She became Sweden’s first professor of nursing research

Astrid Norberg grew up with her grandparents in the inland village of Kåtaträsk in Västerbotten, in a home without electricity, running water, toilet or telephone. Her mother died when she was just three weeks old, and her father was called up for military service at the start of World War II.

There was absolutely no support for academic education in my family, it was not something they thought was important.

Despite a difficult upbringing at times, her childhood was still very good. Even so, neither Astrid Norberg nor anyone else could have imagined that she would one day become a pioneer in Swedish nursing research, the country’s first professor in the field, help establish the Department of Nursing Research at Umeå University, supervise around 40 doctoral students and receive a royal medal for her contributions.

“There was absolutely no support for academic education in my family, it was not something they thought was important. For example, nobody considered it special that I became a professor. But likewise, I think they would also not have been impressed if I had become an ambassador,” she says with a laugh.

As a young woman, Astrid wanted to see the world. When she was reunited with her father and moved to his religious home, the obvious option was to focus on a future as a missionary and she started attending a Bible school. But she soon realised it was not for her.

“I was far too brash, so I did not fit in at all.”

One of her old teachers at the lower secondary school in Malå had seen Astrid’s potential and encouraged her to continue her studies at high school in Skellefteå like her friends. Astrid, who had worked for a few years after completing lower secondary school, thought she was too old for high school. In Lund there was a shorter two-year high school and with the help of her former teacher, she found a place to live.

“He supported me so that I could continue studying. He played a huge role in helping me even dare to go to Lund. It often happens that a child has certain teachers that have a huge impact on them.”

The call from Umeå University

She remained in Lund for several years. There she earned a nursing degree, worked as a substitute teacher, earned a doctorate in education, and met her husband, who was a medical doctor and researcher and later also her colleague.

“It was through my husband that I became interested in research. As a nursing teacher and nurse, I had a lot of contact with nursing researchers in the United States and the UK, as well as nurses in Sweden and Finland who had started researching nursing. I read a lot and understood that there was a lot that needed to be done and that it was possible for us to improve a lot in Sweden too.”

The year was 1980, and nursing as a research field had not yet been established in Sweden, but some higher education institutions had begun showing an interest in the field. So when Umeå University called and offered Astrid Norberg a position equivalent to a professorship in nursing research, as well as being a key person in starting up the field in Umeå, she quickly accepted. Her husband, also from Västerbotten, was also interested in moving back north.

“There was a lot of resistance when I came to Umeå.

And it would turn out that Astrid’s brash, thick-skinned approach would come in handy in Umeå.

“There was a lot of resistance when I came to Umeå. This came from younger doctors, some professors and nurses with a somewhat lower position, who thought that nursing could never become a research field.”

They argued that medical research should be about medicines. Nursing research, on the other hand, is about systematically investigating issues related to health care, with a particular focus on patient experiences, needs and health, as well as the role and working practices of nurses.

Norberg describes harassment from colleagues who never learnt her name and openly stated that she should not receive grants and students who expressed distrust in her when she visited them.

“Some were quite mean. Sometimes it was downright unpleasant to go to the School of Nursing.”

But in the midst of all this resistance, she also found a lot of support, and it is this support that has had the biggest impact on her at Umeå University.

“I had so many people supporting me. This included a fantastic leader at the Faculty of Medicine, Dean Sven Dahlgren, who supported me a lot. He had been a surgeon and had understood that healthcare is not just about medicine and that nursing plays an important role. Many others understood this too.”

Astrid Norberg has a long list of people who have supported her, from politicians to senior health professionals, colleagues, students and teachers, many of whom eventually became her PhD students.

During her career, she has been the main or co-supervisor of some 40 doctoral students and contributed to around 20 receiving professorships in nursing.

I really enjoyed teaching and supervising PhD students.

The joy of supervising others – to be important to someone, like her own teacher from her school years – is also one of the strongest feelings she carries with her from her time at Umeå University.

“I really enjoyed teaching and supervising PhD students. I felt the subject was so important, so it also felt important that those who I thought were talented could get jobs so that they could advance in the field. Several of my former doctoral students have made major contributions to nursing research. It is wonderful that they have done so well.”

The country’s first professor of nursing

In 1987, she became the country’s first professor of nursing. Her own research has focused heavily on ethics and has been particularly significant for the development of person-centred care and patient participation. She has made an impact on topics such as providing comfort, moral distress among staff who feel that they lack time and are unable or are not allowed to do what is best for patients, and – not least – care for patients with dementia.

“The research that has been cited most is that we discovered that you can actually communicate with people with dementia. It was thought that people with dementia were just gone. The patients were in large rooms; some did not even have a bedside table and just lay in their beds and were fed through tubes. It was as impersonal as it could get. But then we discovered that it is actually possible to communicate with them much more than we had thought. Now it has become self-evident that you need to treat these patients in another way. They now have their own room where staff come and talk to them, they can listen to music, they can take outdoor walks. It is an incredible difference. It is very satisfying to know that I have contributed to this change.”

Her success as a researcher has taken many different forms. Stanford University in the United States, for example, ranked her 78th among the world’s most important nursing researchers. Among all medical researchers in the world, she is currently ranked 15,451 and in Sweden 278th, according to the Research.com platform.

Norberg has received His Majesty the King’s Seraphim Medal and Umeå University’s Medal of Merit for her contributions. She has an honorary doctorate at the University of Gothenburg and even has her own page in the National Encyclopaedia. These are just a few things pointing to the significance of her research contributions.

Still an active researcher

Astrid Norberg is 86 years old. Since retiring, she has lived in Stockholm but is still a professor emerita in nursing at Umeå University. And she has not yet hung up her professor’s hat and is still active in research almost daily. Together with a professor colleague, she is researching moral distress in healthcare in Iran and among Iranian immigrants in Sweden, and they are also running a project on providing comfort to patients.

“I have now turned my interest to understanding providing comfort when dealing with very difficult things. Providing comfort is very important,” says Astrid Norberg.

You have no plans to stop conducting research and retire for real?

“Eventually I may develop dementia, so I will not be able to conduct my research.”

We are planning a doctoral course that will start in 2026. So I am hoping to wake up every morning until then.

But this will have to wait, as she has plans for the foreseeable future.

“A philosophy professor from Germany will soon be coming to meet me and my colleague from Iran. We are planning a doctoral course that will start in 2026. So I am hoping to wake up every morning until then.”