Sustainable Built Environment and Urban Transition, Linnaeus University, Växjö
The present-day urban metabolism of the cities requires them to be smart and circular to facilitate balance between the ecological systems and the societal infrastructure. Cities have undergone morphological transitions since the historic age to the contemporary times, thus adapting to the ever changing demands of its inhabitants. The conference engages in issues of sustainability and urbanization including health and wellbeing, green spaces, energy efficiency of buildings and green infrastructure, adaptation and resiliency, circular economy in built environment, etc. These themes would highlight the interdisciplinary discourse on various challenges and path-dependency of the cities and built environment that transformed them maintaining the cultural, historical, societal, geographical identity along with spatial configurations. Technological versus nature-based solutions inclusive of top-down and bottom-up approaches will be deliberated. SBEUT aims to provide a platform for researchers, professionals, experts and scholars from developed and developing economies to share their expertise and perspectives on these issues.
Keynote speakers
Prof. Shobhakar Dhakal
Former Vice President for Academic Affairs Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand Professor of energy, environment and climate change School of Environment, Resources and Development.
His teaching, research and international activities comprise of energy and climate change policies, carbon accounting and climate change mitigation in cities, and the SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) synergies and tradeoffs in climate and energy issues. Prof. Dhakal has published papers in the top journals in the field such as Nature, Nature Sustainability, Nature Climate Change, Nature Scientific Data, Energy, Energy Policy, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, and others. He has published 8 books, two dozen book chapters, and over 70 peer-reviewed papers in international journals. Prof. Dhakal has served as a Coordinating Lead Author for the 6th Assessment Report (Mitigation) of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was published in early 2022, where he led assessment on Emission Trends and Drivers (Chapter 2). Prof. Dhakal is also a member of Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Carbon Project (a well-known global research program under the Future Earth) and he contributes to urban carbon management issues. As a Coordinating Lead Author, he also led urban mitigation assessment of the IPCC’s fifth assessment report (mitigation).
Prof. Dhakal is globally well-established and recognized expert in the international science and science-policy communities of energy, climate change and cities. Prof. Dhakal was placed amongst the top 1% of the global researchers for last several years (2020 -2022) in the field of Energy in a recently published study by researchers from Stanford University in PLOS Biology Journal. He was amongst the 20 co-authors of a recent UN-led high-level global scientific assessment launched on 18 February 2021 by UN Secretary-General António Guterres “Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies” that outlines a blueprint to tackle Earth’s interconnected planetary crises presenting the latest science. Prof. Dhakal had also led energy assessment for the Hindu Kush Himalaya, which is one of its first kind of assessment for the region led by the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
Prof. Niels Albertsen
Niels Albertsen (1945) is professor emeritus at the Aarhus School of Architecture (DK), which he joined in 1975. Before that he studied political science at the Aarhus University where he also taught the history of political ideas and political economy. At the Aarhus School of Architecture, he has been researching and teaching within the fields of social theory, cultural theory, urban studies, architectural theory, design theory, the philosophy and sociology of art, atmosphere as an aesthetic concept, theory of science, issues of inter- and transdisciplinarity, the sociology of science and the sociology of professions especially concerning the profession of architects.
He was centrally engaged in the establishment, management and teaching of research education (PhD-studies) at the Aarhus School of Architecture and in cooperations among the Nordic schools of architecture in this regard. He has supervised PhD-candidates within the fields of industrial design and atmosphere; immigrants, urban politics and social theory; the theory and history of architecture; the detached housing areas of the welfare city; urban planning and urban theory; architectural quality; architectural heritage and atmosphere; landscape architecture; atmosphere and the urban Anthropocene; women’s resistance, ambiance and urbanity.
He was a senior researcher at the Modern Aesthetic Theory project at the Centre for Cultural Research, Aarhus University (1995-96) and he directed the interinstitutional research project, ‘The Welfare City Project’ from 1998-2004. He was head of department at the Department of Landscape and Urbanism, Aarhus School of Architecture (2003-2011) and co-founder and co-director of the interinstitutional Centre for Strategic Urban Research (2004-2015). He directed the ‘Cold War Closed Cities and Sites, International and cross-disciplinary research network’ (2012-2015) and was a co-director of the international ‘Atmospheres in the Urban Anthropocene’ research network (2018-2022). For many years he was a board member of the Nordic Association for Architectural Research and served as the president for this association from 1998-2000. He was a member of the scientific advisory board for RAMAU (Réseaux Activités et Métiers de l'Architecture et de l'Urbanisme), École d'architecture de Paris - La Villette, Paris (2004-2008) and a member of the board of European experts in the series of seminars on “Climate change, urban mobility and clean tech” organized by Institut pour la ville en mouvement, Paris (2009-2010). Since 2012 he is a member of the scientific committee and review committee for Ambiances. International Journal of Sensory Environment, Architecture and Urban Space.
