KTH Royal Institute of Technology

KTH's earliest Swedish predecessor was the Laboratorium Mechanicum, a collection of mechanical models for teaching created in 1697 by Christopher Polhem. Polhem is considered to be the father of mechanics in Sweden. He founded the laboratorium as a school and research facility in the engineering field of mechanics after his extensive trips, studies and research abroad.[6] The mechanical models that formed the basis of the education were used intermittently for teaching practical mechanics by different masters until the School of Mechanics (Mekaniska skolan) was founded in 1798. In 1827 the School of Mechanics was transformed into the Technological Institute (Teknologiska institutet), following the establishment of polytechnical schools in many European countries the early years of the 19th century, often based on the model of École polytechnique in Paris.

The institute had one professor in chemistry and one in physics, and one class in mechanical engineering and one in chemical engineering. During the first years, however, teaching was at a very elementary level, and more aimed at craftsmanship rather than engineering as such. The institute was also plagued by conflicts between the faculty and the founder and head of the institute, Gustaf Magnus Schwartz, who was responsible for the artisanal focus of the institute. A government committee was appointed in 1844 to solve the issues, which led to removing Schwartz in 1845. Instead, Joachim Åkerman, the head of the School of Mining in Falun and a former professor of chemistry at KTH, took over. He led a full reorganisation of the institute in 1846–1848, after which he returned to his post in Falun. An entrance test and a minimum age of 16 for students was introduced, which led to creating proper engineering training at the institute. In 1851, the engineering program was extended from two years to three.

In the late 1850s, the institute entered a time of expansion. In 1863, it received its own purpose-built buildings on Drottninggatan. In 1867, its regulations were again overhauled, to state explicitly that the institute should provide scientific training to its students. In 1869, the School of Mining in Falun was moved to Stockholm and merged with the institute. In 1871, the institute took over the civil engineering course formerly arranged by the Higher Artillery College in Marieberg.

In 1877, the name was changed into the current one, which changed KTH's status from Institute (institut) to College (högskola), and some courses were extended from three years to four. Architecture was also added to the curriculum.

In 1915, the degree titles conferred by KTH received legal protection. In the late 19th century, it had become common to use the title civilingenjör (literally "civil engineer") for most KTH-trained engineers, and not just those who studied building and construction-related subjects. The only exception was the mining engineers, which called themselves bergsingenjör ("mountain engineer"). For a while, the title civilingenjör was equal to "KTH graduate" but in 1937, Chalmers in Gothenburg became the second Swedish engineering college which were allowed to confirm these titles.

In 1917, the first buildings of KTH's new campus on Valhallavägen were completed, and still constitute its main campus.

Although the engineering education of the late 19th and early 20th century were scientifically founded, up until the early 20th century, research as such was not seen as a central activity of an Institute of Technology. Those engineering graduates which went on to academic research had to earn their doctorates, typically in physics or chemistry, at a regular university. In 1927, KTH was finally granted the right to confer its own doctorates, under the designation Teknologie doktor (Doctor of Technology), and the first five doctors were created in 1929.

In 1984, the civilingenjör programs at all Swedish universities were extended from four years to 4.5. From 1989, the shorter programs in technology arranged by the municipal polytechnical schools in Sweden was gradually extended and moved into the university system, from 1989 as two-year programs and from 1995 alternatively as three-year programs. For KTH, this meant that additional campuses around the Stockholm area were added.

In the present-day, KTH provides one-third of Sweden's research and engineering education. In 2019, there were a total of 13,500 undergraduate students, 1,700 doctoral students, and 3,600 staff members at the university.[7]

R1 nuclear reactor

Main article: R1 nuclear reactor

The R1 nuclear reactor.

After the American deployment of nuclear weapons at the end of World War II, the Swedish military leadership recognized the need for nuclear weapons to be thoroughly investigated and researched to provide Sweden with the knowledge to defend itself from a nuclear attack. With the mission to "make something with neutrons", the Swedish team, with scientists like Rolf Maximilian Sievert, set out to research the subject and eventually build a nuclear reactor for testing.

After a few years of basic research, they started building a 300 kW (later expanded to 1 MW) reactor, named Reaktor 1 (R1), in a reactor hall 25 meters under the surface right underneath KTH. Today this might seem ill-considered, since approximately 40,000 people lived within a 1 km radius. It was risky, but was deemed tolerable since the reactor was an important research tool for scientists at the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien).

At 18:59 on 13 July 1954, the reactor achieved criticality and sustained Sweden's first nuclear reaction. R1 was to be the main site for almost all Swedish nuclear research until 1970 when the reactor was finally decommissioned, mostly due to the increased awareness of the risks associated with operating a reactor in a densely populated area of Stockholm.

