The research team, led by Yulia Vakulenko and based at REAL – the Centre for Retail and Logistics at Lund University, has received a Token of Appreciation from OpenAI. This symbolic award is presented to accounts linked to organisations that have achieved significant milestones in the use of OpenAI’s generative AI models. During the summer/autumn of 2025, the award went to just 141 recipients globally.
The project "Generative AI in Retail Logistics" received funding through Campus Helsingborg’s pioneer grant, a 100,000-krona initiative designed to encourage researchers to test new ideas and methods. The aim was to use this funding to investigate how generative AI can be used to analyse big data within retail logistics and, through this, develop new strategies for more efficient and sustainable supply chains.
"We worked with OpenAI to explore how the latest AI-based solutions could contribute to our research and to the field of retail logistics. This type of ‘token of appreciation’ has never been awarded before, so it came as a surprise to our entire team. Thanks to the support from Campus Helsingborg, we were able to experiment with new methods and data types that would otherwise not have been possible. It’s very exciting. The physical token was the icing on the cake", says Yulia Vakulenko.
Campus Helsingborg has innovation as one of its focus areas and has therefore allocated special funds to support innovative projects over the past three years. This example illustrates precisely the purpose of the initiative: the importance of giving researchers the space to try something new and gain a great deal in return.