He has peer-reviewed for Nordisk Arkitekturforskning, Slagmark, Theory, Culture & Society, Science Studies, Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, Dansk Sociologi, disp-the Planning Review, European Journal of Social Theory, Ambiances, Spool, Passepartout, Nordisk Kulturpolitisk Tidsskrift, Hans Reitzels Forlag, SBi, Aalborg Universitetsforlag, Journal of Sonic Studies, European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology. His own articles have been published in Society and Space, Theory, Culture & Society, Ambiances, Distinktion, Nordic Architectural Research, Cahiers RAMAU, Sosiologi i dag and Dansk Sociologi as well as in books in Danish, Swedish, English, French and Portuguese.
Prof. Jessica Pykett
Jessica Pykett is Professor of Social and Political Geography and Co-Director of the Centre for Urban Wellbeing at the University of Birmingham. Her research focusses on policy innovation and governance, knowledge practices, and wellbeing inequalities. She is currently researching how knowledge and expertise about emotions and decision-making are evolving globally and shaping policy. This research explores the spatial and sociodigital nature of these forms of knowledge, and examines the implications of such trends for future wellbeing and societal ethics. She is leading an ESRC funded project on “Ethics and Expertise in times of crisis” with collaborators in Australia, Germany and the UK. She is also co-investigator for the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures hosted at Bristol University, UK, and the Leverhulme project “Biology, data science, and the making of precision education”, hosted at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
Jessica has published around 40 peer-reviewed articles and 7 books which span a number of disciplines, and she enjoys collaborating with psychologists, neuroscientists, political scientists, social policy scholars, educationalists, philosophers and other human geographers to deepen critical perspectives on the role of knowledge production and uses of evidence on the mind, brain and behaviour in public policy and more recently in digital innovation and in urban governance. This work has appeared in journals such as Perspectives in Psychology, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Progress in Human Geography, Evidence and Policy, History of the Human Sciences, Health and Place, and Social Science and Medicine. Books include: A Modern Guide to Wellbeing Research (2021, co-edited with Beverley Searle and Maria Jesus Alfaro Simmonds),Neuroliberalism: Behavioural government in the twenty-first century (2017, with Mark Whitehead, Rhys Jones, Rachel Lilley, and Rachel Howell), and Brain Culture. Shaping Policy Through Neuroscience (2015).
Scientific Committee
Prof. Krushna Mahapatra, Linnaeus University, Sweden (Conference chair)
Krushna Mahapatra is a professor of Sustainable Built Environment at Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden. His research interests include energy system analysis, diffusion of innovations, sociotechnical transition, actor behaviour, policy analysis, business models etc., mainly in the area of built environment. He leads the Sustainable Built Environment Research group at Linnaeus University. He is an Editor of Energies Journal and Associate Editor of Frontiers in Built Environment Journal.
Email: Krushna.mahapatra@lnu.se
See webpage
Prof. Francesco Ferrini, University of Florence, Italy
Francesco is a full Professor at the Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry – University of Florence (Italy). His Scientific activity includes research and experimental studies regarding ornamental and Arboriculture & Urban Forestry. He is specialty Chief Editor of Frontiers in Floriculture & Landscape. He has published more than 360 scientific and technical papers (116 indexed in Scopus, IF 31; Google Scholar, IF 37).
Email: Francesco.ferrini@unifi.it
Prof. Johan Bergh, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Johan Bergh concerns silviculture, climate change mitigation and adaptation and how boreal and temperate forest ecosystems are affected by climate change. Adapted forest management is one way to take advantage of the new situation, to mitigate climate change, handle potential risks and to minimise damage. Collaboration with the Swedish forest industry and society constitutes a big part of my work. I also work internationally to give advice on plantation forestry. He is also leader of KM Linnaeus “Green sustainable Development” and deeply involved in Bridge 2.0. Citations according to Google scholar are 3691, h-index 32, i10-index 47.
