178 News
Social housing – a forbidden issue in Sweden?
”There is no generally accepted definition of what social housing is. However, the smallest common denominators are that it is some form of subsidized housing with lower rents that is, at least partially, allocated to households on lower incomes and not just temporarily, but on long term contracts”, says Senior Research Fellow Anna Granath Hansson in the Swedish speaking radio programme ”Ett eget litet hem” on Sveriges Radio. Anna has just started at Nordregio and her main focus is housing. Social housing exists in the Nordics countries, but the topic is often seen as taboo in the Swedish political discussion. ”In Sweden, we are not used to housing policies that target certain groups. This is something new and often misunderstood. In this program, social housing is compared to social contracts for the most vulnerable. When we look at Nordic and European models, these are often much wider, encompassing also mid-income households.” Listen to the full episode here in Swedish: https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/om-hyresratten-social-housing-den-forbjudna-fragan
2022 April
- Governance
- Nordic Region
SHERPA project working towards sustainable multi-actor platforms
Sustainable Hub to Engage into Rural Policies with Actors (SHERPA) arranged a workshop to kick-start the second phase of SHERPA MAPs by introducing new Facilitators and Monitors to the SHERPA tools. The session aimed at ensuring that both experienced and new Facilitators and Monitors have the same information and feel prepared to facilitate and monitor multi-actor platforms (MAPs) – rural interfaces that provide a forum for co-learning and co-creation of knowledge with European, national and regional actors. “Our societies are facing extremely complex problems that are connected to global and interlinked processes, such as climate change, poverty and inequalities. These problems cannot be solved by scientists or politicians alone. It demands different fields of expertise – including citizens and experience-based knowledge – to interact and collaborate for new ideas and innovations “, says Elin Slätmo, Senior Research Fellow at Nordregio. According to the researcher, if the multi-actor group is open to combining different types of knowledge and experiences, research shows that applying this method to rural areas can help deal with issues of lack of trust between local actors and central governments. Furthermore, it can help create common visions for sustainable regional development with a commitment to implementing and strengthening rural areas’ resilience and economic competitiveness. “There are, however, no recipes for success – adaptation and constant learning and development is crucial for processes, outputs and outcomes to be sustainable “, adds Slätmo. SHERPA is a four-year project with 17 partners, funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and coordinated by Ecorys in Brussels. The project aims to formulate recommendations to redefine European development policies and research agenda for rural areas. There will be established 40 MAPs for actors from science, society and policy to interact. Nordregio’s role is to develop the theoretical framework for the science-society-policy interface in…
2022 February
- Baltic Sea Region
- Europe
- Governance
- Nordic Region
Stronger institutions lead to higher Nordic trust
Strengthening institutions is crucial for mending Nordic trust and for building regional resilience in a post-pandemic world. This is the premise of a new academic article penned by Nordregio researchers. Alberto Giacometti, Mari Wøien Meijer and John Moodie, Nordregio researchers have worked together on a new academic article published in the Cross-Border Review Yearbook published by CESCI. The paper called “Trust: The social capital of border communities in the Nordic Region” looks into how the Covid 19 pandemic threatened the Nordic integration plans and the cooperation at large and how cross-border communities were heavily impacted. The researchers discuss the role of Nordic institutions and cross-border organizations in protecting the rights of citizens in border areas and introduce the concept of “adaptive institutionalization”. That could help establish a clear distribution of responsibilities across different levels of governance and thus help adapt cooperation to situations of potential future crisis. “We highlight the role of ‘trust’ as the ‘glue’ that keeps the Nordic collaboration in place, both among citizens and governance structures, which is pivotal for addressing future crises and global challenges,” says Alberto Giacometti, Nordregio Research Fellow. The 2021 edition of the yearbook is the eighth one and focuses on the riveting experience of life under the premises of a global and borderless pandemic. The “Cross-Border Review 2021” is intended primarily for the academic community, students of geography and political sciences and for all those who are curious about cross-border cooperation.
2022 February
- Covid-19
- Cross-border
- Governance
- Nordic Region
Towards local indicators for active and healthy ageing
The concept of active and healthy ageing refers to maintaining and developing opportunities for health, social participation and security to enhance well-being and quality of life as people age. Nordregio is currently carrying out two closely related projects dealing with Active and Healthy ageing. Nordic Welfare Centre commissions both initiatives, and Senior Research Fellow Mats Stjernberg will present preliminary findings from the study on indicators for Active and Healthy Ageing and welfare technology for seniors at the Nordic Welfare Forum 2021. The main focus in Nordregio´s study on Active and Healthy Ageing is on indicators that allow Nordic comparisons. The project examines what types of relevant indicators currently exist, how these indicators are used in policymaking and the main needs for improvement. “The concepts of active ageing and healthy ageing have become highly placed on the Nordic policy agenda, at the national, regional and municipal level, which means there is a need for relevant indicators on multiple territorial levels. However, one of the current challenges is that the currently existing indicators are not that well-suited for policymaking purposes at the local level. For instance, there is a need for more subjective indicators focusing on self-assessment to better grasp differences among the diverse senior population,” says Mats Stjernberg, who is managing these two projects at Nordregio. A key finding is that municipalities and regions lack a coherent body of statistical indicators to assess the status of active and healthy ageing within their respective boundaries. This is mainly because most of the indicators are produced by supranational institutions such as the World Health Organization, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or Eurostat. Thus, they are focused on the national level but can also in some cases be broken down to the regional or municipal level. Another key finding is that very few indicators exist in…
2021 December
- Active ageing
- Governance
- Nordic Region