KTH is organized into five schools individually responsible for education and research activities. Each of the schools head a number of departments, centres of excellence, and study programmes. The schools are:[8]

• School of Architecture and the Built Environment
• School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• School of Engineering Sciences
• School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology and Health
• School of Industrial Engineering and Management

The library at the Royal Institute of Technology ("Kungliga Tekniska högskolans bibliotek", KTHB) is Sweden's largest library for technology and basic sciences. The foundation for the library was laid in 1827, when KTH was founded in Stockholm. The main library is located on KTH's main campus in central Stockholm. The KTH library is a central academic meeting place at KTH, and an arena for collaboration. The library also has two branch libraries, in Kista and Södertälje.[17]

KTH Library supports the academic and digital skills of students and researchers. The library promotes open access publishing and provides the university with analyses that support and make it easier to make strategic decisions. One of the goals is to increase the awareness of KTH's research. The library's main purpose is to strengthen the quality of education and research.

The title was överdirektor first, then föreståndare and from the beginning of the 20th century rektor.

Many prominent former students have attended KTH, including;

• Immanuel Nobel, inventor and industrialist
• Salomon August Andrée, Arctic explorer
• Gustaf Larson, co-founder of Volvo
• Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Skype
• Ernst Alexanderson, inventor
• Joe Armstrong, creator of the programming language Erlang
• Kurt Atterberg, composer (graduated 1911)
• Peter Arvai, CEO and co-founder of Prezi, graduated 2006
• Karl-Birger Blomdahl, composer
• Samir Brikho, chief executive of AMEC
• Georg Theodor von Chiewitz, architect
• Magnus Egerstedt, professor at Georgia Institute of Technology
• Daniel Ek, entrepreneur and technologist who started Spotify (did not graduate)
• Börje Ekholm, previously CEO of Investor AB and after that CEO of Ericsson AB
• Carl Daniel Ekman, pioneer in producing wood pulp for paper
• Erik Engstrom, chief executive of Reed Elsevier
• Knut Frænkel, Arctic explorer
• Christer Fuglesang, ESA astronaut, first Swedish citizen in space, physicist
• Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and CEO of Databricks
• Ivar Jacobson, inventor of sequence diagrams, and Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• Ivar Kreuger, industrialist
• Almida de Val, Olympian
• Peter Lindgren, former guitarist of Opeth
• Fredrik Ljungström, inventor, KTH Great Prize recipient
• Emma Lundberg, cell biologist, professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology
• Dolph Lundgren, actor
• Carl Munters, inventor
• Halldóra Briem, architect
• Helge Palmcrantz, inventor
• Maja Reichard, Paralympian
• Tinga Seisay, diplomat
• Claudia Olsson, founder and CEO of Stellar Capacity
• Max Tegmark, full professor of cosmology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Baltzar von Platen, inventor
• Gunnar Widforss, Swedish-American artist
• Greta Woxén (née Westberg) Sweden's first female civil engineer when she graduated in 1928.[22]
• Karl Johan Åström, control engineer, IEEE Medal of Honor recipient (1993)

• Hannes Alfvén, Nobel Prize laureate and plasma physicist (1908–1995)
• Kai Siegbahn, Nobel Prize laureate and physicist (1918–2007)
• Lennart Carleson, Abel Prize laureate
• Stanislav Smirnov, Fields Medal winner
• Sven Ove Hansson
• Johan Håstad, two-time Gödel Prize winner
• Carl-Gunne Fälthammar, plasma physicist
• Arne Kaijser
• Ari Laptev, professor of mathematics at KTH and chair in pure mathematics at Imperial College London, president of the European Mathematical Society
• Peter Pohl, author and university lecturer in numerical analysis, joint recipient of the 1992 August Prize (Augustpriset)
• Subra Suresh, former guest professor, director of the National Science Foundation, professor of engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Waloddi Weibull

KTH Great Prize is a prize annually awarded by KTH. The distributed amount was SEK 1,200,000 in 2019.

The prize is awarded to:

• A person who invented significant innovative applications of scientific knowledge in practical areas,
• A person who, through scientific research, found particularly valuable principles or methods useful for applications
• A person who, through artistic efforts, has exercised a powerful influence on the soul and life of people.

The recipient of the award must also be a Swedish citizen. Usually, the prize is awarded to a single prize winner, but it has happened that two or three prize winners have shared the prize. The list of recipients is at KTH:s stora pris.

KTH has been awarded the title "European University" by the European Commission. Together with 6 other European technical universities, KTH has formed the alliance UNITE! (University Network for Innovation, Technology and Engineering). The aim of the network is to create a trans-European campus, to introduce trans-European curricula, to promote scientific cooperation between the members and to strengthen knowledge transfer between the countries. The alliance includes the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Aalto University, KTH, the Polytechnic University of Turin, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the University of Lisbon.[23]

• List of universities in Sweden
• List of forestry universities and colleges
• ESDP-Network
• Top Industrial Managers for Europe

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kungliga Tekniska högskolan.

• Official website
• KTH Royal Institute of Technology - Obama saw future fuel cell from EE

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