IGU Conference 2026

The conference is designed as a symposium, with the primary aim of bringing together scholars to share ideas that advance academic knowledge and foster future collaborations. While maintaining a high level of academic rigor, the format encourages discussion and interaction through a combination of presentations and social activities. To support meaningful exchange, participation will be limited to approximately 50 delegates.

We invite contributions to the IGU themed conference The health and sustainability of left-behind places and distressed neighbourhoods: advances through applied geography. Below we outline the conference focus and the types of contributions we welcome.

Left behind places and distressed neighbourhoods represent complex geographical and social realities often discussed using similar terms but carrying distinct meanings across disciplines such as geography, urban planning, sociology and public policy. Despite their differences, these spaces share common challenges: economic hardship, social disadvantage, disinvestment by both public and private sectors, stigmatization in media and public discourse and political marginalization while at the same time demonstrating examples of community building, resilience and solidarity practices.

These places vary significantly in their spatial and demographic characteristics – located in urban versus rural settings, population trends and historical development – all of which shape the nature and effectiveness of policy interventions. They are not merely zones of deprivation but are lived environments rich in social interaction, cultural heritage, and natural assets. Often referred to as neighbourhoods or ruralities, they play a crucial role in shaping individuals’ sense of identity and belonging.

Health and sustainability are deeply embedded in these places, both as a set of exposures, e.g., access to green spaces, quality housing, and transport infrastructure, and as outcomes, e.g., physical and mental health, and environmental impact. These domains intersect in complex ways, revealing inequalities not only between places but also within them.

This symposium aims to bring together researchers with a broad interest in left behind places and distressed neighbourhood in order to combine our knowledge of these places. We are interested in encouraging a diverse range of expertise, approaches and perspectives which further our understanding of how places are defined, operate, shape people’s life chances and can be improved through better planning and policy.

Example topics

Topics of interest within health and sustainability of left behind places and distressed neighbourhoods include (but are not confined to):

• Housing, segregation and inequalities
• Rural challenges and adaptations
• Accessibility and transport
• Retail and food environments
• AI, ‘Smart Data’ and spatial analytics
• Ageing and wellbeing
• Diversity and demographics

Expected outcomes

The symposium will provide a forum for delegates to share ideas that advance understanding of left-behind places and distressed neighbourhoods, and of how applied geography can contribute to the study of place-based challenges. Participants will also be encouraged to develop collaborations that may lead to future joint research building on these ideas. Finally, the symposium organisers intend to propose a special issue in Applied Geography and to invite a selection of complementary papers for submission as a collective contribution.

We invite scholars to submit abstracts for consideration at the conference. The call for papers will open on the 16th of January and is open until 31st of March. Please find the general guidelines below.

Abstract length

• Abstracts should normally be up to 250 words.
• Authors who wish to be considered for a special issue in Applied Geography should submit an extended abstract of up to 1,500 words.
• PhD students participating in postgraduate sessions are also encouraged to submit extended abstracts of up to 1,500 words. These sessions will include a designated commentator.

Presentation format

• Presentations will be 15 minutes, followed by discussion.

Review process

All submitted abstracts will be reviewed by the conference organisers. Authors will be notified of acceptance no later than 30 April.

Book of Abstracts as a PDF pdf, 137 kB.

(Updates 8 September)

Keynote 1: Andrés Rodríguez-Pose: Hörsal 4 (09:00-10:30, Sept. 9)

AI for Regional Development and Innovation

Andrés Rodríguez-Pose (London School of Economics (LSE))

Artificial intelligence has become the centrepiece of the productivity debate, yet we still know surprisingly little about how it reshapes the fortunes of regions, and through which channels. This presentation will argue that AI is not a single thing but two very different activities. The first is generation: the creation of frontier AI, measured in patents and research. The second is adoption: the practical use of AI by firms across sectors and places. The two have different geographies. Generation is winner-take-most. It clusters in a handful of already prosperous regions. Adoption is far more evenly spread. The distinction matters for growth. Evidence from European regions, confirmed in Chinese cities, points one way: adoption, rather than generation, seems to lift regional prosperity and innovation. Adoption also acts as a multiplier, delivering its largest gains in the places that lag behind. The most promising path is not to turn every region into a frontier inventor. It is to help many more become capable, productive users.

Keynote 2 Eva K. Andersson: Hörsal 2 (09:00-10:30, Sept. 11)

Mapping the Margins: Segregation, vulnerability, Life Courses and Place

Eva K. Andersson (Stockholm university)

It can be argued that a society is never better than how individuals on its social and spatial fringes are faring, that is, in so-called distressed areas or, for that matter, peripheral places labelled as ‘left behind’. This motivates my keynote, which shows how vulnerable groups can be identified, defined, and explored from a spatial perspective using latent class analysis (LCA) on the entire Swedish population. Space is used to refine meanings of vulnerability among individuals and groups by contextualizing their circumstances. This knowledge is fundamental to creating equal living conditions and promoting the social cohesion needed for socially sustainable societies. Equality and spatial integration are core ideas in welfare policy, but have faced various challenges, including segregation, new population groups, rural–urban polarization, and disadvantaged housing areas. Moreover, equality, integration, and segregation have become somewhat unfashionable topics in politics, both in Sweden and elsewhere. Using register data, colleagues and I identified life-course trajectories associated with vulnerability and other states by applying LCA to the total Swedish population aged 16–99 years (and repeating the analysis for different purposes). Latent life-course classes with high levels of vulnerability were identified and explored using the proportion of nearest neighbours belonging to a given latent class. Thus segregation is measured with geographical areas of life courses. A second classification identified ‘extra’ distressed life-course trajectories in metropolitan Million Programme areas on urban outskirts, while other distressed trajectories were more often found in rural areas with low housing prices and in rural fringes. Another study contributes to answering the question of whether poor neighbourhoods make their residents poorer, moving beyond cross-sectional, single-variable measures of residential segregation. By offering insights into neighbourhood effects, it supports planning for greater geographic equality of opportunity.

