AFSR, the French-Swedish Association for Research, is proud to present the four recipients of the association’s fellowships for the academic year of 2025-26. The key objectives of AFSR’s fellowships continue to be the promotion of academic excellence in targeted academic fields, and to 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 2025/26 fellowships, all of whom can be expected to excellently contribute to the realization of AFSR’s fellowship objectives, are:

• Professor Johan Tralau, Department of Government, Uppsala University
• Professor Sophie Tarbouriech, Directeur de Recherche, CNRS, Toulouse
• Professor Aurélie Van Hoye, Faculté des Sciences du Sport, Université de Lorraine
• Dr. Charles Cassius, Institut de Recherche Saint-Louis, Université Paris Cité

Below follows the laureates own presentations of their award-winning projects.

Johan Tralau, Uppsala University

Johan Tralau is Professor of Government at Uppsala University. At the CEPAM (Cultures – Environnements. Préhistoire, Antiquité, Moyen Âge) laboratory, Université Côte d’Azur, he will be working with Arnaud Zucker, Professor of Greek language and literature.

The Origin of Time in Hesiod’s Theogony

The Greek poet Hesiod (8th or 7th century BC) tells us that in the beginning, the god Uranos ruled the universe until his son Kronos emasculated his father with a sickle and threw away the genitals. This looks like a primitive, violent, filthy myth. Indeed, Plato said that it ought to be prohibited. Yet in this project, it is argued that the tale is actually an astonishing answer to a philosophical question: When did time begin? Moreover, Hesiod provides an account of how justice was introduced in the cosmos. This may sound strange – why would anyone want to answer the abstract question ‘when did time and justice originate’ by reference to a gory, primeval act of violence against a father? Yet the myth told by Hesiod arguably harbours an important reflection on time, justice and punishment. Furthermore, the project explores foreshadowings of the myth in Bronze Age Mesopotamian and Anatolian texts, and makes the case that similar ideas can be excavated from even older sources that are relevant to the context of ancient Greece and beyond.

Sophie Tarbouriech, LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse

Two powerful ways of combining control theory and machine learning

The project aims to combine control theory and machine learning in two powerful ways: (a) Leverage dynamical systems and control theory to decode the inner workings of learning algorithms. This means digging into convergence, initialization, and hyperparameter selection to craft smarter, faster algorithms; (b) Flip the script and use machine learning to bolster dynamical systems analysis and control. Then, the goal is to develop cutting-edge theoretical and numerical tools to: (i) Transform NN algorithms: Harness control theoretic tools like robust regulation theory and anti-windup techniques to enforce desired closed-loop properties that base algorithms can't achieve alone; (ii) Streamline NN evaluation: Cut computational costs and boost efficiency. The key strategies will consist in exploring and exploiting isolated nonlinearities, Lyapunov stability, contraction, as well as hybrid techniques. The research will be conducted at KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, and more specifically, within the division of Decision and Control Systems.

Aurélie Van Hoye, Université de Lorraine

Promoting physical activity and health in sports clubs

The principal objectives of the project are:

1. To analyse national to local policies supporting health promotion in Swedish sports clubs and compare with previously collected French and Irish results
2. To disseminate and discuss the results with RF-SISU in Örebro and its associated sports clubs, as well as on the healthpromotingsportsclub.com website
3. To prepare the application of a European COST action to foster groundwork of the ‘Promoting Physical Activity and Health in Sports Clubs’ of the Health Enhancing Physical Activity Network

These projects will be carried out in close cooperation with the ReSHAPE research unit at Örebro University, RF-SISU Örebro, as well as the department of Food and Nutrition and Sport Science of the University of Gothenburg.

Aurélie Van Hoye has been previously awarded by a Marie Curie Fellowship at University of Limerick and is coordinating the Health Promoting Sports Clubs project in France, in collaboration with the French Ministry of Sport, the French Public Health Agency, Université Côte d’Azur and Université de Lorraine.

Charles Cassius, Université Paris Cité

Improved understanding of the causes of HS

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a painful and often misunderstood skin disease that causes recurring lumps and abscesses, mainly in skin folds. It can have a serious impact on quality of life, and treatment options remain limited. This postdoctoral project, based at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, aims to better understand what causes HS at the cellular and molecular level. The focus is on a biological pathway called Wnt/β-catenin, which helps control skin repair and inflammation. Using state-of-the-art techniques, including single-cell analysis and experiments on cells taken from patients, the research will explore how this pathway is disrupted in HS and how it interacts with the skin’s microbiome. The goal is to uncover new insights that could lead to better, more personalized treatments for patients - especially those with severe or treatment-resistant forms of the disease.