You had the opportunity to visit some universities and research centers in France. In what specific topics are these French universities and research centres of particular interest for your research? I particularly liked The CIREVE at UNICAEN and research in rehabilitation medicine and possibilities to research new treatments in regard to cognitive functions. I also enjoyed The BRAIN institute at Salpetriére, since I am a child psychiatrist by profession, and I am interested in research regarding diagnostics and treatments for different brain dysfunctions.

In your application to the FINA prize you indicated “I hope that the FINA Prize can be a stepping stone for me to build a network of peers to collaborate with in the future”. To what extent did your research mobility to Caen and your experience of the FINA prize match these expectations? I connected with Saija Simola and her research group at Aalto University, since Saija’s and my thesis are both researching patient portals and care quality. The visit to UNICAEN also led to a network. I am now connected to both researchers at CIREVE and Julie Quesnel at their international department, at LinkedIn and we can follow each other’s work there. I feel I can come in contact with them easily, and I have a project in pipeline here in Sweden that I would love to collaborate with CIREVE on.

After your stay in France, you have applied for a grant that could allow you to collaborate with the CIREVE in UNICAEN. Could you explain the potential benefits of such a collaboration? Since research in Sweden often relies on grants, and grants are more often approved if several research areas or countries are involved, the first benefit would be to get the grant. Also, research in Sweden always strives to get published in peer reviewed journals with high Impact Factor, and the possibilities to get such a publication and your research results out in the world, increases with international collaboration. The CIREVE can assist in collecting objective research data, which is very interesting in the area of cognitive treatments, since such treatment research often has to rely on subjective data – which is hard to replicate and is less trustworthy. Objective results would increase credibility of the research.