Skaberkraft award

Ellen Blix, 2025 recipient at the Nordic Midwifery Congress

• The Skaberkraft Award was presented at the Nordic Midwifery Conference in Tivoli, Copenhagen on May 29th, 2025.
• The three finalists were introduced by Lis Munk, chairwoman of the Danish Midwifery Association, and the winner Ellen Blix was invited to the podium to receive the award
• Ellen Blix has been a midwife since 1986, graduating in Bergen, and prior to that, she graduated as a nurse in 1980.
  She has extensive experience in maternity care. In 2014, she became the first Norwegian midwife to attain the position of Professor in Midwifery Science.
• Her research fields include fetal monitoring, the organization of maternity care, users’ experiences, and medicalization.
  Ellen’s contributions to these and other research areas are substantial.
• Additionally, she has actively participated in public debates, even on controversial topics such as the organization of maternity care.
• Her eye for the need for midwifery science and a midwifery research network has been crucial in establishing new Nordic networks among midwifery researchers (NorNam) and collaborations in the Nordic region, thereby strengthening the entire field of maternity care and midwifery.
• Moreover, she has contributed to the advancement of midwifery science by participating in assessment committees across the Nordic countries. Her impact on midwifery science is constructive, admirable, and deeply dedicated.

2024 recipients: Professor Ellen Nøhr, Director of Studies Christina Prinds and Midwife PhD Dorte Hvidtjørn

The Skaberkraft Award was presented in honor of the 10-year anniversary of the Master of Midwifery program at the University of Southern Denmark.

Excerpt from Sara Kindberg Adelskov’s speech at the ceremony: 

It was a group of visionary and courageous individuals who, back in the day, laid the foundation and created the framework that allows us today to have a strong, single-profession Master’s program.

You are role models for many of us working in and around the midwifery profession.

 

• Ellen, as a professor of midwifery, has carefully safeguarded the data from our Danish cohort “Mother and Child”, to which I myself contributed data when I was pregnant in 2000.
• Dorte was appointed as the first head of studies, and both of you have taken on long commutes and travel days in stride to keep the midwifery flag flying high on a national level.
• Christina has since taken the baton and is now the head of studies. At the same time, she holds a research position at Hospital of Southern Jutland — many benefit from your collective efforts.
  

Together, you have educated 65 Masters of Midwifery Science over the past 10 years. Some have become midwifery leaders, heads of study programs, researchers, and entrepreneurs. All are committed to advancing women’s health.

You have truly contributed to ensuring that midwifery, both within and beyond our own circles, is seen as a field rich in Skaberkraft — creative force and innovation.

While we assist at the beginning of life in the delivery wards, you support the academic birth of reflective and research-oriented clinicians.

Together, we shape a shared vision of a midwifery profession that stands strong — today and in the future.