Recipients of AFSR’s senior fellowships for 2024/25
AFSR, the French-Swedish Association for Research, is proud to present the four recipients of the association’s senior fellowships for the academic year of 2024-25. Key objectives of AFSR’s fellowships are to promote academic excellence in targeted academic fields and, at the same time, enhance research collaboration between Sweden and France. The fellowships are intended to serve as a bridge to encourage joint research initiatives, partnerships, and the exchange of ideas and expertise between researchers from both countries.
The recipients of AFSR’s 2024/25 fellowships, all of whom can be expected to excellently contribute to the realization of the above-mentioned objectives, are:
- Professor Sylvie Requemora, professor of 17th century French Literature at Aix-Marseille Université
- Irènè Gallais Sérézal, Department of Dermatology at Centre Hospitalier Régional et Universitaire de Besançon
- Eric Mutabazi, Faculty of Education, Université catholique de l'Ouest (UCO), Angers
- Henrik Edgren, Department of Education, Uppsala University
Let’s take a closer look at the four awardees and their projects:
Sylvie Requemora
Professor Requemora has been awarded 15,000 Euros for the realization of a three-part project with the following components:
- Development of the project TRAVEL (“Terre en Récits, Arts de Voyager, EcoLittérature“) as a basis of an ERC synergy application
- To follow up on previous research on Regnard’s travels to Sweden and Sápmi
- To study the travel writing of Eric Von Roland (late 17th century) in view of publishing a critical analysis of his texts in France
The three sub-projects will be carried out in close co-operation with colleagues at the Department of Modern Languages, Uppsala University and at the Department of Romance Studies and Classics at Stockholm University.
Professor Requemora gives the following presentation of herself and the research that the fellowship helps to finance:
“Professor of 17th century French Literature at Aix-Marseille Univ., I lead the Center for Travel Literature Research (https://www.crlv.org/) and am a member of the IUF (Institut Universitaire de France). Expert in Early Modern travel writing, I am developing the project “TRAVEL (Terre en Récits, Arts de Voyager, EcoLittérature –Narratives of Earth, Travel Theory and Ecopoetics)”, asking in what ways the environmental gaze contributes to the genesis and poetics of travelogues.
AFSR’s fellowship allows me to collaborate with Professor Christina Kullberg at the Department of Modern Languages and colleagues at the History of Ideas Department and their "Collecting Natural History" series at Uppsala University, and with Professor Hans Färnlöf at Stockholm University”.
Irène Gallais Sérézal
Dr. Irène Gallais Sérézal has been awarded 10,000 Euros for the project “Fatty acids: new regulators of immune memory in the injured skin”.
The project will be caried out in close collaboration with the dermatology research department at the Center for Molecular Medicine at Karolinska Institutet in Solna, Sweden under the supervision of Dr. Ning Xu Landén.
Dr. Gallais Sérézal gives the following brief description of her project:
”Humans suffer from a number of skin diseases that relapse regularly on given skin areas, such as psoriasis or eczema. In psoriasis, immune memory cells can stay in the skin event under periods of time where the skin appears normalized, and are suspected to drive the disease comebacks.
A promising therapeutic perspective is to displace or deplete these cells, and replace them with less inflammatory ones. As the skin lipids can affect the behavior of these cells, we will explore whether certain fatty acids can change how new immune cells colonize the skin.”
Eric Mutabazi
Dr. Eric Mutabazi has been awarded 10,000 Euros for the project: “Citizenship education and the challenge of cultural diversity for pupils in France and Sweden”.
The project will be caried out at the Department of Education at Uppsala University.
Dr. Mutabazi summarizes his project as follows:
” Phenomena such as war, poverty, and global warming have led many of the world's peoples to immigrate. France and Sweden are among the European countries that welcome large numbers of immigrants. However, each country tries to integrate them in line with its own political, social, and educational system.
In contrast to the French model, which disregards cultural backgrounds, the Swedish model favours taking diversity into account, particularly in the teaching methods used. Taking communities of origin into account plays an important role in teaching. The aim of this research project is to investigate pedagogical practices for citizenship education in Sweden.”
Henrik Edgren
Dr. Henrik Edgren has been awarded 10,000 Euros for the realization of the project: “Christianity and Citizenship training in Swedish and French upper secondary education”.
The research related to the project will be carried out at the Faculty of Education at Université catholique de l’Ouest (UCO) in Angers, France.
Dr. Edgren gives the following brief presentation of his project:
” The strong impact of secular ideas has for a long time affected how religion is taught in Swedish and French schools. In Sweden Religious Education is mandatory, but non-denominational. France has its own constitutionally protected concept, “laïcité”, that stipulates how religion should not have any influence on matters of the state, such as teaching in the schools.
The aim of this research project is to – through curricula, school textbooks, class room observations and teacher interviews – investigate how Christianity, the dominating religion in Sweden and France, affects teaching in religious and citizenship education in Swedish and French upper secondary schools.”