H425, 4th floor: Morning session (11:00–12:30, Sept. 9)

Uncovering the potential for drone deliveries to improve access to healthy and affordable food in left-behind places

Andy Newing (University of Leeds)

The UK Food Security Report (DEFRA, 2024) highlights that households in rural areas are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity due to sparse retail provision, dispersed populations, and limited public transport. Many rural neighbourhoods also form part of the UK’s coastline and island communities, where isolation, ageing populations, and reduced service availability compound these challenges. This work in progress recognises that automation – and specifically deliveries by unmanned aircraft (drones) – could improve access to food in these left-behind places. It argues that residents in these areas are ideal early beneficiaries, with a risk of new digital divides emerging if the focus is solely on urban early adopters… See full extended abstracts in the end

Ethnic segregation profiles and educational outcomes: Do migrant enclaves promote academic aspirations?

Karen Haandrikman (Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University)

Siddartha Aradhya, Juta Kawalerowicz (Siddartha: Stockholm University Demography Unit, Stockholm University. @normalcr Juta: Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University)

In Sweden, growing numbers of young people with migrant parents face persistent educational and labour market disadvantages compared to their peers with native-born parents. Although second-generation youth perform better than their parents, they still lag behind in terms of employment rates and educational attainment, especially in upper secondary schooling, with boys performing worse than girls. At the same time, many migrant-background youths show higher educational aspirations than the majority population, more often choosing academic rather than vocational tracks. Explanations for these gaps include parental socioeconomic status and place of residence. The aim of this study is to examine how ethnic segregation profiles are related to school choice at age 16, for boys and girls with and without a migration background in the Stockholm region. Segregation profiles summarize segregation patterns at different scales, including the micro, meso and macro -level surroundings. A neighbourhood classification reveals broad variation from large-scale Swedish-origin clusters, to diverse small-scale non-European-origin to mixed areas. Regression analyses are used to test whether segregation profiles are associated with youths’ upper secondary choices, by gender, and by migrant background. We engage with literature arguing that segregation can have positive effects, especially when it is small-scale, in interpreting results.

Bayesian spatio-temporal analysis of all-cause mortality across neighborhood deprivation measures in Sweden

Lode van der Velde (Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet)

Carl Michael Baravelli, Mathias Mattsson, Terje A. Eikemo, Stefan Swartling Peterson, Anna-Karin Danielsson, Emilie E. Agardh (Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden @normalcr Department of Disease Burden, Norweigan Institute of Public Health, Bergen, Norway @normalcr Centre for Health Equity Analytics (CHAIN), Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway)

“Despite declining mortality rates in Sweden, significant geographic and socioeconomic disparities persist. Previous research has typically employed single socioeconomic indicators, which may not adequately capture the multidimensional nature of deprivation. To address this limitation, this study applied the Index of Multiple Deprivation in Sweden (IMDIS). Using a granular approach based on Demographic Statistical Areas (DeSO), we examined how small-area deprivation, measured through the overall composite IMDIS score and its underlying domains and indicators, relates to all-cause mortality by sex. We conducted an ecological cross-sectional study using Swedish register data between 2015–2019, totalling 50,400,585 person-years across 5,983 DeSO-areas, including the total resident population across all age groups. We applied Bayesian spatio-temporal models to assess associations between all-cause mortality and IMDIS scores, domains (Education, Income & Capital, Employment, Housing), and 15 individual indicators of deprivation. Relative Index of Inequality (RII) was calculated to quantify the magnitude and direction of the deprivation gradient. A consistent deprivation gradient was observed where, for the overall IMDIS score, the most deprived areas experienced a 43% higher mortality risk (IRR 1.43 @ifvmode +.2777em% CrI: 1.39–1.46) compared to the least deprived. Relative inequalities were more pronounced in men (1.51, 1.47–1.55) than in women (1.34, 1.29–1.38). RII values indicated systematic gradients across nearly all indicators, except for preschool attendance in women, with the highest inequality found when selecting disposable income as a measure of deprivation for men. All cause mortality in Sweden follows a clear deprivation gradient in both men and women, with higher risks in the most deprived areas. The associations also demonstrate that the composite IMDIS measure is not merely the sum of its individual domains or indicators, but reflects a broader, underlying deprivation construct that captures their combined effect.”

The impact of the rainy season on healthcare accessibility in Guinea: A mixed-methods study

Frank Chen (School of Food Science and Nutrition & Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service, University of Leeds)

Hao Wang, Kun Tang (Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University)

Rainy seasons in Guinea coincide with flooding, transport disruption, and rising malaria burden. However, it remains unclear how these three forces jointly reshape healthcare access in settings where health systems are already highly fragile. This study examines the extent to which rainy-season changes in transport conditions reshape healthcare accessibility by affecting patients’ ability to reach services, health workers’ capacity to work, and the supply of essential medical products. We combine geocoded data on 298 hospitals, health centres, and clinics with monthly VIIRS nighttime lights, rainfall, surface-water indicators, accessibility measures, malaria seasonality data, and linked cluster-level DHS data. Raw wet-season comparisons show substantial declines in facility-area radiance, with average point-level nighttime lights falling by roughly 28%. After controlling for seasonal variation and VIIRS observation coverage, the strongest signal remains concentrated in months when high rainfall, flood exposure, and local malaria peak timing overlap. This pattern is more pronounced among clinics and health centres than among hospitals. We then link these patterns to cluster-level DHS data and local healthcare choice sets. Cluster-months associated with nearby health centres showing negative nighttime-light anomalies also exhibit lower fever treatment and lower reported malaria diagnosis, even after accounting for facility distance, local facility density, urban-rural setting, and household wealth. Building on the quantitative analysis, the study will incorporate qualitative research using semi-structured interviews and observational methods to provide primary field-based evidence and validate the causal pathways linking transport disruption, facility activity, and healthcare access.

K436 (Enequist), 4th floor: Morning session (11:00–12:30, Sept. 9)

Uncovering inequalities in access to food via the local digital food retail environment – the case of distressed and left-behind places

Chenrui Xiao (University of Leeds)

Andy Newing, Lucie Nield (University of Leeds, University of Sheffield)

Online food delivery platforms are reshaping access to food, heightening neighbourhood inequalities in ways that remain poorly understood and regulated. Distressed neighbourhoods – primarily those that are urban and deprived – typically have better access to food via online delivery platforms than many rural ‘left-behind’ places. Access to food via these platforms could have an important role in driving area-based variations in health risks and health outcomes, since obesity and other health related outcomes (e.g. diabetes and CVD) are a product of the environment in which food choices are made. We present findings from ongoing analysis capturing the provision and availability of online groceries and hot food takeaways via the digital food retail environment (DFRE) in Great Britain. Using data collected at the neighbourhood level, we uncover the presence of ‘digital food deserts’ and ‘digital food swamps’. We explore their association with underlying area type, reporting specifically on the links between online food availability and deprivation/affluence and urbanity/rurality. We associate digital food deserts and swamps with health metrics capturing overall health status and measures of obesity. We draw on specific examples from the Yorkshire and Humber region. We also reflect on the value and ethical implications of web-scraping data to capture the DFRE, highlighting its value in uncovering social and spatial inequalities in access to food. While academic research has explored takeaway and ready-to-eat food availability via online platforms, there are no studies examining broader coverage and availability of all forms of food, including groceries, via DFREs.

