The Division of Rural Development (SLU) in collaboration with Nordregio gather all the Swedish rural researchers together in a unique setting in Åkerberga, 11-12 November. Ruralities and Regions in Transition is a conference that offers the opportunity to meet, share and discuss the recent research topics of rural and regional development in Sweden.
The organizers have received a wide range of contributions seeking to present theoretical advancements, offer novel methodological insights and provide new empirical evidence related to rural research. This in turn can contribute to more robust policy initiatives and planning practices in Swedish rural and regional development.
Karen Refsgaard, Research Director at Nordregio, will be one of the main speakers at the conference. Anna Karlsdóttir, Elin Slätmo and Leneisja Jungsberg from Nordregio have submitted their abstracts for the conference book and will attend the event to learn more about the topic and change the experience with others.
“The conference Ruralities and Regions in Transition is an opportunity to meet and engage with other scholars. I will present the work we are doing in SHERPA on rural multi-actor platforms. I hope to get insights from the perspectives that the Swedish researchers bring, and maybe find researchers interested to be part of the platform Nordregio and Rural Sweden are about to establish,” – says Elin Slätmo, Senior Research Fellow at Nordregio.
In the conference, Research Fellow at Nordregio Leneisja Jungsberg will present the outcome of her PhD thesis. “It has been a 4-year process where I studied local strategies and how rural communities can overcome territorial challenges such as population change, economic benefit retention from resource-based industries and adapting to environmental change such as permafrost degradation,” she says.
The themes of this year’s conference:
- Sustainable rural areas: site development and rural ‘livelihoods’
- Entrepreneurship and social innovation in a rural context
- Demographic change and migration: policy and practice in shrinking geographies
- The role of natural resources in rural change processes
- Skills supply, employment and the labor market in rural contexts
- Local resilience in a time of global societal challenges
- Regional development policy
Find more about the conference here.
