Göran Gustafsson Symposium 2025: Violence in young people’s intimate relationships – a challenge for society

  • Date: 25 March 2025, 13:00–17:00
  • Type: Lecture
  • Lecturer: Gene Feder
  • Web page
  • Organiser: Uppsala University and NCK together with the the Göran Gustafsson Foundation at UU and KTH.
  • Contact person: Agneta Mattsson

Welcome to the 2025 Göran Gustafsson Symposium. Focusing on violence in young people’s intimate relationships, we will listen to this year’s Göran Gustafsson Lecturer, Professor Gene Feder, University of Bristol, Paulina Brandberg, Sweden’s Minister for Gender Equality and Working Life, and several other prominent researchers in the field of domestic violence.

The keynote lecture will be held in English but the rest of the symposium will be in Swedish. It is free of charge but you need to register.

Every year, Uppsala University, together with the Göran Gustafsson Foundation at UU and KTH, invites an internationally prominent researcher in medicine to give a lecture. This year the symposium is organised together with the National Centre for Knowledge on Men’s Violence Against Women.

Programme

13:00–13:10

Welcome address

Anders Hagfeldt, Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University.

13:10–13:20

Introductory speech

Paulina Brandberg, Minister for Gender Equality and Working Life.

13:25–13:40

“Young, vulnerable, and strong! An introduction to research on violence in young people’s intimate relationships”

Carolina Överlien, Professor of Gender-Related Violence and Health, NCK.

13:45–14:45

“Young people and intimate partner violence: from epidemiology and voices of survivors to co-producing interventions”

This year's Göran Gustafsson Lecture in Medicine.

Gene Feder, Professor of Primary Care at Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol.

Dr Ruth Weir, Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow , University of London.

14:55–15:10

“What does the violence that young people report on ungarelationer.se look like? The support line’s work with victims, perpetrators and friends."

Zandra Kanakaris, founder and Secretary-General of the foundation 1000 Möjligheter.

15:15–15:45

Fika

15:45–16:00

“Youth who offend violently in intimate relationships: Causal risk factors and effective interventions?”

Niklas Långström, Docent and Senior Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, BUP FoUU, Region Stockholm.

16:05–16:20

“Youth intimate partner violence: consequences for health and well-being”

Carolina Jernbro, Lecturer and Docent of Public Health Sciences, Deputy Director CBU, Karlstad University.

16:25–16:40

Digital sexual violence and exploitation in young intimate relationships”

Linda Jonsson, Lecturer and Docent of Social Work, Marie Cederschiöld University.

16:45–17:00

Concluding remarks

Carolina Överlien, Professor of Gender-Related Violence and Health, NCK.

Our speakers

Gene Feder, this year’s Göran Gustafsson Lecturer in Medicine

Gene Feder is a Professor of Primary Care at Bristol Medical School and a family physician in an inner-city practice. He established the BRIGHT (Bristol Research on the Intersection of Gender Health and Trauma) group in Bristol Medical School and is the director of VISION, a United Kingdom Prevention Research Partnership of 10 universities aiming to improve the measurement of violence to influence policy and practice to reduce violence and related health inequalities.

Gene Feder.

Gene Feder is this year’s Göran Gustafsson Lecturer in Medicine. Photo: University of Bristol.

Ruth Weir

Dr Ruth Weir is Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow in Criminology in the Violence and Society Centre at City St George’s, University of London. Her research is interdisciplinary, drawing on her expertise in Geography and Criminology. Much of Ruth’s research focuses on domestic abuse and sexual offending, and she is currently leading work on policing, neighbourhoods and abuse in teenage relationships for the VISION Consortium.

Ruth Weir.

Dr Ruth Weir. Private photo.

Paulina Brandberg

Paulina Brandberg is a lawyer and, since 2022, Sweden’s Minister for Gender Equality and Working Life. From 2010, she worked at the Swedish Prosecution Authority at the National Unit against Organised and International Crime. She is also a former legal policy expert and debater for Liberalerna. In 2021, Brandberg was named Swede of the Year.

Paulina Brandberg.

Paulina Brandberg. Photo: Kristian Pohl/Government Offices of Sweden.

Carolina Överlien

Carolina Överlien is a Professor of Gender-Related Violence and Health at NCK, Uppsala University. She is also affiliated with the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies (NKVTS) in Oslo, Norway. Her research focuses on violence in intimate relationships, with a particular focus on the violence experienced by young people. For the last few years, she has been the leader of a major study on sexual violence in young people’s intimate relationships. She has an extensive record of international and national publications, has authored several textbooks and is co-editor of the Journal of Family Violence.

Carolina Överlien.

Carolina Överlien. Foto: Mikael Wallerstedt.

Zandra Kanakaris

Zandra Kanakaris is a lawyer by training and Secretary-General of the foundation 1000 Möjligheter, which runs the national support line ungarelationer.se and Ellencentret. Throughout her professional life, she has worked to prevent men’s violence against women, with a particular focus on boys’ violence against girls, violence in young people’s relationships, as well as prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation. For six years, she served as chair of the national association Unizon, which represents around 150 women’s, girls’, and youth shelters. She is also author of the book “Relationsboken för unga - om kärlek, svartsjuka och kontroll” (The relationship book for young people – on love, jealousy, and control), published by B. Wahlströms in January 2025.

Zandra Kanakaris.

Zandra Kanakaris. Photo: Abraham Engelmark.

Niklas Långström

Niklas Långström is a Docent and Senior Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at BUP FoUU in Region Stockholm. He has a longstanding interest in extending our knowledge of mechanisms behind the development of serious norm-breaking or sexually harmful or abusive behaviours. And improving multimodal selective and indicated interventions to support disadvantaged and at-risk children and youth in avoiding adverse outcomes.

Niklas Långström.

Niklas Långström. Private photo.

Carolina Jernbro

Carolina Jernbro is a Docent and Lecturer in Public Health Sciences at Karlstad University. Carolina researches violence against children, including violence in young people’s partnerships, based on national surveys on violence conducted in primary schools every five years on behalf of the government. The research mainly concerns the prevalence of violence, risk factors and the impact of violence on health.

Carolina Jernbro.

Carolina Jernbro. Photo: Karlstad University.

Linda Jonsson

Linda Jonsson is a social worker and Docent of Social Work at Marie Cederschiöld University. Her research focuses on violence against children, particularly online sexual abuse and sexual exploitation. In recent years, Linda has also worked with evaluations of interventions for children exposed to violence and how effective they are. Today, she works at SBU, the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services, and has previously worked at Barnafrid at Linköping University and CBSS, the Council of the Baltic Sea States.

Linda Jonsson.

Linda Jonsson. Photo: Marie Cederschiöld University.

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