Tuija Hilding Rydevik

-I am since autumn 2024 the temporary group leader of the Environmental Governance research group at the the Dep. of Political Science and Environmental Governance. These are my different main positions and some major assignments:

- 2021- ongoing. Professor Emerita in Environmental Assessment and SLU Biodiversity Centre.

- 2011 - 2021, Director of the SLU Swedish Biodiversity Center (CBM).

- 2002 - 2022 appointed by the Environmental minister as a member of the  scientific committee Swedish National Council for Nuclear Waste (Kärnavfallsrådet). Aim of the committee was to advice the government on issues related to the process to find a safe final disposal for spent nuclear fuel.

- 2012 - ongoing. Member of the national scientific committee for Biodiversity and Ecosystem services hosted by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency . The committee support SEPA in the Swedish international work related to the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

- 2018 - ongoing. Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry.

- 2006-2011. Senior Lecturer at the Swedish Centre for Environmental Impact Assessment, SLU.

- Previous employments include the Nordic research institute Nordregio, the Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research (FRN), The Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm Univiersity.

The main research interest is the practically crucial, but not enough recognized, issue of environmental policy integration and implementation in different public administrations as part of understanding and governing sustainability transformation processes.  This knowledge can serve as a basis for more effective environmental policy formulations and implementation and pace up e.g. the public administration contribution to sustainable development transformations.

Areas included in this research is e.g. conservation and biodiversity in general and in agriculture, land use planning, regional economic planning, energy planning, processes for planning for final disposal of spent nuclear fuel in Sweden Nordic countries and EU. An important early part of research has been on how and if policy instruments like environmental impact assessment (EIA, SEA), indicators etc. works in practice and how and if they are helpful in environmental policy implementation processes. 

Questions asked are e.g.: what happens in the day-to-day professional work when environmental and sustainability policy is to be implemented? How do the professionals make policy goals operational? What conditions exist for them to change and learn new perspectives, apply new tools etc related to sustainability and transformation goals? How accurate and helpful is the design of national, regional and local policy for the practical implementation?  To understand the interplay and relation between sustainability, environmental and conservation policy formulations and the conditions for policy implementation is crucial in order to improve policy formulation and implementation practice.