Materials
26 March 2026
Uppsala, Sweden
Uppsala University
The history of AIMday
It started back in 2008
A simple but ingenious idea – to let companies and organisations themselves formulate the challenges they want to discuss with academic researchers – underpins the innovative concept of AIMday. The idea originated and developed at Uppsala University in 2008.
Materials science was the starting point
It began in the field of materials science and within the Ångström Materials Academy (ÅMA) platform, a prominent research area at Uppsala University. The question was how academic expertise could be made available to industry in a more efficient way. The answer was AIMday and the success was immediate. The companies were delighted with the feedback they received on their concrete challenges and the academic researchers gained valuable insights into the actual challenges that industry is grappling with. In addition, ideas arose for continued research and collaborative projects of various kinds.
Interdisciplinary approach
AIMday today is an interdisciplinary approach and has broadened over the years to include all fields of academia. By now, themes in a diversity of areas have engaged both external organisations and academic researchers; some examples include cancer, diabetes, diagnostics, and welfare and ageing. AIMday works in all thematic areas.
2013 – AIMday expands
Since 2013, Uppsala University has offered other universities, both nationally and internationally, the opportunity to use AIMday in their operations as a tool for collaboration.
We are happy and proud that AIMday is now used at leading universities around the world. The first university outside Scandinavia to be given the opportunity to organise an AIMday was Edinburgh University. The year was 2014 and it was the starting point of an international expansion. In 2016, AIMday premiered in South America, more specifically in Belo Horizonte in Brazil. It was also then that Oxford University organised its first AIMday event. A year later, it was time for the premiere in North America when AIMday debuted at Saskatchewan University in Canada. Here you can see all the universities that have held AIMday events over the years.
See all the universities that have organised AIMday events
On each occasion, just as now, Uppsala University has provided full support to make the concept readily available and help with implementation.
AIMday – a trademark of Uppsala University
AIMday has become an established tool for collaboration at universities around Sweden and the world. Uppsala University has chosen to protect AIMday, which is now a registered trademark of Uppsala University. The trademark is a guarantee of quality, which benefits all users of the concept.
To organise AIMday events, you need to contact us, sign a cooperation agreement and pay a fixed fee for two years – in return, you get access to both the concept and a toolbox that facilitates implementation.
Read more about how you can become an AIMday partner
Upcoming events
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Umeå, Sweden
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