Abstract: Almost 20 years ago, Jesper and Mats presented their idea of strategic communication in the Swedish book Reflexiv kommunikation (eng. Reflexive communication, 2003). In 2007, they launched the first Swedish academic education and research unit with an exclusive focus on strategic communication. They have also written the first Swedish textbook in the subject (2014) which later were published in English (Routledge 2018, 2022). Later this year Research Handbook of Strategic Communication (Elgar 2022) will be published. The book is edited by Jesper and Mats, and contains contributions from over 50 international researchers. During the talk, Jesper and Mats will present strategic communication at the research front, and also challenge the traditional idea of strategic communication. They will further present different trends within the field that they find especially interesting and value creating. For example, they will talk about disinformation, political communication, listening, communicative coworkership and leadership, trust building and communicative organizations.

Jesper Falkheimer and Mats Heide are two leading scholars in the field of strategic communication. Jesper Falkheimer is Professor at the Department of Strategic Communication at Lund University, Sweden. In his research, he has focused on strategic communication in general as well as crisis communication, communication management, place branding and conflict/extremism communication. Mats Heide is Professor at the Department of Strategic Communication at Lund University, Sweden. In his research, he has mainly been focusing on internal aspects of strategic communication. For example, he has studied change communication, internal crisis communication, and strategic listening. He is also interested in professionalization of communication practitioners.