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SWEAH alumni in new joint project

Three women around a conference table
Emilia Viklund, Umeå Univesity (next to the board), Annikki Arola, Arcada University of Applied Sciences in Finland and Nilla Andersson, Lund University (from there also Maya Kylén missing in the picture). Photo: Lill Eriksson

Those who have been PhD students at SWEAH graduate school have built up a broad network during their doctoral studies, and many continue the collaboration between the partner universities as alumni and researchers. Last week, some SWEAH alumni met to write a joint article.

They obviously don't want to reveal exactly what it will be about before publication. But they are happy to highlight the rewarding collaboration between them.

For a few days, Annikki Arola, Arcada University of Applied Sciences in Finland, Emilia Viklund, Umeå University, visited their SWEAH friends Nilla Andersson and Maya Kylén at Lund University to write about a joint project about the experiences of older adults in their homes.

We met during a dinner with SWEAH's alumni network SAIN and discovered that we had a common interest in what it is like to age at home, says Annikki Arola.

– SAIN has made the project possible by assisting with travel and other expenses during the writers' meetings, says Nilla Andersson.

Andersson and Viklund were at the same time PhD students in SWEAH and Arola was an examiner at Viklund's mid-term examination. All of them are basically occupational therapists except Emilia Viklund, whose background is in care science and developmental psychology.

Our meetings provide more time to develop the discussions.

Much of research collaboration between different universities takes place online, but the SWEAH alumni find that meeting in person is particularly fruitful, for example when it comes to analyzing the results.

– It is very valuable to meet, it gives you a chance to focus better. We do this as a side project and our meetings give you more time to develop the discussions. When working remotely, you usually have limited time as you also have other tasks to take care of. It becomes something completely different when you meet in person – a good way to drive this project forward, says Emilia Viklund.

– It is really fun and interesting to take part in the different perspectives of the others, says Annikki Arola.

This was the group's fourth physical meeting, after being in Umeå and Stockholm, also then with contributions from SAIN.