Agora - an arena for developing knowledge and learning for environmental assessment

Agora core values

• Leadership and agency in environmental assessment
• Building bridges between research, practice and education
• Developing knowledge and learning in environmental assessment
• Research of high quality and relevance to society
• Sustainability and justice at the core

Current activities

For current activities, switch to the Swedish page.

Core values in action

Leadership and agency in environmental assessment

• Initiates and builds EA leadership through Agora,
• Supports EA actors to explore their own agency through their work and  organisations,
• Studies actors’ strategies, opportunities and challenges for putting EA leadership to action.

Building bridges between research, practice and education

• Recognises EA as an interdisciplinary and plural process where people need to collaborate cross borders,
• Collaborates with EA actors from public authorities and private sector for advancing research, education and practice,
• Explores what collaboration between academia and practice can entail in EA communities.

Developing knowledge and learning in environmental assessment

• Establishes and develops Agora as a joint venue and arena for advancing knowledge and learning.

Research of high quality and relevance to society

• Acknowledges that both development of tools and providing better explanations and understandings of the use of EA is important for advancing practice,
• Engages in conceptual and empirical studies, which both develops critical mirrors for reflection in practice and, provide recommendations. 

Sustainability and justice at the core

• Recognises the overarching aim of EA as contributing to a sustainable and just society,
• Acknowledges and communicates the reasons EA was developed, and why it is still needed. 

About Agora

Agora engages with EA as a learning community, a policy tool for sustainable and just transformation, and as a field of inter- and transdisciplinary theory and practice.

Agora was established in 2022 as a joint initiative by Mari Kågström, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Charlotta Faith-Ell, Mid Sweden University.

For ongoing research within EIA and SEA, see the researchers' CV pages and SLU research catalogue.