Network meeting and future plans
by Kiin Catrine Andersson
Dear all,
It was lovely to meet so many of you in Tampere! And I am so grateful and impressed by the excellent work of the Tampere group that arranged the conference! It was a truly inspiring event!
On the first day of the conference we had a network meeting and below is a summary of that meeting and the plans we will prioritise moving forward. Please get in touch with reflections, ideas and other input!
Warmly,
Kiin
Summary of network meeting
Thank you everyone that participated in the network meeting at the conference in Tampere, Finland! We discussed future activities for the network as well as the current challenges for LGBTQ+ research in our respective disciplines, institutions and countries. We agreed that we have several important goals with the network. We want to show and further develop the high-quality research done in the Nordics on LGBTQ+ issues related to health and living conditions. We also want to improve our networks and collaborations with each other to deepen existing initiatives and develop new research projects. In addition, we need to find ways of exchanging information between countries and movements, in order to increase our knowledge for example of legal avenues and ethical misconduct rules to counter the current anti-gender, anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ movements that are spreading misinformation regarding research, especially in the trans research field. The plans described below address these goals in different ways.
Running the network – a working group
Funding ends in December 2026. We will apply for more funding, but in the meantime, we need to look into our planning and division of work. We currently have a coordination group, but it has had very few meetings. I will re-name it a working group, call more regular meetings, and ask the members if they will consider remaining in it, as well as expanding it to include more people interested in working with some network activities. Please email me to be included!
Applying for funding
I will look into applying for both network funding and conference funding in Sweden. We discussed the possibility of applying also in Norway and I will liaise with David R. Banos and Norman Anderssen about this possibility. I would be happy to look into other possibilities as well, please get in touch with ideas!
Shorter abbreviation
It would be great to have an abbreviation that is easier to pronounce and remember (than LGBTQ+-H-L). One suggestion is NorQ – The Nordic Network for LBGTQ+ research on Health and Living Conditions. I would like more suggestions and input on this!
Strengthening connections and informal conversations
We agreed that while it is important to think about larger events and making the Nordic LGBTQ+ research visible, it is very important that we don’t lose sight of the small events that connects us and allow for developing relationships and ideas.
Emilia Brusila has opened a discord server that you can join and use for informal contacts, exchanging information and starting initiatives and discussions that are not suited for email: https://discord.gg/6ck7wn4Zg
We will also keep up the joint writing times on Zoom!
We will arrange an event to exchange research ideas.
We will plan a network conference for 2027, perhaps of the smaller variety, and hope to arrange a bigger conference with practitioners in 2028.
Book idea
We talked about possibly working on an edited book on ethical and methodological issues in LGBTQ+ research on health and living conditions, based on discussions from the conference and also wider discussions. If you are interested in developing this idea, get in touch with me and the working group and we can arrange something!
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Kiin Catrine Andersson
Associate professor of social work/Docent i socialt arbete
Institutionen för socialt arbete, Malmö universitet
Hälsa och samhälle, 205 06 Malmö
Tfn: 040-665 85 77
