VERSAM: Effective regional cooperation for a fossil-free society

The overarching goal of the project is to develop a framework for regional capacity building that aims to drive the transition to a fossil-free world with a focus on effective collaboration with different parties. The framework is innovative as it combines knowledge from socio-technical system research with studies of regional adaptation work, which are combined with the modelling of energy use and emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Fossilfritt Sverige (The Fossil-Free Sweden) initiative brings together a broad collection of public and private actors to make Sweden the world’s first fossil-free welfare state, where the path towards climate neutrality will also strengthen the welfare. Fossilfritt Sverige challenges companies, organisations, municipalities and regions to work together to reduce climate emissions.

As part of this, Fossilfritt Sverige is developing an energy efficiency strategy with the goal of identifying obstacles and opportunities for developing and implementing energy-efficient solutions within the transport system, housing and services, and industry in general. The strategy is developed in cooperation between public actors, the energy efficiency industry and energy-intensive industry, and will be handed over to the new Swedish government in the fall of 2022.

The project aims to study the regional strategy and the implementation work, which provides a unique chance to follow how collaboration is created, developed, stopped or absent. The project also studies initiatives within Fossilfritt Sverige with an action-oriented and interdisciplinary approach that brings together three research fields:

• socio-technical changes,
• sustainable regional development,
• energy system studies with modelling.

Empirically, the project focuses on transport, industry, as well as housing and services in three regions.

The project is carried out as three doctoral projects at Halmstad University, Lund University and Linköping University. The PhD students will be responsible for each case but research them together. Through their work, the doctoral students will build a unique competence of great value for the ongoing transition.