Congratulations Sofia – Recipient of KI's Work Environment and Health Award

”I was surprised, honored and flattered by the award!” says an affected Sofia Vikström. ”It's so nice to be seen by the students for the work you do on a daily basis. You don't always know what gives dividens of what you are doing”.

She tells that she was informed as early as Thursday by Margareta Bratt-Carlström, HR consultant at the Central Administration. Margaret called her, though Sofia thought at the time that it was because of a course in organization and leadership that they collaborated on. But then she found out that she had both been nominated for the prize and received it!

Sofia continues: ”I want to make ANA 23 a more attractive learning environment, which you might even long to and want to hang in there. Create an inspiring Flemingsberg campus.” 
"I want both students and teachers to be involved in turning our beautiful house into a really vibrant learning center.”

It is clear that Sofia always thinks actively about the learning environment and working environment in what she does.

”As a program director in 2016, I co- created FikAT (as the students named it). A meeting place where teachers and students at all levels meet three times per semester and fika-mingles, completely prestigeless and outside the hierarchy”.

The nomination, made by three PhD students, had the winning motivation as follows:

Sofia Vikström works as a senior lecturer and deputy Chairman and Departmental Educational Coordinator (GUA) at NVS and works on issues related to the sustainable and health-promoting working environment of both PhD students and undergraduate students.

- In the quality work of the Educational Committee NVS, Sofia works with challenges in infrastructure and learning environments to promote a safe and inspiring Campus Flemingsberg. Here you will have both preventive and promotion perspectives for both undergraduate students and PhD students. Sofia has taken initiatives to create meeting venues with students to engage students and find out what students think is important for the campus environment to be an attractive environment for learning, which is very much related to the students' work environment.   

 - In Sofia's teaching at both the Occupational Therapy Programme and cross-professional courses for PhD students, there are always perspectives on activity and health included. Teaching contributes to increased subject knowledge and self-reflection on activity and health in relation to the students' own situation.  

-Finally, one of the most important perspectives for us as PhD students is that Sofia actively in her role as a supervisor raises questions about organizational and psychosocial work environment and has, like KI's values, the human being at its heart, in her supervision. This is very important to us as PhD students, for our work environment and health.

Sofia will use the winnings (30 000 SEK) to develop and make a pilot of her project idea, which students, alumni and teachers have already been interviewed around. She calls it VIPS: Value-creating InterProfessional Collaboration. The project aims to create small-scale learning activities and collaborative initiatives where students and teachers from different professions can meet for both knowledge exchange and networking purposes.