In a world that is becoming increasingly mobile and increasingly dependent on English as a lingua franca, even in the field of academia, the exchange between Swedish and German researchers needs extra support. It is of particular importance that the exchange between our academic traditions takes place at a post-doctoral level, in other words, during the time which an academic with a PhD clarifies his or her academic emphasis, determines his or her field of study and frequently establishes institutional contacts of great importance for his or her future career.

These two research grants are intended to strengthen ties between the countries and to provide Swedish researchers the opportunity to enter deeply into a new subject for a limited period of time or to finish a more extensive project intended for publication in book form.

The scholarships are intended to initiate collaboration between one or several of the Swedish speaking environments at the 30 universities in Germany conducting language and cultural studies concerning Scandinavia and Sweden, in particular. The scholarships are intended to cover monthly expenses, travel to and from Sweden, and certain expenses for purchased materials, postage, and so forth.

In 2006, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) granted scholarships to three individuals for post-doctoral research in Germany:

Charlotta Brylla, Senior lecturer in German at Södertörn University, who will carry out research at the Humboldt University of Berlin via a project involving political and cultural contacts between Sweden and the former East Germany. Particular attention is given to linguistic usage and the use of propaganda during the Cold War.

Jaana Kaiste, PhD in German, Uppsala University. The title of her project is “Receptionen av bröderna Grimms sagor i Sverige” ("The Reception of Grimm’s Fairy Tales in Sweden"). In Germany, the project will be carried out at the Skandinavisches Seminar of the University of Göttingen and at the Akademie der Wissenschaften/Arbeitsstelle Enzyklopädie des Märchens, Göttingen.

Erik Zillén is a literary scholar at Lund University, working on a genre-historical research project dealing with Aesop’s fables in Sweden and Europe in the 17th and 18th Centuries. He will be a guest researcher at the Bavarian State Library and LMU Munich, with the Institut für Nordische Philologie functioning as the host institution.

Furthermore, in collaboration with VolkswagenStiftung, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond has supported exchanges between Sweden and Germany. When VolkswagenStiftung established the Ernst Cassirer Visiting Professorship, with accompanying post-doctoral research posts, RJ decided to establish an equivalent visiting professorship in the name of Dag Hammarskjöld at the Department for Northern European Studies of the Humboldt University of Berlin. Later, when RJ decided to finance the visiting professorship for an additional two years, VolkswagenStiftung decided to finance at least one post-doctoral post during the same period (2006/2007 and 2007/2008).

These scholarships have been granted according to the same preparatory process as the visiting professorship, in other words through the Department for Northern European Studies, thereby making them the equivalent of the visiting professorship and the accompanying post-doctoral post financed by the VolkswagenStiftung, situated at SCAS (The Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences) in Uppsala. At the Department for Northern

European Studies, it has been decided to grant two post-doctoral scholarships to:

Kjetil Duvold


Carsten Schymik

Updated 15 September 2008.