Our saga

In the 1980s, Lund University realised that there was a need to invest in education and research in the area of packaging. This was because the packaging industry was important in Sweden, not least in the southern part of the country. An adjunct professorship was established (paid by the University) and the position was held by Yngve Dagel, former head of Packforsk (Swedish Packaging Research Institute) for six years in the 1980s.

With the aim of further strengthening the subject, the University contacted Bo Rydin, managing director of SCA at the end of the 1980s. The University wanted the company’s research director at SCA Packaging, Gunilla Jönson, to become the next adjunct professor. Bo Rydin and SCA were positive to this opportunity to develop cooperation between business and academia. They made it possible for Gunilla Jönson to spend one day a week in Lund instructing students in packaging logistics, carrying out research and supervising postgraduate students.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the recently established Bo Rydin Foundation decided to donate 10 MSEK to Lund University for a professorship in transport-packaging technology. Gunilla Jönson applied for and got the job in 1994. At about the same time, packaging logistics became an educational research subject with its own curriculum and in the following years, several doctoral students enrolled, both those with positions at the university and those who were supported by industry. Gunilla Jönson was their primary supervisor.

At the end of the 1990s, discussions ensued with the Division of Machine Design of the need to include packaging in research on product development. When the new Department of Design Sciences started to take shape in 1999, of which Machine Design was to be a part, Gunilla Jönson broadened the question to include development of new ideas on the integration of packaging, products and logistics, which was welcomed positively. Packaging Logistics became a part of the new department and moved, along with the other divisions, to the Ingvar Kamprad Design Centre in 2002.


Packaging Logistics on Wikipedia (in Swedish).

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