Collaboration for social sustainability in Uppsala County

The remit of Sweden’s county administrative boards includes strengthening cooperation in the area of social sustainability between government agencies, municipalities, regions and various organisations and actors. The Social Sustainability Council therefore brings together a variety of public actors within the county to coordinate and strengthen the county’s efforts in social sustainability by creating a structure and systematics for the work.

Good life on equal terms

The purpose of the Council is to improve opportunities for a good life on equal terms for the entire county’s population. In this context, social sustainability concerns issues such as integration, gender equality including men’s violence against women, alcohol, illicit drugs, doping, tobacco, gambling, crime prevention, human rights, an inclusive labour market, and good and equitable health.

Besides the Uppsala County Administrative Board, the Council includes representatives from the municipalities in Uppsala County, the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, the Swedish Public Employment Service, the Swedish Police, the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Uppsala University is represented at an overarching level and specifically through the National Centre for Knowledge on Men’s Violence against Women.

Thematic meetings

The Council holds meetings twice a year with representatives from these actors. Each Council meeting has a theme which functions as the starting point for the actors in describing their current situations, and their needs for development and knowledge.

“Often the municipalities describe the problems they are encountering within the chosen theme at the Council meetings. These are horizontal issues that are then boiled down into concrete challenges at the meetings. From our side, we try to monitor the meetings for things that can be brought back to some part of Uppsala University,” says Mattias Martinson, Deputy Vice-Rector for the Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences and Uppsala University’s representative on the Council.

The themes of the most recent Council meetings have been housing programmes, the prevention of violence, and challenges and priorities in social sustainability.

Between the Council meetings, a coordination group works on implementing and monitoring efforts in these areas.

Initiates collaborations

“At Council meetings, various types of challenges where researchers could help often come up in the discussions,” says Anette Persson Stache, project manager at the University Administration and member of the coordination group for the Council.

“This can include research already being done, where we can start conversations between researchers and actors which allow the researchers to describe the frontiers in their research area as a way of establishing a partnership. But it can also include questions that present opportunities to discuss new research or education of course,” says Mattias Martinson.

For employees – especially researchers – it might be useful to know that questions about partnerships may arise that in fact stem from the work of the Social Sustainability Council.

“When needs arise that we think our researchers might be able to help with, we try to identify researchers at the University with whom we can match the actors who have expressed these needs. Researchers are also welcome to contact me if they are interested in knowing more about the Council, or presenting research in the prioritised areas to the actors,” says Anette Persson Stache.

Anders Berndt