Prof. Arnold Tukker, Leiden University and TNO, Netherlands
Arnold Tukker is the Professor of Industrial Ecology and served until September 2022 for a maximum 8 year term as Scientific director of the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML, 150 staff) at Leiden University. He retains a small position at the Dutch not for profit research organization TNO. Arnold set up 15 million Euro in EU projects in which the world’s most ambitious and detailed global energy/resource/economic input-output database (EXIOBASE) was built. He led a EU Marie Curie Innovative Training Network of 15 PhDs researching the circular economy (Circ€uit). He was appointed as a member of the European Academy of Sciences in 2018, and is recognised by the Web of Science group as a highly cited researcher since 2019. His work in the field of sustainable business models is among the highest cited globally.
Prof. Juan Pedro, University of Murcia, Spain
Juan Pedro Montávez is full professor of Physics of the Earth at the Department of Physics of the University of Murcia, Spain. He has a extensive research experience on Regional Atmospheric Modeling, working on numerical climate simulations at several spatial and temporal scales, as well as performing statistical analysis of climate variability and climate change impacts. He leads the Modelling Atmospheric Group at University of Murcia (https://www.um.es/gmar). He has published more than 100 scientific and technical papers (H-index 35).
Asso. Prof. Brijesh Mainali, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Brijesh Mainali has 25 years of experience working in the field of Energy and Sustainable Development, which includes 13 years in academics and 12 years as consultant with private sector and I/NGO. Mainali has led and coordinated several projects in the area of Energy and Climate change funded by FORMAS and VR. He has also worked as participant researcher in couple of EU projects Horizon 2020 on Energy efficiency and deep renovation of detached households and Erasmus+ project on Capacity building of partners in LESOTHO for developing courses on Sustainable development. Besides, Dr Mainali is project coordinator from LNU side for Doctoral school in Sustainable energy engineering (SEED) and Program manager for Masters Programme in Energy and Management for Sustainable Development at LNU.
Prof. Ambrose Dodoo, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Ambrose Dodoo is a full Professor in Building Technology at Linnaeus University, Växjö. He has backgrounds in Building Technology and Environmental Science and Ecotechnology. His work encompasses teaching, research and coordination of the Sustainable Structural Engineering Master’s Programme at the Department of Building Technology. His research encompasses strategies to improve energy efficiency and thereby minimize the climate impacts of construction products and buildings for a circular economy transition. Recently, he has been an expert reviewer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the working group on climate change mitigation. Look at his 2369 citations, h-index 23 and i10-index 40, and over 100 scientific publications with details.
Prof. Boris Braun, University of Cologne, Germany
Boris Braun is full professor of Economic and Human Geography at the Department of Geosciences of Cologne University in Germany. His research interests are in the field of economic-geographical environmental research, in particular adaptation to regional climate and ecological change as well as environmental and social standards in value chains - especially in the Global South (South and Southeast Asia, West Africa), but also in the Global North (Central Europe, Australia, Japan). He leads the Graduate School of Geosciences of the University of Cologne and has published approximately 170 academic papers and books (h-index 21, Google Scholar).
Prof. Laurent Devisme, Nantes University, France
Holding a PhD (University of Tours – France, 2001) and an accreditation to supervise research (ENS Lyon, France, 2014) – Laurent Devisme teaches urban studies. His main research focus is on planning practices, urban theories and new metropolitan territories. Adopting an ethnographic approach of planning activities, his works concern urban professionals at work, foresight and consulting activities, urban sociology and urban studies theories.
He is part of the Sensibilia research program, “sensitive approaches regarding the transformation of living conditions".
He is vice-president in charge of sustainable development of Nantes University since January 2022.
Dr. Åsa Ståhl, Senior Lecturer, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Åsa Ståhl is a design researcher and a senior lecturer at the Department of Design at Linnaeus University. Her work combines participatory design, speculations, feminist technoscience and environmental posthumanism. Together with her long-term collaborator Kristina Lindström she started the Un/Making Studio. Ståhl is one of the founding members of the international Design & Posthumanism Network.
Ståhl is the PI of the research project “Holding Surplus House” where an expanded notion of household is taken as the starting point for explorations into eco-socially just transition. She is also the PI for the upcoming 6-year research environment across four universities on “Design after Progress: Reimagining Design Histories and Design Futures”.
She holds a PhD in Media and Communication Studies from Malmö University - a joint interdisciplinary doctoral thesis with Kristina Lindström in interaction design. Between 2015 and 2016 Lindström and Ståhl were postdocs at Umeå Institute of Design.
