Foundation Chair Stina Liljekvist

Stina Liljekvist is part of the Skandia group management team and is also Chair of the company’s Idéer för livet Foundation, which aims to promote the health and safety of young people in the community. In the context of this work, the Foundation has recently decided on a donation to Uppsala University’s Child and Baby Lab.

“We have great confidence in the University and the researcher we have been in contact with previously when the Foundation contributed to his research,” says Liljekvist.

The Idéer för livet (Ideas for life) Foundation was established almost 40 years ago, as an initiative to promote the safety, security and well-being of young people after a period of unrest among young people in the inner-city districts of Stockholm. Since then, the Foundation has supported research and a large number of preventive projects across Sweden.

Liljekvist is heavily involved in the work and sees it as a privilege to work on something so important. Through the many contacts that the Foundation has with civil society organisations, government agencies, and other stakeholders in society, they get a broad picture of current problems and challenges.

“We notice where there’s friction, where there’s something brewing, what many are struggling with and talking about,” she says.

This is how school transitions was identified as an area with large knowledge gaps. Everyone was talking about the difficulties of transition from preschool to school and on to the higher stages. And that children who need the most support are the ones who lose out the most in every transition. But it’s also often difficult for municipalities to justify really long-term initiatives – especially when there is no evidence base of what works.

“And we can’t have that! We started to think about what we could do to create better basic conditions for educators and others who work in this space, and thereby give all children a better starting point,” says Liljekvist.

For the Foundation, it felt important to develop knowledge on a solid basis, but also that theory was woven together with practice. Eventually, these discussions led to us contacting a researcher, who had gained our trust in the past, for an open-minded discussion: Gustaf Gredebäck, Professor and Director of the Child and Baby Lab at Uppsala University. A dialogue was initiated with the University about what might be possible.

“Gustaf Gredebäck contacted Uppsala Municipality, and they were very interested. It turned out that we had a common interest in increasing knowledge in the area and trying to find practical tools for better school transitions. If you find something that works well, the method can be shared more broadly,” says Liljekvist.

The Foundation decided to donate SEK 12 million to Gredebäck for research on school transitions. A donation of this size and length is something new for the Foundation. It’s more usual to fund a selection of project applications. She is aware that it will take some time to get results, but also knows that they will be solid – knowledge that comes with a quality stamp.

“It takes a brave university, a brave researcher and a brave, forward-looking donor,” says Liljekvist with a smile.

“It will be exciting to follow what happens. I think that philanthropy for research is important and interesting, both for society and for the business community. But we are probably not as familiar with it in Sweden as in other countries, and maybe not aware of how to find ways to assist academia. It’s about building trust and finding good ways to collaborate.”l