The Informal Carers, Care and Caring research group – a research arm of the Nka

Informal carers are family members, friends, colleagues and/or neighbours who provide care, help and support to a loved one with health and/or care needs. Their caring activities are often carried out on a regular basis and are unpaid and they often lie outside of regulated frameworks. There are currently at least 1.3 million informal carers in Sweden, and they make a vital contribution to society.

Our research group forms a research arm of the Swedish Family Care Competence Centre (Nka). Our transdisciplinary research in the area of informal care, carers and caring aims to ensure the implementation and use of our research findings and insights in health care, social care, education and policy to make a difference for informal carers and family members and/or friends to whom they provide care, help and support. Our goal is also for our research results to be actively taken up and embraced by health and social care professionals, school staff, policymakers and civil society.

Our research

We conduct research at international, national, regional and local levels employing various methods and addressing informal carers within a life course perspective to co-create new knowledge and understanding and contribute to evidence-based policy development and practice in the field.

In the research and development projects carried out, efforts are made to include informal carers, members or organisations representing informal carers, and other stakeholders in the various working groups of the projects. Blended Learning Networks (BLN) is a model for research and development work that has been used since Nka started in 2008. It is a form of community of practice where the different stakeholders solve problems, share experiences, learn from each other, and ultimately create change.

Research projects

Publications

Staff