Dr Josefina Syssner, a geographer at Linköping University, received a grant of 420,000 euros for research on strategies of shrinking municipalities in Sweden and the Netherlands. The project will be carried out with the University of Twente, a partner university in the ECIU network.
Due to urbanization, brain drain and aging more and more municipalities in Sweden and the Netherlands cope with population decline. How do local governments respond to this development? And what can be learnt from the strategies employed? These questions will be addressed in the project Strategies for shrinking municipalities? Local adaptation policy as a supplement to local growth policy that is funded by Swedish government funds with about 420,000 euros.
In the project Dr Josefina Syssner, director of the Centre Municipality Studies (CKS) at Linköping University, will investigate how local governments seek to handle demographic shrinkage in Sweden and the Netherlands. She will closely cooperate with Prof Gert-Jan Hospers from the University of Twente. Both geographers will focus on 16 municipalities in four regions: Östergötland and Värmland in Sweden and the Achterhoek and Zuid-Limburg in the Netherlands. A key element of the project is valorisation, so that shrinking communities can benefit from the research findings.
The project starts in January 2015 and lasts three years. The grant comes from FORMAS, the Swedish Research Council, that promotes high-quality research in the area of environment, agricultural sciences and spatial planning within its Young Scientists-programme. Linköping University and the University of Twente are both part of the ECIU (European Consortium of Innovative Universities), a network of 11 universities that are highly committed to innovation, creativity and societal impact.
Source: ECIU website
