The Department of Urban and Rural Development is a multi- and inter-disciplinary department. In our research and teaching we focus on the societal aspects of SLU’s areas of responsibility.
Our research and teaching are grounded in social sciences, humanities and landscape design principles, but is also characterised by inter-disciplinary approaches in which natural sciences are important. We unite in the interest of issues of development, planning and communicative processes for natural resource management and land use, for a sustainable world. We work with issues concerning conditions in Sweden and Europe, but to a large extent also with issues concerning conditions in the global South.
The department completes just over 12% of the entire SLU's undergraduate assignment (548 of 4,579 full-time students by 2022) and carries the responsibilty for the courses in seven education programs (four at undergraduate level and three master's programs). The department runs a graduate school in collaboration with Department of Economics and continuously has about thirty active graduate students.
The department has an extensive collaboration with the surrounding society, in research as well as in education. The department also has three well-established collaboration platforms.