RESEARCH PROJECT

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

Updated: July 2025

Project overview

Project manager: Mari Kagstrom
Cooperators:

Participants

Research groups:

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Short summary

Agora aims to advance knowledge and learning within environmental assessment, including Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).

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, see 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 was established in 2022, as a joint initiative between the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Mid Sweden University.

Engaging with EA as a learning community, a policy tool for sustainable and just transformation, and a field of practice.

 

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