Residential mobility and the spatial location of kin: The role of kin proximity and kin neighbourhood poverty in shaping mobility into and out of poor areas

Samaneh Khaef (Stockholm university)

Drawing on the social structural sorting perspective, this study examines how the spatial location of familial kin, specifically kin proximity and the poverty conditions of kin neighbourhoods, influence individuals’ residential mobility, and whether these dynamics differ across origin groups. Using Swedish register data on individuals with identified kin in Uppsala between 2010 and 2022, multinomial logistic regression reveals that kin proximity has consistent but substantially smaller effects, though each additional kilometre from kin slightly increases the likelihood of exiting poor areas. Results further show that having kin in poor areas is the dominant predictor of neighbourhood trajectories: individuals with kin in poor areas are over four times more likely to stay in a poor neighbourhood than to stay in a non-poor area. The effect of having kin in poor areas varies substantially by origin, working primarily through retention rather than attraction. Predicted probabilities show that non-Western immigrants with kin in poor areas face over a 60 percent probability of remaining in a poor neighbourhood, compared to around 30 percent for Swedish-born. Without kin in poor areas, these differences largely disappear. Notably, kin proximity itself has only modest effects across all groups, suggesting that these patterns cannot be explained by proximity to kin alone, but likely reflect shared structural constraints, including limited housing opportunities, that concentrate immigrants and their networks in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This complicates the social structural sorting perspective, which emphasises kin as channels of information and attraction toward familiar areas: the mechanism here appears to operate through shared constraints and retention rather than network-driven neighbourhood choice.

Mental Health Issues and the Risk of Kurds in Japan Losing ‘Places’ in a Racist Political and Social Environment

Naoko Miura (Institute on Social Theory and Dynamics, Rikkyo University)

Reflecting consciousness of the relation between place and health, this study emphasizes that a Kurdish community of approximately 2,000 people in a Tokyo suburb is being targeted for deportation and racial discrimination in Japan’s increasingly right-leaning political climate. This qualitative study assesses the plight of Kurds who fled their homeland and sought refugee status in Japan. Following the 2025 House of Councilors election, through which far-right parties made remarkable gains, the Japanese government has been promoting an ‘’orderly convivial society with foreigners.’’ Racist politicians and influencers have targeted Kurds who raised their voices in protest against the 2023 amendments to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act. Some children have been traumatized by the spread of hate speech, voyeurism, and intimidation, reporting mental health issues such as panic disorders and insomnia. Today, as an Islamophobia movement spreads nationwide and as exclusionary campaigns intensify, Kurds have been made into icons of discrimination even in areas to which they have no presence or connection whatsoever. Although Kurds have underpinned urban regeneration at demolition sites in the Tokyo Metropolis since the 1990s, their efforts have remained unrecognized by wider Japanese society. They might lose their earned places, which serve as both homes and refuges. The widespread mental health issues within the Kurdish community highlight many shortcomings inherent in Japan’s social structures and provide a starting point for discussing the sustainability of the ‘nation-state’ framework.

Changing populaton structure in various types of urban-morphological areas in Sweden

Jan Amcoff (Uppsala University)

H425, 4th floor: Afternoon session (14:00-15:30, Sept. 9)

A Joined Up, Data Driven Approach to Understanding the Health and Sustainability of places through Smart Data Integration and AI

Christopher Leahy (Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service, University of Leeds, UK)

Agnibha Banerjee, Conor Rankine, Nik Lomax (Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service, University of Leeds, UK)

The growing availability of smart data offers new ways to assess the health and sustainability of left behind and disadvantaged neighbourhoods. At the same time, emerging AI tools are lowering barriers to access these data and enabling the generation of new insights. In the United Kingdom, the Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service (HASP) provides a broad range of smart data for research and not for profit use, including mobile-phone data and a range of transaction data. While each dataset has value for understanding place, HASP aims to integrate these and ensure they can be used effectively by diverse audiences. This paper examines how AI tools are helping to achieve these goals. We outline the organisation, documentation, and preparation of HASP datasets to support AI-enabled exploration. An example of this is harmonising mobile phone-based footfall metrics with connected vehicle speeds and collision data to represent the exposure of neighbourhoods to dangerous road traffic. We describe good practice for ensuring data quality, interoperability, and readiness for querying by AI tools. We also demonstrate how HASP’s smart data can be further enriched by open spatial datasets such as school accessibility, modelled air pollution concentrations and the prevalence of greenspace to support integrated, flexible assessment of places across the UK. Ultimately, we show how structured data processing and assembly enable users to extract their own insights into neighbourhood health and sustainability using advanced AI tools. This approach maintains data quality and privacy while illustrating the value of accessible smart data for understanding left behind and distressed communities.

Operationalising and Analysing the Housing Estate: A Reproducible Spatial Definition for Swedish Million Programme Areas, 1982-2023.

Martin Önnerfors (Institutet för bostads- och urbanforskning (IBF), Uppsala Universitet)

Matz Dahlberg, Kerstin Enflo, Jakob Molinder (IBF (UU), Ekonomisk historia (LU), Ekonomisk historia (UU))

Neighbourhood operationalisation remains a persistent methodological challenge in urban sociology and neighbourhood effects research. Administrative boundaries are typically constructed for non-research purposes, while bespoke ego-centric neighbourhoods often fail to capture the named, socially recognisable places to which stigmatisation and collective identity attach. This problem is applies to the study of Swedish Million Programme housing estates — large, architecturally coherent residential developments constructed between 1960 and 1975 — for which no purpose-built spatial definition currently exists. This paper presents a reproducible algorithm for the spatial delineation of Million Programme neighbourhoods using iterative, similarity-constrained clustering of 250×250-metre grid cells using building registry data (SCB). The algorithm uses a set of rules where building-year similarity, contiguity type and physical barriers (larger roads) are taken into account. The output consists of spatially cohesive, named neighbourhoods that correspond to recognisable places in the Swedish urban landscape. By spatial join to SCB demographic data, population metrics such as income quintiles, education, age and country of birth are presented yearly at the area level between 1982-2023. Preliminary findings suggest a broad spectrum of trajectories and outcomes for larger Million Programme areas over time, and will serve as a starting point for further studies of the Million Programme housing estates.

