Particularly worrying is the changing population structure, which is expected to have significant consequences for society, not least because the consumption of care for the elderly population constitutes a large part of the total national care.

Although we can now cure a greater number of diseases than in the past, age-related diseases are increasing. Other current and future challenges include a limited economy, increased privatisation and digitalisation, ever-increasing availability of patient data, and globalization that influences and limits national decisions.

We believe that legal research can play an important role in addressing many of these and other challenges in Sweden and internationally. For example, more knowledge is needed about how the structure and content of regulation affects health care interventions in different ways. EU legislation interacts with national law in an often quite complex way. In addition, Sweden's EU membership means that our national health care market is to a significant extent open to competition and distribution of services on equal terms within the EU, which means an increasing number of non-Swedish actors in the national health care system.

The rapid developments in biomedical innovation over the last decade have further created a strong need for studies of national and international regulation. Interdisciplinary research constellations and collaboration between different stakeholders can be important to achieve the best research results and to secure fundamental values in society, such as legal certainty, personal integrity and social welfare.

Furthermore, studies are needed on the role of legislation in health care from a societal and global perspective. Questions about how we can minimise inequality, vulnerability and discrimination in health care need to be resolved, as well as questions about whether the legal system can promote a more efficient and qualitative development of the health and care functions in Sweden.