History

In March 1998 the Swedish Council for Social Research (SFR) submitted a national research programme on inequalities in health to the Government, which included the proposal to establish a national network centre for research into health inequalities as a key component. In February 1999 the SFR invited Swedish universities to apply for funding for a network centre. One condition was that the university would match the SFR funding with an investment of its own of a similar magnitude. Research groups at the Karolinska Institute and Stockholm University, led by Finn Diderichsen, Denny Vågerö and Ulf Lundberg, wrote a joint proposal. The joint proposal from Stockholm University (SU) and the Karolinska Institute (KI) was ranked first by the international experts, and a contract between SU, KI and SFR formally establishing CHESS was signed on 30 June 2000.

CHESS was formally setup from July 1st 2000, and started to operate in January 2001 when we moved to the office at Sveaplan, between the main campuses of Stockholm University and Karolinska institutet.