Residential mobility following area-based initiatives: the role of public and private housing in marginalized neighborhoods

Madeleine Frisk Garcia (Malmö University)

The negative consequences of living in marginalized neighborhoods marked by concentrated poverty have long concerned politicians, policymakers, practitioners, and scholars. These neighborhoods are often targeted through area-based initiatives (ABIs), which aim to reduce negative neighborhood effects through place-based investments. Prior research shows that although individuals whose situations improve often move out of disadvantaged areas, overall patterns of residential segregation tend to remain. However, in Sweden, marginalized neighborhoods have become increasingly residualized, meaning that disadvantage is becoming more concentrated in municipal housing. One reason is the shrinking public housing stock, as many units have been sold to private rental companies, especially in disadvantaged areas. This has reduced access to affordable housing and led to a higher concentration of low-income households in municipal housing. Against this background, this study examines neighborhood change following the implementation of ABIs in marginalized neighborhoods of Gothenburg, with a focus on residential mobility and how it differs between public and private housing actors. By analyzing residential dynamics at the micro level, the study aims to improve understanding of how place-based policies interact with housing market structures and influence mobility patterns.

Disadvantaged neighbourhoods and the young adulthood life course

Ida Borg (Stockholm University)

Eva Andersson (Stockholm University)

This study examines how childhood neighbourhood disadvantage is associated with the types of life-course trajectories that young adults aged 16-29 tend to follow. Thus, the article makes a novel contribution to the neighbourhood effects literature using life-course trajectories, capturing the entire life phase of young adulthood rather than focusing on single events or cross-sectional outcomes. Using longitudinal individual-level register data for all children born in Sweden in 1986, 1987, and 1988, children’s exposure to neighbourhood disadvantage is measured in 1995, at ages 7, 8, and 9, and children are subsequently followed into a life-course trajectory assessed at ages 16-29. We apply latent class analysis (LCA) to identify five life-course trajectories during young adulthood. Two trajectories of vulnerability, one characterised by a median-income trajectory, and another two by an advantaged life course. One of the vulnerable life courses in young adulthood is marked by low education, low earned income, early childbearing, high poverty and by social allowance. Following a conventional approach in neighbourhood effects research, we use multinomial regression to assess how neighbourhood disadvantage influences the life course of young adults, controlling for individual and parental characteristics. At the midpoint of the neighbourhood disadvantage scale (50 on 0–100), the model predicts a 12% probability of entering a vulnerable life course trajectory in young adulthood. Furthermore, the likelihood of accessing advantageous life-course trajectories is higher for children growing up in larger cities, regardless of their neighbourhood context as a child.

K436 (Enequist), 4th floor: Afternoon session (14:00-15:30, Sept. 9)

The causal effects of segregated bike lane improvements on cycling behaviours: A quasi-experimental study in London

Dongsheng He (University of Leeds)

Cycling is an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable mode of travel. However, the rise of motorized lifestyles and deteriorating urban traffic environments have discouraged the adoption of cycling. Creating cycling infrastructure, such as bicycle lanes, has become a common intervention, although its real impacts largely remain unclear. Drawing on the Strava Metro dataset, this study assessed the causal effects of bicycle lane interventions on cycling behaviours using a quasi-experimental approach in three British cities: London, Birmingham, and Leeds. Employing a longitudinal research design and stringent treatment–control comparisons, the study provides robust causal evidence regarding the impact of bicycle lane interventions on link-level cycling trips. The results show that the creation of bicycle lanes leads to a significant increase in cycling, relative to the control group. Furthermore, the impact varies by gender and age, with female and younger cyclists benefiting more from the interventions. Mechanism analysis further confirms that the observed increase was not primarily due to substitution from nearby streets. The findings provide compelling evidence of the causal impact of bicycle lane investment and offer a strong rationale for further investment in cycling infrastructure.

Left behind, or catching up? Tracking pandemic-era internal migration patterns in declining Nordic rural municipalities

Linda Randall (Stockholm University)

The renewed interest in rural areas observed during the COVID-19 pandemic generated a sense of optimism concerning the fate of declining rural areas, with the notion of a ‘rural revival’ discussed in both popular and academic discourse. While many studies have explored urban–rural migration during the pandemic, few have done so from the specific perspective of declining – so-called ‘left-behind’ – rural areas. This paper addresses this, combining analysis of pre-pandemic population development trends, with an exploration of pandemic-era internal migration patterns in Nordic rural areas. The paper uses sequence analysis to identify the most typical pre-pandemic population development trajectories in Nordic rural municipalities. Following this a measure of ‘excess migration’ is used to explore which types of rural municipalities were the most likely to experience higher-than-expected inflows of internal migrants following the onset of the pandemic. The analysis highlights considerable diversity in the population development trajectories of Nordic rural municipalities – while population decline was the most common experience, it was by no means the only one, with many rural populations stable, and even growing. Further, the paper finds that, while most rural municipalities experienced higher-than-expected inflows in the pandemic era, the greatest deviations from expectations were evident in municipalities with the least favourable pre-pandemic population development trajectories. Further monitoring of migrant flows, along with more detailed analysis of flows among different groups, will be useful in clarifying the extent to which these short-term disruptions have any longer-term consequences for so-called ‘left-behind’ rural municipalities in the Nordic Region.

