Research and utilisation
Image: Mostphotos
Image: Mostphotos
New knowledge is a condition for meeting the challenges of society. Research, together with education, is Umeå University’s most important contributor to a sustainable transition of society.
At Umeå University, vast amounts of multidisciplinary and strong research is conducted in the area of sustainability and sustainable development. This includes research on future energy sources, antibiotic resistance, new forms of treatment of cancer, research on the concept of sustainability itself, how climate change affects human health, and in what ways individuals can lead a more sustainable lifestyle.
Academic know-how often has the greatest impact in its interaction with society by coming to good use and creating innovations. The University collaborates extensively with companies and organisations through both long-term partnerships and short-term projects to enable such practical use. Umeå University Holding AB, whose operations are based on the Vision for Umeå University, supports utilisation and commercialisation of researchers' and students' innovations.
Action plan for climate and sustainability contains the University's strategic goals and overall activities for the period 2021–2023. The results of follow-ups for the two targeted goals within the focus area of research and utilisation, are reported here.
Goal 3: The University’s research on sustainable development must increase
The University’s research on sustainable development must increase. For goal 3, we have chosen an indicator that report citations compared to the average or expected number of citations received by other similar publications from the same research field (called Field-Weighted Citation Impact, FWCI-value). During the period 2017–2022, Umeå University's highest FWCI values, in descending order from 4.93 to approx. 2.1 were for publications that contribute to the sustainable development goals:
Goal 4: The knowledge and commitment of students and staff comes to use in the University’s environmental sustainability work
The Swedish Higher Education Act obliges Sweden's higher education institutions "to collaborate with the surrounding society for mutual exchange, and work to ensure that the knowledge and competence available at the university benefits society".
For objective 4, we have chosen the indicator "Completed collaborative projects". Here are the projects that have been completed in recent years:
The project aims to investigate how sustainability is translated in Public Municipal Housing companies and how the translation of sustainability is affected by institutional logics.
Research on how sustainability questions can be handled in preschool and school.
Here is a list of ongoing and finished Arctic research projects at Umeå University.
See examples of what we do in education, research and collaboration to meet the global sustainability goals.
Supporting interdisciplinary research collaboration in the transition to sustainable development.
We coordinate research at Umeå University on the effects of a changing climate in Arctic ecosystems.
