VINNMER Fellows at Innventia: Catherine Östlund, Astrid Odeberg Glasenapp and Ewa Lie. 

Women researchers are emerging

“I got the full grant that I applied for and can now realise my plan,” relates Astrid. “It’s great! I’m going to be half time at the Stockholm School of Economics for three years to carry out a project called Strategies for the globalized fibre-based packaging industry of tomorrow. It’s an interdisciplinary project between the fields of technology and economics. Part of it also includes me studying for a Global MBA at the School.”

Astrid believes that customers and colleagues will be able to benefit a lot from her newly acquired knowledge.

”At Innventia, I work with business development in the field of corrugated board, among other things. With the aid of this Programme, I’m hoping to obtain a better insight into customers’ perspectives and an understanding of the effects of globalisation on the area.”

Through the VINNMER Project, Ewa Lie, who works with paper chemistry at Innventia, will have the opportunity of gaining knowledge in a new field. She is going to study the breaking down of sludge at sewage treatment works for extracting biogas.

“As of this autumn, when I’m not at Innventia, I’m going to be studying molecular biology techniques at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), which is microbiology on a DNA level, as it were.”

Ewa is certain that her work at the SLU will give Innventia increased possibilities of becoming part of new assignments in the field of water purification.

“People at municipal sewage treatment works posses a great deal of knowledge that can be passed on to the forest industry.”

One person, who is already well on her way, is Catherine Östlund at Innventia. Last year, she received financing from the VINNMER Programme to immerse herself in researching methods for image analysis in paper process technology applications for three years. Since the beginning of 2009, she has divided her time between Innventia, where she works as a researcher on paper technology and the Centre for Image Analysis at the Uppsala University/SLU.

“This is naturally very rewarding for me and for Innventia, since, in this way, I have time to discover new methods for image analysis and the opportunity to develop them. Nevertheless, it’s a bit stressful dividing one’s time between institutions but, at the same time, it’s really quite enjoyable.”

The aim of the programme at VINNOVA is to give women, who have successfully defended their doctorate thesis, career opportunities in an otherwise male dominated field and, consequently, Catherine is able to see how the financing gives her advantages.

“I have certainly been given the chance to put a spotlight on both myself and the important role that image analysis can play in our work with process development, which, together with our customers, can give rise to interesting concepts for projects that focus on image analysis.”

Av Anders Hansson 09 Nov 2010 14:58