Who Gets to Ask the Questions? Widening Access to Smart Data via LLMs

Agnibha Banerjee (Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service, University of Leeds)

Chris Leahy, Conor Rankine, Nik Lomax (Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service, University of Leeds)

Understanding left-behind places requires good data, but good data alone is not enough. The Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service (HASP) provides smart data for place-based research in UK. The technical expertise required to analyse these datasets often excludes those most involved with left-behind neighbourhoods: policy makers, local authorities and community groups. Consequently, research questions often reflect the priorities of academics rather than the lived experiences of the local community. We present a natural language query tool, built on Large Language Model (LLM) technology to bridge this gap. To enable this, HASP researchers have processed the smart datasets into curated, AI-ready products suited for LLM-driven analysis. We will present a live demo of this tool, which allows users to interrogate the curated database using plain-English questions, providing insights via maps, tables and narrative explanations. We also outline stakeholder engagement strategies to pre-populate regular queries for different kinds of users. To ensure accuracy and transparency, the system also provides the exact database query used to fetch results. This framework ensures the LLM remains grounded in structured datasets, preventing hallucinations or the delivery of irrelevant information. By making these data accessible to a broader range of users, the tool helps reduce the analytical bias that might come from restricted access. It enables non-technical users to initiate the inquiry into the health and sustainability of their own neighbourhoods, directly supporting the translation of smart data into improved planning and policy.

Steve Millington (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Nikos Ntounis (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Cities are shaped by cumulative, interacting infrastructures, yet strategic policy frameworks continue to position ‘’place’’ as a bounded theme, an add on, rather than the organising logic through which place based outcomes are generated, coordinated and sustained. This paper addresses that gap by advancing the Health–Place Nexus as a strategic framework enabling decision makers to embed place based outcomes across urban policy, planning and investment. The paper synthesises insights across three interacting infrastructures that underpin healthier place outcomes: experience infrastructures (identity, atmosphere, civic life), social infrastructures (governance, participation, capability, institutional maturity) and health producing infrastructures (environmental determinants, inequalities, wellbeing conditions). Crucially, the model embeds the Institute of Place Management’s 4Rs framework (Repositioning, Rebranding, Restructuring and Reinventing) and its 25 Priority Interventions, which together offer a practical repertoire for strengthening neighbourhood governance and capability, place activation and programme delivery. The paper argues that neighbourhood governance can function as a multi scalar coordination mechanism linking community priorities with institutional decision making, and that structured flexibility. Balancing local variation with programme wide coherence supports more adaptive, health centred delivery. The Health–Place Nexus, therefore, is positioned as a practical tool for embedding health and wellbeing across strategic urban policy and investment, offering a route to translate neighbourhood level mobilisation into city wide health impact. The nexus reframes place not as a policy silo but as the underlying coordination mechanism through which healthier, fairer and more resilient urban systems are produced.

Living together or apart: life-course trajectory landscapes in contemporary Sweden

Bo Malmberg (Stockholm University)

Juta Kawalerowicz, Eva Andersson (Stockholm University)

Geographical inequality is a consequence of socio-demographic residential segregation. This paper explores socio-spatial differentiation in Sweden using geo-coded life-course data for the population from 1990 to 2019. We use latent class analysis on 16 indicators across life domains over 15-year-long life phases to classify individuals into distinctive life-course trajectories characterized by varying degrees of affluence and distress. We demonstrate how the uneven geographical distribution of these trajectories produces landscapes where contrasting life experiences, opportunities, and aspirations become inscribed in geographical space. A key finding is that segregation intensifies over the life-course, with young adults substantially less segregated than older adults, particularly after homeownership transitions. Studies relying on single indicators such as income and education may underestimate residential segregation strength. We show homeownership is a major segregation driver, creating highly separated residential areas in later life phases. The spatial concentration of trajectory types also corresponds with geographical patterns in political polarization.

H425, 4th floor: Late afternoon session (14:00-15:30, Sept. 9)

Population centralisation and rural depopulation: selective migration and divergent life outcomes

Nik Lomax (School of Geography, University of Leeds)

Michael Thomas / Ian Shuttleworth (Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) and Statistics Norway (SSB) / School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast)

Selective internal out-migration of younger (and more educated) individuals from peripheral or rural regions, and their corresponding concentration in central and metropolitan regions can compound existing demographic and economic challenges in rural areas and reinforce the relative demographic and economic advantages of urban areas. The result is a process which exacerbates long-standing problems in rural left-behind places. Our analysis draws on Norway’s full-population registry system which reports longitudinal individual-level data on variables pertaining to migration behaviour, human capital attainment, family status and place of residence. We examine variations in the risk and direction of a first migration in young adulthood (ages 17-30) for five birth cohorts, born between 1962 and 1984, subsequent higher order migrations, and life outcomes at age 30 (educational attainment, having a child, being married, belonging to the top 20 percent of the income distribution). Initial results reveal that over time there has been an increase in probability of individuals migrating from rural to urban municipalities, which is more pronounced for those with greater educational attainment. Those with greater life-course flexibility (childless and not married) are more likely to move to urban areas, and this propensity increases over later birth cohorts. In terms of outcomes, we see consistent migration premiums in education and income, particularly among those who relocate to central municipalities. From these findings we conclude that migration to central areas has intensified across cohorts, that this centralising migration is highly selective, and that life outcomes diverge sharply by migration trajectory.

Silver Ways: Walkability for Seniors in Uppsala

Johanna Jokinen / Simon Normelius (Uppsala University)

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Sarah Dickin (Centre for Health and Sustainability, Uppsala Universitet)

Sara Gabrielsson (1), Neville Okwaro (2), Collins Rutto (2) ((1) Lund University, and (2) independent sanitation consultants in Nairobi, Kenya)

Residents of informal settlements in sub-Saharan African cities are some of the most underserved urban populations, as gaps in waste and sanitation infrastructure are spatially concentrated and disproportionately absorbed by residents and workers. This paper examines a largely overlooked dimension of this problem: the accumulation of disposable plastic menstrual products in pit latrine systems, driven by the expansion of product distribution programmes and lack of solid waste disposal infrastructure. Drawing on a mixed-methods case study in Kisumu, Kenya that comprised a survey of 120 sanitation workers and in-depth interviews with 12 manual emptiers operating in informal settlements, we report on the occupational health exposures and embodied risks experienced by workers who handle faecal sludge and menstrual waste by hand. These include infections, chemical exposures, physical injuries, and chronic psychosocial stress compounded by social stigma and precarious employment conditions. Risks are spatially and temporally differentiated: informal ‘shadow’ workers, who operate primarily at night and outside regulatory frameworks, face the greatest exposures. We discuss how these workers are an often hidden labour force, excluded from many decision-making spaces, but providing a bodily infrastructure bridge between solid and sanitation waste systems. The paper further evaluates participatory mapping and spatial futuring as methodological tools for surfacing these invisible geographies and for creating counter-narratives that challenge the institutional arrangements maintaining this status quo. We reflect on the transferability of these approaches to comparable informal settlement contexts and their potential contribution to more equitable sanitation and waste planning and policy.

