Viveka Adelswärd gives young researchers the chance to meet

Photographer: Jenny Widén

The retreat offers them an unbeatable opportunity for intellectual exchange, creative workshops and in-depth reflection beyond the confines of everyday academic life.

Residential retreat for sharing ideas

Viveka’s retreat has been made possible through a generous donation from Viveka Adelswärd, Professor Emerita of Conversation Analysis, to the university’s Jubilee Foundation. The initiative is inspired by Viveka’s own positive experiences as a doctoral student at LiU’s interdisciplinary Department of Thematic Studies in the 1980s, a period she describes as exceptionally stimulating and instructive. The purpose of her donation is to give today’s young researchers a similar opportunity to develop by exchanging ideas and training their ability to communicate their research to a wider audience.

Photographer: Jenny Widén

Born and raised in Stockholm, Viveka completed her secondary education on the science-oriented upper-secondary programme. With high grades and a desire to do something significant for humanity, she initially planned to study medicine. At the last minute, however, she withdrew her application and chose instead to study literary history at Stockholm University. Halfway through her BA in Literature and English, she met Johan, whom she later married, moved to the country outside of Åtvidaberg, and started a family.

But her love – indeed, her passion – for academia had also been awakened, and so Viveka continued her studies in Linköping, initially through Stockholm University’s local branch there.

Interdisciplinary environment

Viveka took the decisive step towards research in 1982, when she was admitted as a doctoral student at Tema Kommunikation (Tema K), part of the newly established doctoral training environment at the Department of Thematic Studies at Linköping University. It was a time characterised by curiosity and a pioneering spirit – a golden age, as she describes it.

Teachers and students had different backgrounds – in sociology, psychology, linguistics and so on. No one arrived with a ready-made thesis topic; instead the programme began with a shared one-year course filled with knowledge about various scientific methods and theories, as well as discussions on what an interdisciplinary perspective entails.

The atmosphere was both inclusive and demanding. Seminars were intense – a meeting place for different knowledge traditions where no one was expected to understand everything, but everyone was expected to engage. It was a setting with openness, flat hierarchies and a strong focus on conversation as a form of learning.

Recreating what she experienced

Photographer: Jenny Widén

A common thread running through Viveka’s academic work after completing her doctorate, when she continued as a teacher and researcher at Linköping University, is the human encounter: how understanding is built through conversation, how we listen, and how we explain what we think we know. This conviction lies behind the donation to Viveka’s retreat. The seminars aim to recreate what she herself experienced as a doctoral student: an environment where curiosity is encouraged, where you are challenged, and where you get to know people outside of your own field of study. A place where conversation has space and time. The ability to present, publish and communicate research is crucial in today’s academic landscape – yet often something that is given limited room in doctoral education.

For Viveka, it is important that researchers do not develop solely within their own bubble. Growth happens in encounters with others, in unexpected perspectives. Ultimately, Viveka’s retreat is not just a donation – it is an extension of a lifelong engagement with conversation as a form of knowledge.

Wanting to see the impact of her donation

Viveka initially planned to bequeath what she had inherited from her parents to the university. When she told her family this, one of her sons argued that it would be much better to donate while she was still alive. She could then see how the donation was being used. He said, “You’re far too curious to miss that.” That settled it. She wants to be involved – not to control or influence – but to see what unfolds.

Photographer: Jenny Widén