Invitation to the first meeting of the Nordic Network for Health Policy, Health Management, and Health Services Research

There is need for a common Nordic arena for researchers on health policy, health management, and health services. This need is particularly evident in light of the increasing importance of health to national and international politics, the many recent policy initiatives and reforms changing the outline of the Nordic healthcare services, and recent developments in theoretical and analytical approaches. Through such a network we can create a more developed knowledge base on health care management and organization. There are several reasons for focusing on the Nordic countries. Firstly, from a comparative perspective, the Nordic region is interesting since the countries are quite similar in terms of history, political culture, demographics, economy, and health systems, but have still ended up choosing quite different health reform solutions. Secondly, in perhaps no other part of the world has the wave of healthcare reforms been more evident than in the Nordic region: the reforms implemented are quite radical and fundamental, in the sense that they challenge many of the underlying principles of the Nordic welfare state model such as equity and universalism.

With this meeting we aim to establish a Nordic network to arrange annual meetings and workshops for researchers and students taking an interest in health policy, healthcare management, and health services research, to exchange information and research, as well as to promote comparative research and encourage cross-disciplinary work. The meeting will be arranged as part of the First National Conference in Health Services Research in Norway, and held at the Hotell Scandic Solsiden, (link: https://www.scandichotels.no/hotell/norge/trondheim/scandic-solsiden).

We invite all papers that address topics related to health policy, health management, and health services research from a Nordic perspective. Deadline for abstracts is January 13, 2017. Please send your abstract (max. 300 words) to: paal.martinussen@svt.ntnu.no

The program committee for the Nordic meeting:

Karsten Vrangbæk, Department of Political Science / Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen

Ulrika Winblad, Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University

Liina-Kaisa Tynkkynen, School of health Sciences, University of Tampere

Pål E. Martinussen, Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Sigrún Ólafsdóttir, Department of Social and Human Sciences, University of Iceland