Left behind versus taking the lead – a municipality perspective on development and planning

Susanne Stenbacka (Department of Human Geography, Uppsala University)

This presentation, departing from a study on planning and housing provision, discusses the ambiguities which arises in the encounter between outsider’s view of a municipality´s ability versus an insider perspective. The Northvolt factory in Skellefteå was planned to become one of the world’s largest players in the battery market. Over a five-year period, the population in Skellefteå increased by more than 5,000 individuals through international and national in-migration. The lack of housing was seen as the biggest obstacle to industrial and regional development. The municipality, with the utmost responsibility for housing provision, started to expand the municipal housing stock by approximately 2,500 homes. After Northvolt’s bankruptcy, the planning basis changed dramatically. A situation of expansion followed by dismantling raises questions about the intermediate position that Skellefteå finds itself in. Depending on the context and who owns the position to define a meaning, an alternating understanding of Skellefteå arises as either a left-behind place or a dynamic actor in the green transition. Based on an interview study in Skellefteå, this presentation concludes that the term Left behind place, when emphasizing the impact of external forces on regions and places, makes power relations and injustices visible. However, the term also risks simplifying and reducing local efforts and to be seen as a product arising from a cramped outside perspective.

From Private to Corporate: Privatisation and Financialisation in the Swedish Housing Market

Thomas Wimark (Uppsala University)

Morten Frisch, Samaneh Khaef (Uppsala University, Stockholm University)

Sweden’s housing market has undergone rapid structural transformation since 2000, driven by three key regulatory shifts: IFRS adoption in 2005 enabling international asset valuation, the 2011 regulation requiring Municipal Housing Companies to operate for profit, and lowered thresholds for forming limited companies (aktiebolag). Together, these changes have accelerated both privatisation of public rental stock and the financialisation of housing ownership structures. This study uses the concept of tenure type landscapes, a multi-scalar spatial framework classifying neighbourhoods by the combination and geographic extent of their dominant tenure forms by scale. Using k-means clustering, we construct 20 distinct landscape types for all Swedish neighbourhoods, then track transitions between types from 2002 to 2017. Binary logistic regression models identify privatisation and financialisation as predictors of landscape change, controlling for new construction, Million Programme housing, municipality type, and housing deficit. Results show that privatisation is concentrated in homogeneous public rental landscapes, which absorb large-scale block sales while retaining their mono-tenure character. Financialisation, by contrast, drives homogenisation in previously mixed neighbourhoods through corporate conversion of individually held properties. Two distinct mechanisms thus deepen spatial inequality: formerly public landscapes are transferred wholesale to corporate ownership, while diverse urban landscapes are reconfigured into financially rationalised rental blocs. The study provides one of the first national-scale spatial analysis of housing financialisation in Sweden, demonstrating that these processes are geographically selective and structurally conditioned by inherited tenure landscapes, which can impact residential segregation and housing affordability policy.

K436 (Enequist), 4th floor: Late afternoon session (14:00-15:30, Sept. 9)

Marina Toger (**)

Who is most exposed—and least able to respond? Mapping digital and social vulnerability in Scotland’s coastal legacy-waste riskscapes (RACC WP2)

Seyi Adebangbe (University of Glasgow, School of Geographical & Earth Sciences)

Prof. Deborah P. Dixon, Prof. Larissa Naylor, Dr. Mingshu Wang, Dr. Martin Hurst (University of Glasgow, School of Geographical & Earth Sciences)

Left-behind coastal neighbourhoods can face stacked disadvantage: higher exposure to environmental hazards alongside lower capacity to anticipate, cope and recover. In Scotland, shoreline change and coastal flooding/erosion may intersect with legacy coastal landfill sites, creating place-based risks with implications for environmental quality, wellbeing and long-term sustainability. Yet a critical dimension of adaptive capacity is often underrepresented in vulnerability assessments: digital vulnerability—limited connectivity, affordability barriers, low digital skills, and high dependence on digital services. This paper presents work from the Resilience of the Anthropocene Coasts and Communities (RACC) project (WP2) developing a Digital–Social Vulnerability Index (DSVI) and mapped outputs to support applied, place-based coastal resilience planning. The DSVI operationalises vulnerability as susceptibility plus (lack of) coping/adaptive capacity by integrating established small-area social disadvantage indicators with a digital domain capturing connectivity, digital literacy and digital dependency. Indicators are harmonised to consistent small-area units, standardised transparently, and accompanied by agreement and uncertainty reporting. We then couple the DSVI with coastal hazard and legacy-waste layers to identify priority neighbourhoods where high physical exposure coincides with low socio-digital adaptive capacity (‘’double disadvantage’’). We argue that digital exclusion functions as a vulnerability multiplier by limiting access to early warnings, emergency services, recovery information and increasingly digital-by-default public services. Outputs are designed for policy, practitioner and community use, helping target interventions that link digital inclusion (connectivity, affordability, skills) to health, sustainability and equitable adaptation in distressed places.

Mapping place identity for sustainable urban planning

Elaheh Jalilzadehazhari (Uppsala University)

The influence of globalization on architecture has raised significant concerns about the erosion of place identity. Place identity refers to the emotional attachments, individuals form with specific locations, shaped by their personal experiences, activities, values, and the meanings they associate with these places. This relationship is crucial in urban planning and architecture, where the objective is to create or preserve environments that resonate with local history and culture, fostering a sense of community and belonging. In Sweden, rapid technological, political, and environmental changes, alongside swift population growth, have notably transformed the architectural landscape. These changes have led to challenges such as increased social divisions and fragmented identities within historical cities like Uppsala. This paper conducts a literature review to develop a framework that specifies various attributes influencing place identity across different districts. The resulting framework comprises three interrelated dimensions: physical settings, social activities, and meanings, supplemented by demographic variables that influence how places are used, perceived, and experienced. Physical settings include attributes related to land-use variation, housing mix, urban form, accessibility and mobility, services, green spaces and biodiversity, environmental quality, energy and climate performance, landscape characteristics, architectural expression, and landmarks. Social activities include the diversity and frequency of activities, social interactions, perceived social homogeneity, cultural and historical heritage, and food-related activities. Meaning-related attributes include safety, neighborhood trust, cleanliness, perceived liveliness, duration of stay, sensory experience, beauty and belonging, convenience, maintenance, and surveillance. This framework can guide stakeholders involved in urban development towards more thoughtful and inclusive strategies.

