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Lena Eriksson

Senior Lecturer

Linguistics and Theory of Science unit
Telephone
+46 31-786 41 84
+46 766-18 41 84
Mail
lena.eriksson@theorysc.gu.se
Visiting address
Renströmsgatan 6
41255 Göteborg
Room number
C537
Postal address
Box 200
40530 Göteborg

About Lena Eriksson

Lena Eriksson is Associate Professor (Docent) in Theory of Science and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg. Her research examines how knowledge is produced, evaluated and put to work in institutional settings where medical assessments, legal decisions and societal governance intersect. After completing her doctoral studies at Cardiff University, Eriksson held her first academic appointment at the University of York, where she worked within the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Her early research focused on scientific controversies, expert authority and the conditions under which claims to objectivity and independence are established. Already during her doctoral training, she secured competitive funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and led an independent research project alongside her dissertation.

Since joining the University of Gothenburg, Eriksson has developed a broad interdisciplinary research profile spanning healthcare, law and public administration. She has led and contributed to research projects funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR), Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ), Forte, AFA Insurance, and the Swedish Social Insurance Agency’s independent research fund, . Her research has addressed sickness certification practices, insurance medicine decision-support tools, clinical guidelines, medico-legal expertise and compulsory care. A recurring characteristic of Eriksson’s work is her ambition to follow questions across organisations and institutional logics, analysing how concepts such as evidence, risk, responsibility and normality are reshaped as they move between clinical practice, administrative agencies and courts. Rather than isolating individual institutions, her research traces how decisions emerge across multiple arenas and how legal and medical forms of knowledge interact under conditions of uncertainty.

In recent years, her research has increasingly focused on medico-legal decision-making and coercive interventions. She has led a Swedish Research Council–funded project on decision-making in administrative courts concerning compulsory care, with a focus on expert roles, evidentiary standards and epistemic tensions. She currently leads a research project on forensic psychiatric care, conducted in close collaboration with Västra Götaland Region and Sahlgrenska University Hospital, where she holds a joint appointment bridging academia and clinical practice.Eriksson is also a senior researcher and core collaborator in a research project on the reassessment and removal of ADHD and autism diagnoses, conducted in collaboration with Region Skåne. The project examines how diagnostic categories evolve over time and how responsibility for sustaining, revising or withdrawing diagnoses is distributed across clinical, administrative and societal actors. Eriksson contributes in particular with epistemological and science-and-technology-studies–oriented analyses of diagnosis, evidence and epistemic authority.

Beyond research, Eriksson has extensive experience of academic leadership and teaching. She has served as Deputy Head of Department, Associate Head for Doctoral Education and Associate Head for Education, and supervises doctoral candidates in theory of science as well as clinically based PhD students in medical disciplines. She has also been involved in the interdisciplinary Master’s Programme in Evidence-Based Practice, where humanities-based perspectives are used to engage analytically and in a practice-oriented manner with questions of knowledge, evidence and decision-making in professional settings.