Research work receives stimuli from industrial reality, and the aim is to provide education to meet the needs of industry. There is lively interaction with industry, and there are close contacts with the companies in the Ideon Science Park. Many centres have been established at LTH, in which several departments or divisions collaborate in interdisciplinary projects, reflecting the reality of the business world, which is not bound to the traditional structure of university organization. The normal condition for collaborative organizations of this kind is that industrial partners are included. This leads to consortiums or competence centres.
Financing sometimes covers several years, occasionally even longer terms.
Basic research is carried out, but in fields that are of interest to industry. Some of these organizations are chiefly schools for training future researchers. A Versatile Accelerator With the aid of a very fine and intense proton beam, a nuclear probe can reproduce and analyse small areas. PIXE, developed by the nuclear physicist Sven Johansson, is based on the analysis of the X-rays that arise when fast ions hit the specimen. PIXE and the nuclear microprobe have been used in a wide range of contexts, from measurements of air pollution to the analysis of cells and the deciphering of faded papyrus texts.