Agora - an arena for developing knowledge and learning for environmental assessment

Agora was established in 2022, as a joint initiative between the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Mid Sweden University.

Agora core values

1. Leadership and agency in environmental assessment
2. Building bridges between research, practice and education
3. Developing knowledge and learning in environmental assessment
4. Research of high quality and relevance to society
5. Sustainability and justice at the core

Core values in action

Leadership and agency in environmental assessment

• Initiates and builds EA leadership through Agora,
• Supports EA actors to explore their own agency through their work and organisations,
• Studies actors’ strategies, opportunities and challenges for putting EA leadership to action.

Building bridges between research, practice and education

• Recognises EA as an interdisciplinary and plural process where people need to collaborate cross borders,
• Collaborates with EA actors from public authorities and private sector for advancing research, education and practice,
• Explores what collaboration between academia and practice can entail in EA communities.

Developing knowledge and learning in environmental assessment

• Establishes and develops Agora as a joint venue and arena for advancing knowledge and learning.

Research of high quality and relevance to society

• Acknowledges that both development of tools and providing better explanations and understandings of the use of EA is important for advancing practice,
• Engages in conceptual and empirical studies, which both develops critical mirrors for reflection in practice and, provide recommendations. 

Sustainability and justice at the core

• Recognises the overarching aim of EA as contributing to a sustainable and just society,
• Acknowledges and communicates the reasons EA was developed, and why it is still needed.

Current activities and themes engaged in

Agora engages with EA as a tool for sustainable and just transformation, a field of practice - that is the use of EA and, a policy as amended by the EU directives.

1. Change agency and space for (il)legitimate action
2. Systems analysis and cumulative effects
3. Education and learning in EA for a sustainable and just society
4. MKB-dagen (national EA-conference)
5. Collaboration at the heart of the multi-faced and paradoxical EA discipline
6. EA Effectiveness
7. Artificiell intelligence in impact assessment (AI-IA)