The Uppsala University subproject within the larger Norface project Healthdox, led by professor Ellen Immergut, concerns mainly developments within the Swedish health care system in the years 1989-2015. The Project employs two researchers att Uppsala University, Paula Blomqvist, Department och Government, and Ulrika Winblad, Department of Public Health and the Caring Sciences. The main aim of the project is to describe and analyze reforms within Swedish health care during the period, focusing in particular on the effects of the reforms with regards to cost developments, equality within the system and the role of patients. The main output of this short subproject will be a book chapter.

The origin of the eukaryotic cell represents one of the most contentious puzzles in biology. Current evidence points to a scenario in which eukaryotes evolved via a cellular fusion of an archaeal host cell and a bacterial endosymbiont. In a series of text-book changing studies, my group has identified the Asgard archaea as the closest known relatives of the archaeal host cell from which eukaryotes evolved. We showed that Asgard archaeal genomes encode a variety of genes previously assumed to be eukaryote-specific. Many of these genes encode for components implicated in membrane biological processes underlying the complex and compartmentalized features of eukaryotic cells. Intriguingly, these findings opened up the possibility that Asgard archaea share certain complex cell biological traits with eukaryotes. Obtaining cultured representatives of Asgard archaeal lineages is ultimately needed to study their cellular and physiological properties. In the present research proposal, I will set up and employ innovative methods to isolate, cultivate and image Asgard archaeal cells, and elucidate important details about their cell biology, ecology and lifestyle. To do so, I will first determine permissive growth conditions and community interactions of Asgard archaeal lineages using recently developed methods relying on bio-orthogonal and stable isotope substrates. Next, I will employ inventive cell capturing methods and high-throughput culturomics approaches to enrich and culture Asgard archaeal cells or populations in micro-well plates and picodroplets under controlled conditions. Finally, isolated or cultured cell populations will be subjected to high-resolution cryo-ET and XL-MS techniques to obtain ultrastructural data of Asgard archaeal cells and protein complexes. In elucidating key-properties of Asgard archaeal cell biology and physiology, the current study will reveal new key-pieces of the elusive eukaryogenesis puzzle.

This project will reconceptualise welfare theory through responding to the question of how all residents living in two contrasting superdiverse neighbourhoods access healthcare. Such a focus is pertinent given increasing population complexity, heterogeneity and pace of change under globalisation, and the subsequent need to rethink welfare design, alongside issues of engagement, approachability and effectiveness. Using innovative techniques including street- mapping, community research, a mobile phone "app" alongside a neighbourhood survey, we explore the multiple approaches that residents living in superdiverse neighbourhoods use to meet their health needs, encompassing the perspectives of service users and providers. We will generate new theoretical and practical insights through the development of models of welfare bricolage: the practice by which individuals combine formal, informal and virtual (online, social media) health services across public, private and third sectors in an attempt to meet need. We use a comparative/sequential approach to interrogate local welfare states across a deprived and an upwardly mobile superdiverse neighbourhood in Sweden and compare this with three other national welfare states (UK, Portugal, Germany) each with different welfare, health and migration regimes. By focussing on key features of superdiverse neighbourhoods where residents are differentiated according to faith, income (including socio-economic status), age, gender and legal status, we bring new insights with societal, practical and policy relevance. The study will illuminate inequalities and diversity in respect of individuals? relationship with healthcare, different modes of provision, and responsibilities for welfare allocation.

The impact of childhood circumstances on outcomes in adulthood has been widely studied in the literature. Although much is known about the relationships between parental background and children’s performance at certain stages of their adulthood, little has been done to analyse how childhood circumstances influence educational and labour market outcomes of individuals over the entire life-course and under certain institutional designs and policies. Rather than focusing on a specific stage of adulthood as most studies do, this project aims to employ a life-course perspective and analyse (1) how circumstances in childhood affect influential decisions which mark individuals’ transition to adulthood (educational and occupational choices, family formation etc.), and (2) how these decisions translate into social and economic outcomes (e.g. labour market performance, well-being, (early) retirement decisions) at later stages in life. We will simultaneously address these questions from intergenerational mobility and equality of opportunity perspectives with the involvement of cross-country comparisons, in order to identify causal mechanisms via which social and economic advantages are transmitted from one generation to another, reproducing and reinforcing inequalities in the society. The international team of researchers from France, Germany, Luxembourg, Sweden, and the US will be working in close co-operation to build extensive knowledge on the topic and equip policy-makers with potential options for policy interventions. The results of the project will be summarized in several PhD dissertations, published in academic and non-academic outlets, and disseminated via presentations at relevant events.

One of the many exceptional aspects of the global financial crisis of 2008 was the prominence policy-makers and commentators gave to the importance of history in helping to determine responses to the crisis. Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve System famously reached for his copy of Friedman and Schwartzs seminal volume on the 1930s depression to seek inspiration (Friedman and Schwartz, 1963). Comparisons with the great depression of the 1930s feature prominently in commentaries on the depth and spread of the global financial crisis and reveal the extent to which policy-makers seek to learn from the past (Calomiris and Haber 2014; Eichengreen 2015). But how relevant is the past as a guide to the present, or even the future, and how is it used when policymakers, bankers and the public are faced with difficult economic challenges? There is a growing literature on how the construction of heritage and nostalgia have been used to serve particular social and political interests (Waterton and Watson, 2015) but most economic historians seek lessons from history rather than examining how the past is constructed and used. Rather than following this path, UPIER will take an original approach by using archival evidence to focus on how and when participants in markets (bankers, policymakers, investors, regulators) actually construct an idea of the past and how they use that construction to guide their reactions to the challenges they face.