This year’s award goes to Louise Linderoth, a fashion designer who challenges norms and creates a more inclusive fashion industry, and Daniel Forsman, a city librarian who has redefined the role of libraries and is now preparing to take on the position of National Archivist.

What if a flat piece of fabric could suddenly bloom into a sculptural form? At the Swedish School of Textiles, Kathryn Walters has turned this idea into reality, developing woven textiles that transform themselves—shifting, twisting, and expanding into three-dimensional shapes.

A new research project at the Swedish School of Textiles and the University of Gothenburg, funded by the Swedish Research Council, will investigate how generative design tools affect fashion's expression, norms, and role in society. Through artistic examples and theoretical discussions, the researchers want to reshape the view of fashion as an artistic practice – and contribute to the future education and research.

Can textiles that touch the skin relieve long-term pain? This is the core question of the large interdisciplinary research project Touch away the pain, where the University of Borås is one of the central actors. The project, which will run for six years, is part of the Swedish Research Council's investment in interdisciplinary research environments.

Four doctoral students are now working hard towards a common goal: to create and design textiles based on local bio-based raw materials. Their project is financed by Sparbanken Sjuhärad through its owner foundation.