This spring, Forum for Social Innovation Sweden held a doctoral course on social innovation, this time in collaboration with Uppsala University. The course helps build the skills of future researchers.
To strengthen knowledge of and research into social innovation among future researchers Forum for Social Innovation Sweden has organized the doctoral course Social Innovation in Theory and Practice. It was first offered in 2022, and new for this year is that Forum for Social Innovation Sweden conducted the course in collaboration with SIHI Sweden, a hub in the international network Social Innovation in Health Initiative, which is run by the Center for Health and Sustainability at Uppsala University.
“SIHI Sweden at Uppsala University conducts research that is closely aligned with Forum for Social Innovation Sweden we Forum for Social Innovation Sweden at Forum for Social Innovation Sweden . A joint doctoral course is a way to reach out and strengthen future researchers’ knowledge of social innovation,” says Malin Lindberg, visiting professor of social innovation at Malmö University, who was one of the original developers of the doctoral course.
The purpose of the course is to provide doctoral students with a basic theoretical understanding of social innovation. It covers conceptual and empirical research in social innovation as it relates to inclusion and sustainability within organizations and society. This year, the course was offered in English for the first time. The course consisted of four sessions. The first two sessions were held online and included a literature review, lectures, and discussions. The last two sessions were full-day in-person sessions in Uppsala featuring workshops and presentations.
The course coordinator, alongside Malin Lindberg, was Mats Målqvist, professor of global health at the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, who serves as director of the Center for Health and Sustainability (CHS) and the Institute for Research on Conflicting Goals in Sustainable Societal Transition (UUniCORN) at Uppsala University.
Practical course directly contributes to doctoral students' projects
“It’s really exciting to be able to develop and teach a doctoral course in collaboration with Forum for Social Innovation Sweden. The course’s practical application directly helps doctoral students develop their projects. It was also great to see so many different perspectives and doctoral students from various disciplines represented in the course,” says Mats Målqvist.
Six doctoral students from four universities participated
A total of six doctoral students from four universities participated in the course. One of them was Carl Lundberg, a doctoral student with a background in health economics and public health science at Umeå University. His research focuses on how society can better support young people who are neither working nor studying.
The course provided new perspectives, insights, and tools
“The course gave me new perspectives on how social innovation can be understood and applied in practice—something that is particularly relevant to my doctoral project, where we are working on what is known as a ‘wicked problem’: how society can better support young people who are neither working nor studying,” says Carl Lundberg, adding:
– I’ve gained several insights and tools that I believe will be particularly valuable in the part of the project where we, together with stakeholders and young people themselves, aim to co-create solutions that can make a tangible difference—both in helping young people return to education or work, and in preventing them from falling through the cracks in the first place.
Sandra Gupta Löfving is a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry and a doctoral student in the CHAP research group at Uppsala University. Her research focuses on mental health in children and adolescents, with a particular emphasis on trauma, migration, and preventive strategies, including the application of telehealth. She is investigating various aspects of implementation and parental engagement in a community-based intervention aimed at reducing symptoms of traumatic stress in refugee youth.
“I wish I had taken the course sooner”
“I appreciated the interdisciplinary context and how the course inspired creative thinking about various societal challenges. It has given me a deeper understanding and greater confidence in developing and contributing to social innovation, as well as new perspectives on aspects of my major, public health science,” says Sandra Gupta Löfving.
– I can’t help but wish I had taken this course earlier in my doctoral studies. The practical tools we were given have been extremely helpful, and the ability to identify, analyze, and address complex problems in a structured way has been of great importance to my doctoral project. I’ve already recommended the course to several of my fellow doctoral students.
The doctoral course is scheduled to be offered again in the spring of 2026.
Learn more about
The Doctoral Course in Social Innovation: Theory and Practice
Carl Lundberg, UMU
Sandra Gupta Löfving, Uppsala University