H425, 4th floor: Morning session (11:00–12:30, Sept. 11)

Pet ownership in left-behind places: opportunities and challenges

William James (University of Leeds)

Stephen Clark, Graham Clarke, Nik Lomax (University of Leeds)

Over half of all UK households own a pet and their companionship is known to benefit both the physical and mental health of their owners. This holds particular significance in left-behind places as residents of these areas generally exhibit poor health outcomes due to deprivation and lack of social infrastructure. One potential barrier to pet ownership in these areas is access to appropriate and affordable veterinary care. The cost of veterinary care in the UK has recently outpaced core inflation, putting further pressure on low-income pet owning households. To investigate the issue of accessibility to veterinary care, we firstly estimated the household pet population for all neighbourhoods in England and Wales (n = 36,672) using a Spatial Microsimulation approach. We then calculated accessibility to local veterinary practices using a Three Step Floating Catchment Area technique, identifying potential ‘veterinary deserts’ and finding that deprived and left behind places have worse access to veterinary care than affluent and rural locations. These findings allow for the strategic prioritisation of resources with a view to improve the welfare of companion animals and associated benefits to their owners. Not only will this improve the accessibility of veterinary care but, through competition, this also has the potential to reduce care costs.

How labelling “vulnerable areas’’ shapes housing search and reproduces ethnic segregation in Uppsala, Sweden

Sara Forsberg (Uppsala University)

Samaneh Khaef (Stockholm University)

This paper examines how perceptions of neighbourhood safety shape housing search processes and reinforce ethnic residential segregation in Uppsala, Sweden. Drawing on qualitative map-based interviews with residents, it explores how outsider perceptions of neighbourhoods, formed through media, social networks, and public discourse rather than lived experience, influence residential decision-making. Participants generally described their own neighbourhoods as safe, even when acknowledging some local crime, while portraying other areas as unsafe. This contrast highlights the divide between insider familiarity and outsider stigma. Neighbourhoods perceived as unsafe were typically associated with higher shares of foreign-born residents and were often excluded from housing searches on that basis. Institutional labels, such as the Swedish Police Authority’s designation of ‘’vulnerable areas,’’ played an important role in legitimising such avoidance by translating abstract classifications into everyday reasoning. These labels also linked events across different stigmatised areas and contributed to a broader geography of fear. Parents in particular expressed concerns about raising children and about ‘’being pulled into something’’ in neighbourhoods perceived as unsafe. The findings suggest that parenthood, and specific stages of family life, bring latent perceptions of place to the surface, showing how such ideas are activated and reshaped over time. The paper argues that perceptions of safety are not merely discursive but shape everyday housing decisions in ways that reproduce segregation. Addressing segregation therefore requires attention not only to structural inequalities, but also to the narratives through which certain places come to be understood as unsafe.

Susanne Wallman Lundåsen (Centre for Local Government Studies, Linköping University)

Swedish generalized trust (i.e., the belief that most people can be trusted) appears stable in aggregate statistics, yet this stability conceals a sharp within-person polarisation across neighbourhood types. Using a three-wave panel survey from 2017 to 2024 across neighbourhoods classified by Statistics Sweden’s socioeconomic area typology, this paper shows that residents of socioeconomically disadvantaged areas lost up to 20 percentage points of generalized trust over seven years, while trust in affluent areas barely declined. The pattern holds among residential stayers and is replicated across Stockholm, Malmö, and the rest of Sweden. The uneven decline in generalized trust, represents an important consequence of spatial inequality. Three findings challenge prevailing explanations of trust change. First, the decline is concentrated among those who were never victimised by crime, contradicting experiential accounts that derive trust from direct local encounters. Second, perceived safety, trust in order institutions (police), and interethnic contact quality all improved during the study period, producing a comprehensive decoupling between local conditions and generalized trust that complicates quality-of-government explanations. Third, cross-lagged panel analyses show that generalized trust shapes neighbourhood trust more strongly than the reverse, suggesting that broader societal perceptions drive local assessments rather than the other way around. Drawing on Coleman’s (1990) framework, we propose that neighbourhood socioeconomic context filters how residents interpret signals about societal change. This process follows the contours of Sweden’s growing income segregation and residential sorting (Malmberg and Clark 2021, Mutgan and Mijs 2023). Robustness analyses confirm that the gradient holds among respondents with Swedish background alone.

K436 (Enequist), 4th floor: Postgraduate session (11:00–12:30, Sept. 11)

Rethinking the affective dimensions of being left-behind: Hope and Civil Society in Eastern Germany

Lukas Petersohn (European Center of Just Transition Research and Impact-Driven Transfer (Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg))

This paper argues that a comprehensive analysis of left-behind regions must also consider emerging initiatives in which people respond to experiences of loss through engagement and create new social offers. In this way, the analytical focus shifts from structural affectedness to situational hopeful forms of action. Through my research, I seek to contribute to understanding how civil society encounter spaces in Eastern Germany generate hope under conditions of loss and perceived abandonment. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and my involvement in transdisciplinary regional projects at the Just Transition Center, I examine how engagement reshapes local relations and capacities to act. While many contributions to the Left-Behind Places debate address the negative consequences of living in left-behind regions, the question of what gives people hope in such contexts has so far only rarely been addressed systematically. As a conceptual link, I draw on the work of Ben Anderson in affective geography. Because Anderson distinguishes hope from naivety and sees encounter as central to interrupting diminishment, his approach adds an important dimension to understanding left-behind places. My qualitative fieldwork in Eastern Germany shows that what changes in these encounter spaces is less the objective situation of the region than the way people relate to one another locally. Hope in my material appears less as a concrete expectation of the future than as a feeling that local life is becoming active again, as an intensification of social relationships, and as a restoration of the capacity to act. Encounter spaces offer a counterpoint to the sense of powerlessness and ongoing decline repeatedly described in my interviews.

