KTH Royal Institute of Technology


KTH Royal Institute of Technology, abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education within engineering and technology, and is Sweden's largest technical university. Currently, KTH consists of five schools with five campuses in and around Stockholm.
KTH was established in 1827 as Teknologiska Institutet, and had its roots in the Mekaniska skolan that was established in 1798 in Stockholm. But the origin of KTH dates back to the predecessor to Mekaniska skolan, the Laboratorium Mechanicum,'' which was established in 1697 by Swedish scientist and innovator Christopher Polhem. Laboratorium Mechanicum combined education technology, a laboratory and an exhibition space for innovations. In 1877 KTH received its current name, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan. The King of Sweden Carl XVI Gustaf is the High Protector of KTH.
KTH is the highest ranked technical university in Sweden. It is ranked top 100 in the world among all universities in the 2020 QS World University Rankings. In the 2020 QS World University Rankings by General Subject KTH ranked 30 within engineering and technology. In the equivalent Specific Subject ranking KTH placed top 30 in Architecture and Built Environment, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. In the Times Higher Education World University Impact Rankings 2019 KTH ranked as number 7 among universities globally.

History

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. 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 was founded in 1798. In 1827 the School of Mechanics was transformed into the Technological Institute, 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 to College, 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 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. 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, 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.

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 reactor, named Reaktor 1, 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.
At 18:59 on 13 July 1954, the reactor reached critical mass 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.

Schools

Since 2018 KTH is organized into five schools. Each of the schools are heading a number of departments, centres of excellence and undergraduate study programmes.

Campuses

KTH Campus

KTH Campus is the main campus of KTH located in the area of Östermalm. The mail buildings by architect Erik Lallerstedt, were completed in 1917. The bells of the clock-tower were completed ten years later in 1927 at the 10 year anniversary of the transformation of the School of Mechanics to the Technological Institute. The buildings and surroundings were decorated by prominent early 20th-century Swedish artists such as Carl Milles, Axel Törneman, Georg Pauli, Tore Strindberg and Ivar Johnsson. The older buildings on the campus were renovated heavily in 1994. While the original campus was large at the time of construction, KTH very soon outgrew it, and the campus has since been expanded with new buildings. KTH Campus is still the base for most of the university's operations.

KTH Kista

In the 1980s the predecessor to the current School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science located some of their operations to a campus in Kista, Stockholm. Kista is situated north of central Stockholm and is Sweden's largest corporate center and one of the most important ICT clusters in the world. The area is home to over a thousand companies in the ICT sector, for example Ericsson, Volvo, IBM, Tele2, TietoEnator, Microsoft, Intel and Oracle. This enables easier exchange of ideas for students and faculty members with industry experts and technologies are exchanged efficiently.

KTH Flemingsberg

Since 2002 the current School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology and Health has had a part of its activities in Flemingsberg, Stockholm. Flemingsberg is an area of high academic density and one of northern Europe's most important areas for biotechnology, both in terms of research and industrial activities. Södertörn University and the Karolinska Institute also conducts education and research in Flemingsberg, often in collaboration with KTH.

KTH Södertälje

KTH Södertälje is the southernmost and smallest KTH campus, located in the city of Södertälje. Education at KTH Södertälje is constantly developed via a close co-operation with the town's business community and in particular major Södertälje companies such as Scania and AstraZeneca. KTH offers both bachelor's and master's level courses on the campus, mainly focused on mechanical engineering, logistics, production and product development.

Notable alumni

Many prominent former students have attended KTH, including;
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:
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 :sv:KTH:s stora pris|KTH:s stora pris.

Internationalization

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!. 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.