Collaboration

Networks

We cooperate with the health services, especially the Skåne University Hospital and Region Skåne, the joint public health services in Skåne (Scania). It’s our belief that collaboration with former students, as well as with associations for patients and their families, will help us focus on the right issues. Offering new perspectives, the Medical Humanities provide fresh opportunities to solve problems in healthcare.

Collaboration with the healthcare sector is a key element in the Centre’s activities. 

We hold lectures, workshops and seminars for example at National Brain Tumour Day, Patient Safety Day, Sigtuna Foundation/Swedish Association for Narrative Medicine and other regional and national contexts, which in turn generate additional demand for continued collaborations. 

Existential Resilience – Contemplation, Aesthetics and Compassion (ERiCi)

Researchers from four faculties (several of them now affiliated to BRCMH) and 14 external parties have come together in one of Lund University’s thematic collaboration initiatives (2023-2025), Existential Resilience – Contemplation, Aesthetics and Compassion (ERiCi) with a clear link to issues relating to existential resilience, healthcare and society

Collaboration initiative: Existential Resilience

Health-promoting poetry and art in health care

Have you ridden an elevator in a large hospital building? Spent time in the waiting rooms or hospital corridors? Have you ever reflected on the art – or lack of art – (not) there? Jonatan Wistrand has. He is affiliated to the Birgit Rausing Centre for Medical Humanities and also a physician. Together with Region Skåne, he therefore started the project "Health-promoting poetry and art in health care".

Information about the project and poetry exhibition on the project's webpage (in Swedish)

Pufendorf Instittute for Advanced Studies, Lund University

Within the framework of the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies, the Theme Next Generation Healthscapes (2025-2026) acted as an arena for interdisciplinary collaboration between medicine, humanities, engineering, architecture and healthcare practice, with links to various building projects in the healthcare sector. 
Next Generation Healthscapes - Theme, Pufendorf IAS (Lund University)

The Theme Neurotechnologies: Delivering their responsible development and use (2025-2026) has provided a forum for examining the ethical, legal and societal issues raised by new neurotechnologies, through collaboration between neuroscience, ethics, law, economics and policy-makers.
Neurotechnologies: Delivering their responsible development and use (Lund University)

Are you a colleague or student, or a possible external partner, keen to get to know us better? Send an e-mail to Asa [dot] Thormahlen [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se (Asa[dot]Thormahlen[at]med[dot]lu[dot]se) 

Networks

 There are of course other centres for Medical Humanities in Sweden: University of Linköping and Uppsala University set up centres in 2020. The Swedish network for Medical Humanities currently includes researchers from 11 universities and university colleges.
The Birgit Rausing Centre for Medical Humanities is coordinating the Nordic network for narratives in medicine, which is why the network has its own entrance on our website.

Webpages on the Nordic network for narratives in medicine

The Birgit Rausing Centre for Medical Humanities collaborates with the Medical Humanities research node at the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences. 

The Medical Humanities research node at the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences

Other important networks for our collaboration efforts

• Swedish Association for Narrative Medicine.
• MultiHelix ThinkTank (MTT) (strategic partnership). 
• European University Alliance for Global Health (EUGLOH).
• Durham University – Institute for Medical Humanities (study visits; a willingness to engage in long-term cooperation). 
• The Platform (Durham) (skills platform/infrastructure – a relevant model for BRCMH). 
• UNESCO Creative City of Literature – (Lund has received this designation; LU is participating through a group of which both centre directors are members; plans for an international conference on narrative medicine). 
• Bridging the Baltic is a network connecting History of Medicine scholars from several countries around the Baltic.