Neighbourhood Occupational Composition and Adult Occupational Trajectories in Sweden

Nickella Annmarie Jose (Stockholm University Department of Human Geography)

This paper examines how neighbourhood occupational composition is associated with adults’ occupational trajectories in Sweden and how this relationship varies across spatial scales and occupational groups. Neighbourhoods are understood as socially and economcially structured environments in which everyday encounters, local networks and role models may shape access to job information, support and opportunities for social mobility. In this sense, neighbourhoods may contribute to the reproduction of labour-market inequality by structuring access to contacts and information that can be used to foster occupational mobility. Building on research from neighbourhood effects, segregation and social networks, this paper asks whether sustained exposure to different neighbourhood occupational contexts is linked to long-term patterns of occupational stability, upward mobility, downward mobility and interruption over adulthood and whether these associations differ across neighbourhood scales and occupational groups. The study uses Swedish longitudinal register data linking individuals’ occupations, residential locations and workplace identifiers annually over time. It combines sequence analysis of occupational trajectories with multiscale measures of neighbourhood occupational composition.

Negotiating rural futures: Emotional geographies of young women (im)mobility in left-behind rural Spain

María Egea Hernández (Department of Human Geography, University of Granada, Spain)

Aida Pinos Navarrete, Juan Carlos Maroto Martos (Department of Human Geography, University of Granada, Spain)

Andalusia (southern Spain) is a paradigmatic case of the spatial inequalities that characterize many European regions. Despite being the country’s most populous region, it faces severe processes of depopulation, aging, and territorial disarticulation in its inland and mountainous areas. Within this context of rural decline, young women occupy a central position in shaping demographic and territorial dynamics, while simultaneously being the group most likely to out-migration. This study examines how young rural women experience and negotiate staying in rural areas, focusing on the interplay between space, emotions, and gender relations. Grounded in feminist geography, it is adopted a qualitative approach based on 23 semi-structured interviews conducted in rural municipalities in the province of Granada (Andalusia). Central to the contribution is the use of Relief Maps as an innovative and intersectional methodological tool, which enables the visualization of how everyday spaces are experienced across multiple axes of inequality. Although this approach has been widely employed in urban and neighborhood contexts, its application in rural -particularly remote- settings remains limited. In this regard, the study extends the methodological scope of Relief Maps and explores their potential within rural research in applied geography. The findings indicate that (im)mobility decisions cannot be reduced to economic considerations alone, but are also rooted in emotional geographies of place, where attachment, expectations, and gender norms shape unequal trajectories. These insights underscore the importance of incorporating situated and relational perspectives into the design of public policies aimed at addressing rural depopulation in Spain.

Mobilising Racial Governmentality in Welfare Landscape Renewal: Making Subtle Forms of Social Difference Visible in Årsta Park, Uppsala

Mia Ågren (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)

Urban green spaces are promoted as supporting health and social sustainability, yet these benefits are often unevenly distributed. While such inequalities are well documented, the role of planning and governance in producing them has received less attention. This study explores how contemporary green planning produces and governs social differences, mobilising racial governmentality to analyse how these processes unfold in practice. The study uses the case of Årsta Park renewal in Årsta, Uppsala, Sweden. The area lies between neighbourhoods officially labelled as ‘’vulnerable’’ and more affluent ones, but is also characterised by less visible forms of marginalisation. The qualitative analysis draws on planning documents, municipal classification tools, interviews with planners, and walking interviews with residents. Three key findings emerge. First, planning frameworks rely on administrative categories to describe the local population. In doing so, certain groups in Årsta are singled out, such as ‘’non-Swedish speakers’’ or people ‘’born outside the EU/EFTA’’, while others remain unnamed and implicitly positioned as the norm. Second, these distinctions are translated into practice through participation processes, functional inventories, and design decisions. Efforts to improve accessibility, safety, and visibility also shape how the space is regulated, enabling some uses while constraining others. Third, residents engage with these changes in varied ways, including everyday use, pragmatic evaluations, moral judgment, and the boundaries they draw around belonging. The findings show that racialised forms of governance are not confined to officially designated vulnerable areas but also operate in ordinary neighbourhoods through subtle classificatory practices and residents’ everyday moral orders.

Conference registration costs

Included in the conference costs are coffee and tea, lunches, a conference dinner, and a bus excursion in the area of Uppsala (during one of the days of the conference).

Hotels

Uppsala offers a wide range of hotels and hostels. Below are a few accommodation options where conference delegates are offered discounted rates. Additional alternatives can also be found through standard online booking platforms.

Clarion Hotel Gillet
https://www.strawberry.se/hotell/sverige/uppsala/clarion-hotel-gillet/

• Discount code: IGU2026
• To access the discount, please enter the code when booking.
• A credit card will be requested at the time of booking as a guarantee, regardless of payment method.

Scandic Uplandia
https://www.scandichotels.com/sv/hotell/scandic-uplandia

Price example (8–11 September 2026):

• 1 person: 1,078 SEK per night
• 2 persons: 1,392 SEK per night
• Booking deadline for this rate: 9 August 2026
• Discount code: BUPP080926
  (Enter the code when booking online or provide it when contacting the hotel directly.)

Elite hotel Academia
Elite Hotel Academia - Boka rum här

• Discounted rooms are available via the booking link above.
• Rooms can be booked until 12 August 2026.

If you have any questions or would like further information about the conference, please contact the local organising committee at: igu2026@uu.se

Your enquiry will be handled by Landi Duo and Morten Frisch at the Department of Human Geography, who will be happy to assist you.

Local organizing committee:

Department of Human Geography, Applied Spatial Analysis:

• Thomas Wimark, associate professor
• Marina Toger, associate professor
• Jan Amcoff, professor
• Johanna Jokinen, PhD
• Sara Forsberg, PhD
• Tiano Guo, PhD student
• Landi Duo, PhD student
• Morten Frisch, PhD student
• Jennifer Mengba, PhD student

Scientific committee:

• Nik Lomax, professor, University of Leeds
• Qian (Chayn) Sun, associate professor, RMIT University
• Minh Kieu, senior lecturer, University of Auckland
• William James, PhD, University of Leeds
• Thomas Wimark, associate professor, Uppsala University