is still unclear.
– Post-COVID is incredibly complex
and cannot be explained by one single factor. Today we have a large number of virus variants, hundreds of different symptoms and a very heterogeneous patient group. So research needs to be continued to be able to eliminate theories, and one day something more tangible will hopefully be discovered.
Despite her fairly short career as a researcher Nelly Kanberg Al-Dury is now an old hand in handling media. Her doctoral studies were characterised by an intense pace and considerable external interest in what she and her colleagues were finding.
– Everybody wanted to know what we found and the results were published in no time: within just a few months into my doctoral studies we had published two articles. It was a special time and I very much enjoyed the fact that my research received so much attention. I remember the newspapers writing about the results, I was interviewed by Russian television and both Magnus Gisslén and Henrik Zetterberg was on TV talking about the projects I was working on.
The ongoing pandemic meant that the world was demanding quick results, and it was possible to receive research funding from several sources. But there were also both difficult and challenging aspects of the work.
– I was seeing COVID patients constantly and of course I was affected. I was not particularly scared for me personally but I was concerned about infecting others, so I chose not to see my parents. In addition, my uncle fell very ill and was treated at the clinic where I worked. It turned out well in the end, but it was very unnerving.
Today, Nelly Kanberg Al-Dury is a consultant in infectious medicine and defended her thesis in May 2025. She is certain she wants to continue her research career, but probably in a different field.
– After all these years I feel I am finished with COVID-19. But I learned a lot during my doctoral studies – both as a clinician and as a researcher. The pandemic taught us that knowledge only benefit us when we share it and have the courage to change our minds – the challenge is in not forgetting that once the storm has blown over, she says.
Text: Ulrika Ernström
Photo: Johan Wingborg
Denmark as a colonial power
– Colonialism is not just part of history; it has consequences to this day.
We are meeting with economic historians Klas Rönnbäck and Stefania Galli. They are currently involved in a project on unequal assets in a Caribbean slave colony.
It concerns the Danish West Indies.
The main aim of the project, which Dimitrios Theodoridis at Stockholm University is also a part of, is to investigate how inequality in a West Indian slave colony developed over time, says Klas Rönnbäck.
– We also wish to study how important events affected slave societies, such as the occupation during the Napoleonic wars from 1802–1807, the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, which in
Denmark happened in 1803, as well as the abolishment of slavery in the Danish West Indies in 1848. We would then like to compare that with inequality in colonies that were not slave societies, such as the current USA and Canada.
Of course, the reason why many European countries, from the beginning of the 1600s until the 1900s, acquired territories in other parts of the world was that they wanted in-demand commodities. But it was also about prestige and power politics in a world where exploitation of other people or territories was not considered a moral wrong. Even Sweden had colonies, such as Saint-Barthélemy in the West Indies. But Swedish colonialism was never particularly successful, says Stefania Galli.
– Denmark, however, was more involved and had a slave fort in what today is Ghana, whose main function was to sell slaves to sugar, cotton and tobacco plantations. In relation to their population, Denmark was actually the largest stakeholder in the slave trade
among the colonial powers; between 1680 and 1803 as many as 130,000 slaves were sent from the Danish fort to the Caribbean, of whom 50,000 ended up in the Danish West Indies, i.e. the islands of Saint Croix, Saint John and Saint Thomas. Those who benefited from the trade were the plantation owners and slave traders. For the Danish state it was less profitable; maintaining a fort in Africa and transporting slaves across the Atlantic eventually became too much of a cost to bear.
The fact that Danish colonialism is the focal point of the project is not because Danish territories are more interesting than others. Rather, the Danish use of slaves may serve as an example that can be used to understand developments in other colonial powers, says Stefania Galli.
– Instead, what makes Denmark interesting is that they, just like Sweden, kept careful track of their population. From 1754–1917 there are millions of documents preserved, which have also been digita-
Klas Rönnbäck and Stefania Galli are interested in colonialism.
lised. So we know the sex and age of the slaves as well as, after the abolition of slavery, even their names. In addition, there is information on which slaves were considered good and which ones were deemed unruly.
The Caribbean slave societies were extremely unequal, Klas Rönnbäck tells us.
