About the department

We are united by our interest in the relationship between the human and her environment, and how she sustainably can utilize natural resources. Multidisciplinary research and education is therefore also pursued in sustainable community building.

At the department of rural development we work on issues of the countryside’s specific conditions and problems. The subject involves both analysis and descriptions of the process of change as well as methods and approaches for working with local and regional development. Education and research will among other things bring up questions on the countryside’s exclusiveness and development in the light of national and global changes in economy and politics. For example it concerns natural resource preservation, politics and policy, changes in living conditions as well as connections between agriculture, society and surrounding nature. The department's collaborative project aims to convey, make use of and commonly develop new knowledge.

Landscape Architecture is an interdisciplinary subject that contributes to knowledge and understanding of the processes that shape the landscape. At the department we work through education and research and different types of collaborative assignments to develop knowledge on planning, design and management where society development and society building interacts with the natural processes of the landscape. In the research we bring up issues that include urban land-planting systems and biodiversity, planning issues, design, historic landscapes, landscape analysis, as well as children and young people in the city's outdoor environment. The department education program in landscape architecture provides a comprehensive professional training that includes knowledge of humans, society, technology, form, nature as well as working methods in landscape architecture.

The subject Environmental Communication focuses on people and their relationship to the environment and nature. Research and education in environmental communication are based on that a sustainable development to a large degree demands social and communicative understanding and development. It is not the environment or nature that is responsible for problems that occurs, but we the people. A major obstacle to sustainable development is absent or dysfunctional communication between the competing interests involved in decision making at various levels in society. To create the best possible conditions for environmental issues to be handled in a sustainable way we need to strengthen our communication skills. A developed understanding of communicative processes is central to this.

The Swedish Centre for Nature Interpretation (CNV) is a centre for all who work with nature interpretation, a growing group in Sweden. Nature interpretation means communication, information and other educational activities that help people to experience and develop their sense for and knowledge of nature. CNV arrange among other things education programs and seminars, newsletter publishing and gathering of knowledge and experience in the field of nature interpretation.

The Swedish EIA Centre SLU ended as organization on 1 July 2011. The activities are now re-organized to strengthen the integration between research and collaboration. Between 1999 and 2011 the EIA Centre functioned as a national center of competence for environmental impact assessment (EIA) and environmental assessment (EA) of politics/policies, plans, programs and projects. The goal is to continue to be a key operator for news distribution and networking.