Asso. Prof. Valeria Lingua, University of Florence, Italy
Valeria Lingua is Associate Professor on Urban and Regional Planning at the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence, where she acts as Scientific Director of the Regional Design Lab. She is RSA Ambassador for Italy and coordinator of the AESOP Thematic Group on Regional Design and has been an affiliate academic in prestigious Universities and research groups: Bartlett School of Planning, UCL (2014), Delft University of Technology (2016), Paris Sorbonne University (2018), Lisbon University (2022). She is a well-recognised academic on regional planning and design, governance rescaling and visioning, spatial imaginaries. She conducts research activities and consultancies at EU, National and regional level concerning strategic spatial planning, sub-regional and inter-municipal planning, and definition of river agreements.
Asso. Prof. Andrea Frank, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Andrea Frank is Associate professor in urban and regional planning at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham. Her research interest focuses broadly on nature-society relations and how natural elements in human settlements are integrated, manipulated, restored or preserved. She has been a co-PI on an international grant investigating of different perception and uses of “Green Infrastructure” to enhance urban sustainability comparing Gainesville (FL, USA), Jakarta (Indonesia) and Cardiff (Wales, UK). She is also interested in knowledge and capacity in planning/built environment professionals can be improved.
Asso. Prof. Irina Kuznetsova, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Dr Irina Kuznetosva is an Associate Professor in Human Geography at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham. Her research expertise includes migration, forced displacement, health, and critical urbanism. Her recent projects focus on the social consequences of population displacement in Ukraine, Russia, and Nigeria, including mental health and well-being. She also works on the impact of migration on rural communities.
Dr Rakib Akhtar, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Dr. Rakib Akhtar is an Assistant Professor at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham. He is an interdisciplinary scholar with a research focus on technology-oriented urbanisation, infrastructure development and their interconnection with right-wing nationalism. Rakib is a chartered Architect and a Town Planner with extensive knowledge and practical experiences across countries. His research interests sit at the intersection of Urban Planning, Political Economy and Development Studies.
Asso. Prof. Nieves Espinosa, University of Murcia, Spain
Description: Nieves Espinosa is researcher at the Department of Physics of the University of Murcia, Spain. She has an extensive research experience on life cycle assessment, working on the evaluation of the environmental impact of energy conversion and storage technologies, as well as conducting techno-economic analysis to support environmental policy development. She holds a tenure track at the Modelling Atmospheric Group at University of Murcia. She has published more than 40 scientific and technical papers (H-index 25).
See webpage
Prof. Enrica Caporali
Associate Professor of Hydrology and Hydraulic Structures at University of Florence (UNIFI), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Awarded with a Post-Doc fellowship at UNIFI and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Chair of the Board of Teachers of Degree Courses in: i) Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering (BSc); ii) Civil Engineering (MSc); iii) Building Engineering (MSc); iv) Environmental Engineering (MSc) and v) Geoengineering (MSc). Associate of UNESCO Chair on “Prevention and Sustainable Management of Geo-Hydrological Hazards”, Scientific Coordinator of the Spatial Data Laboratory of DICEA (ldt.dicea.unifi.it).
Research Projects on the SBEUT Themes: TALETE - Protecting the cultural heritage from pluvial floods: the Santa Croce district in Florence (03/2022-04/2022). FLORENCE- FLOod risk and water REsources management with Nature based solutions on City Environment (09/2019 - 03/2021).
About Linnaeus University and the city of Växjö
Linnaeus University is a creative and international knowledge environment that promotes curiosity, creativity, companionship and utility. More than 44,000 students are registered at Linnaeus University.
Linnaeus University is located in Växjö and Kalmar and offers 150 degree programmes and 1,300 single-subject courses. Linnaeus University was e
stablished in 2010 through a merger between Växjö University and Kalmar University College.
With some 2,100 employees and 44,000 students it is a modern university with Småland as its base and the world as its arena. Studying and working at Linnaeus University involves being part of an environment that is characterised by knowledge and development. Students acquire new knowledge and learn to have a critical approach. Researchers make new discoveries that can bring change to our society. Employees share stories of a workplace with both challenges and opportunities. Linnaeus University is a university where people can reach their full potential.
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And Yes, it is true that Linnaeus University has a castle on campus! The castle of Teleborg is not as old as it looks but we are very pleased with the 'magic touch' it brings to campus Växjö.
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You can easily take a bus (every 10 minutes) or walk (approx. 45 minutes) from Campus to the city centre - today Växjö is one of the fastest growing cities in all Sweden with a lot to see and experience.