Societal impact
How MultiPark research creates value for society
Our research is of high societal relevance. Living with a progressive neurodegenerative disease has detrimental effects for the individual and next of kins, including inducing major societal challenges. Moreover, major neurocognitive disorders (“dementia”) are considered a global health challenge and priority.
Our goal is to early detect those at risk of developing a neurodegenerative disease (such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s), and to improve the person’s everyday life and well-being.
Route to impact
MultiPark employs a variety of strategies to reach impact.
We work to raise awareness and exchange knowledge with patients, the general public, and the research community through various channels and occasions.
Learn more about our outreaching activities here.
Through social media channels such as LinkedIn and Facebook, we raise awareness of the most common neurodegenerative disorders by sharing our latest discoveries. In addition, we regularly run campaigns during various thematic awareness periods, publishing series of visual content that make our knowledge easy to grasp for targeted audiences.
Our LinkedIn page is primarily intended for an educated audience and the research community. Follow us on LinkedIn here.
Our Facebook page is in Swedish and mainly intended for the general public and patients. Follow us on Facebook here.
To achieve close exchange with different patient groups relevant to our research, we collaborate with patient organizations at the international, national, regional, and local levels.
Some examples:
- The Swedish Parkinson’s Association (Svenska Parkinsonförbundet)
- Parkinson Skåne (Regionally)
- The Swedish Dementia Association (Demensförbundet)
- The National Association for Huntington's disease (Riksförbundet för Huntingtons sjukdom)
- The international Alzheimer Association
- World Parkinson Coalition
MultiPark has a strong collaboration with the health care system. Several of our clinical and health science researchers have a joint position (LU/Skane University Hospital), including leadership assignments.
At the Skåne University Hospital, we have strong collaborations with the following units:
- Memory
- Neurology
- Neuroradiology
- Neurosurgery
- The Huntington Centre.
Collaborations for multi-center studies involve additional national and international hospitals.
To impact for example clinical guidelines, MultiPark researchers regularly collaborate with national and international authorities.
Examples include:
- The Swedish Medical Product Agency (Läkemedelsverket)
- The National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen)
- The World Health Organization (WHO)
MultiPark encourages and supports our researchers to collaborate with industrial partners and to take on roles such as consultants. We have well-established relationships with LU Innovation and LU Venture Holding, and regularly organize innovation-focused seminars and lectures.
Read more about MultiPark Innovation here.
Our unique investment into critical, technologically advanced preclinical and clinical infrastructures allows our researchers to more effectively understand the neurodegenerative diseases that they study.
Discover opportunities to use our infrastructures here.
We promote strong collaborations with relevant partners at LU to mutually support important projects and infrastructures, and to pursue interdisciplinary research directions.
Some of our closest partners in different initiatives are:
- Other Strategic Research Areas: Stem Therapy; ESSENCE; Nano-Lund; EXODIAB,
- Wallenberg Centre for Molecular Medicine (WCMM),
- Profile areas: Natural and artificial cognition (NAC); Light and materials, NanoScience and Semiconductor Technology; Proactive ageing.
- Infrastructure providers: Centre for Translational Genomics, ATMP Center; Max IV, Pre-GMP facility, Lund Bioimaging Centre, and SciLifeLab-related infrastructures.
MultiPark has close collaborations with professional and research organizations at national and international levels.
Some examples :
- The Swedish Movement Disorder Society (SWEMODIS)
- The Scandinavian Movement Disorder Society (ScandMODIS)
- Swedish Brain Foundation
- PSG (North American Parkinson Study Group)
- UK-PD CSG (UK Parkinson Clinical Study Group)
- Kompetenznetz-Parkinson (Germany)
- US Parkinson Study Group
- European Academy of Neurology
- European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS)
- European Brain Health Partnership
- EBRAINS
- International Basal Ganglia Society (IBAGS)
- International Society for Stem cell Research
- Gforce-PD
- NECTAR
- Swedish Basal Ganglia Society (SWEBAGS)
We encourage our researchers to take on roles in the executive and advisory boards of these and other relevant research organisations.
Outputs and impact
Our work continuously results in concrete outputs and outcomes that impact healthcare and people living with neurodegenerative disorders.
MultiPark researchers and their research findings have impacted on clinical guidelines to improve care and rehabilitation, both nationally and internationally. Several of our researchers are also involved in evaluating the uptake of guideline recommendations.
Read more about our contributions to clinical guidelines here.
MultiPark researchers and their research findings have impacted international recommendations for diagnostics, prognostics and treatments.
Read about concrete examples of our contributions here.
One of MultiPark’s missions is to transform scientific discoveries into innovations that benefit patients and society. Reflecting the Swedish Government’s intention to promote Innovation as the third mission of universities alongside research and education, Multipark Innovation continuously support promising projects with commercial potential.
Since 2011, our innovation support has resulted in:
- Commercialized discoveries
- Filed patents
- Established companies
- Development proprietary algorithms
Read more about MultiPark’s innovation outcomes here.