Pixlapiren in Helsingborg
Pixlapiren in Helsingborg, Photo: Nina Vogel

Purpose, mission and vision

Page reviewed:  10/12/2025

SLU Urban Futures is one of four future platforms at SLU that aim to foster transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary ways of working as well as future-oriented teaching and research.

Purpose

The thematic focus of the Urban Futures platform includes spatial and socio-ecological sustainability perspectives on urban landscapes as habitat for diverse groups of humans as well as other-than-human actors, as well as urban-rural and urban-hinterland dependencies and interactions.

As a living, interactive interface between academia and society, SLU Urban Futures strives to:

  • identify needs for knowledge, through projects based on synthesis and analysis, and generate scientifically based decision support for issues relevant to society;

  • identify and develop, through collaboration with relevant actors in society, new questions for research to support solutions to future challenges;

  • develop interdisciplinary working methods by coordinating cooperation across disciplinary boundaries.

Mission

To inspire and support SLU researchers and educators to initiate, develop and strengthen transdisciplinary research, education and collaboration within the field of sustainable urban development.

Vision

To make SLU more urban than ever before.