– One way of measuring inequality is using the Gini coefficient, where 0 represents perfect equality and 1 extreme inequality, where an elite class own everything. The Gini coefficient for Danish West Africa is at approximately 0.99, so almost as unequal as it is possible to get.
The plantations owners, who were not only Danish but also English, French and Dutch, were not just major landowners on the West Indian islands but also influential in their home countries. One such example is Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann who was Denmark’s largest slave owner as well as one of the richest people in the country, but also the Danish Minister of Finance in the 1760s.
During the 1700s and 1800s there was a common notion that the slaves in the various colonies were well treated and quite happy about their situation, says Stefania Galli.
– But from the documents we have studied we can see that this is not at all correct, there was resistance everywhere. Neither can we find any major difference between women and men, young and old, privileged or subordinate slaves. The punishment for disobedience was harsh and rabble-rousers were executed.
Even if the rebellions were quashed it had the positive outcome of leading to a discussion between the colonisers
and other Europeans, Klas Rönnbäck explains.
– A growing number of Europeans started to think that human trafficking is morally wrong. New laws also made slavery less profitable. Denmark’s ban on transatlantic slave trade in 1803 eventually led to a financial crisis for the plantations: The badly treated slaves died prematurely, child mortality was rampant and the number of people able to work the plantations decreased. In addition, Danish farmers had begun growing sugar beets at home, which made sugar plantations in the Caribbean less profitable.
On July 3, 1848, there is an uprising of slaves in the Danish West Indies: thousands of slaves threaten to torch the plantations if they are not set free. The atmosphere is terrifying and in a panic, Governor Peter von Scholten proclaims that slavery from this moment has been abolished.
This was the beginning of the end for Danish slavery – but what happened next?
– We were surprised over how small the change in living conditions were for the liberated slaves, Klas Rönnbäck explains. You can compare to the abolition of slavery in the USA in 1865. There, the former slaves migrated northward or westward and actually managed to find better conditions. But for the slaves in the Caribbean, there was nowhere to go. All the land was held by the plantation owners and moving to a different island was meaningless; the situation there would be the same. As free people the workers were treated better but they still had to work hard for pitiful wages.
In 1917 Denmark sold their Caribbean territories to the USA. Since then the islands are named American Virgin Islands and is an American territory that is not incorporated into the US, which means that the inhabitants are not American citizens.
Within the British Empire, slavery was abolished in 1833, simply by having the British state buying all the slaves and then freeing them. That was done at the price of an enormous national debt, the final payment of which was only settled in 2015, Klas Rönnbäck explains.
– When I tell my students about this they become really upset over the fact that taxpayers for 180 years were forced to pay off loans that were taken in order to compensate the former slave owners. In the US, it took a civil war to be rid of slavery instead, which had an enormous price in terms of human lives. Today, there is an inverse discussion about somehow compensating the current descendants of slaves, and this also a questions that is difficult to resolve.
How do the Danes of today view their colonial history?
– It is fairly uncontroversial that Denmark participated in this, in the actual historical events, Stefania Galli argues. What is controversial is the consequences it had, for Denmark, Europe and Africa. Many people, in both Denmark and the rest of Europe, probably has some notion about our momentous development over the past 200 years being due to amazing inventions and successful industries. The fact that our wealth is also linked to merciless exploitation of other human beings is probably more sensitive to acknowledge and is something that we, as Europeans, still have real difficulties admitting to.
Text: Eva Lundgren Photo: Johan Wingborg
Facts: The project Förändring eller persistens i förmögenhet? Institutioner och förmögenhetsfördelning i en karibisk plantage-ekonomi, 1750-tal till 1917, is headed by Klas Rönnbäck, Professor of Economic History. Other researchers include Stefania Galli, Associate Senior Lecturer at the University of Gothenburg, and Dimitrios Theodoridis, Senior Lecturer at Stockholm University.
Links to the project: Swedish: www.gu.se/dwi-panel English: www.gu.se/en/dwi-panel
The plantation Mary's Fancy on Saint Croix, unknown painter (possibly Frederik Melby), Denmark's National Maritime Museum, Helsingør.
