Landscape governance and management
We conduct research, development and teaching on governance and management of landscapes, primarily in urban environments. Our expertise largely concerns professional management of outdoor environments.
Governance encompasses collaboration between actors, within and outside the public sector, and concerns power relations, decision-making and resources (knowledge and economics), discourses and relevant laws and regulations. This often includes decision-making and engagement of stakeholders to jointly develop landscapes at different scales.
Management is about strategic, inclusive and long-term approaches to the continuous re-planning, redesign, reconstruction and management of outdoor environments, with organizational perspectives such as strategic leadership and the development of working methods (e.g. overviews, inventories, valuations, collaborations and partnerships).
By combining governance and management, we develop, promote and apply strategic management and governance to promote ecosystem services through nature-based solutions, where social values are an important issue for the group.
The subject group has a strong international network but also a long history of close collaboration with practice, for example with municipalities, organizations and private companies. Key research questions include how governance and management can be developed to support the sustainability, use and relevance of outdoor environments, often within applied development and in innovation-driven contexts.
Project funding comes from Formas, Vinnova, KSLA, Movium Partnership, Nordforsk and the EU, among others. We are thus involved in projects at both national and international levels, from local to large international projects.
We contribute to various educational programs at all levels at SLU. Teaching primarily concerns the landscape architecture program, the landscape engineering program and the master's program in sustainable urban development at SLU in Alnarp. The group participates in doctoral education within and outside the department.
Our expertise
The key competencies of the group members include interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary scientific working methods; organizational and policy analysis; long-term management methods; methods and techniques for inventory and valuation; assessment of behaviors and needs of specific user groups; and collaboration across and within different organizational structures and scales, especially within landscape professions.
Meetings and events
The subject group Landscape Governance and Management organizes a meeting every three weeks to talk about landscape governance: Governance Talks.
Since 2021, Outdoor Environment Day has been organized annually by the subject group Landscape Governance and Management and SLU Landscape. The aim is to promote knowledge exchange about outdoor environment management between research and practice.