dicma31

Dick Magnusson

Senior Associate Professor, Head of Division

My research lies within several adjacent fields, such as energy systems, infrastructure studies and urban and regional planning, from an interdisciplinary perspective with focus on sustainability. 

Interdisciplinary energy research

My main interests concerns transitions of energy systems and the effect that infrastructure have on this development. Several factors limits the development paths and through inter-disciplinary research we can make them visible.

In the present research, focus is on grassroots movements for small-scale energy production. These are often run as energy cooperatives and in the project these initiatives are mapped in order to understand development, networks, activities and mobilization. The project runs form 2015-2018 and is a cooperation between Linköping University, Aalborg University in Denmark and Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, financed by JPI Climate.

In my second project, focus in on smart grids, where pilot projects in Europe are mapped and analyzed in order to understand possibilities for replication and up-scaling of these project. The project runs from 2016 to 2019 and is financed by the Swedish Energy Agency via Era-NET Smart Grids Plus.

The dissertation focused on the development of the district heating systems in the Stockholm region, through analyzing the historical development and how regional cooperation was created, despite major differences between the municipalities and energy companies, and how the liberalization of the electricity market affected the district heating cooperation.

In my post doc I took part in various studies, focusing on experiences from living in eco-villages, citizen attitudes towards dredging the bay of Valdemarsviken and the social dimension of sustainability in urban district development.

Teaching

I teach in several different fields, such as urban and regional planning, geography, GIS, national environmental management, history of technology and large technical systems. 

Publications

2025

Harald Rohracher, Julia Velkova, Dick Magnusson, Mohsen Farhangi (2025) Re-assembling infrastructures from below. The agency of households in the sustainable energy transition Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, Vol. 54, Article 100943 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

2024

Johan Niskanen, Simon Haikola, Dick Magnusson, Jonas Anshelm (2024) Swedish wind power expansion: Conflicting responsibilities between state and municipalities Renewable & sustainable energy reviews, Vol. 206, Article 114881 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Harald Rohracher, Gudrun Haindlmaier, Klaus Kubeczko, Dick Magnusson (2024) Beyond Urban Smart Grid Experiments: Replication and Upscaling as Contested Concepts Smart Cities, Energy and Climate: Governing Cities for a Low-Carbon Future, p. 75-91 (Chapter in book)
Mohsen Farhangi, Harald Rohracher, Dick Magnusson (2024) More than wires and screens: Assumptions about agency of devices in smart energy projects Energy Research & Social Science, Vol. 114, Article 103592 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Peter Schmitt, Dick Magnusson (2024) Educating planning professionals to promote the transformation towards carbon-free cities and regions - a survey of planning schools in Europe Planning practice + research, Vol. 4, p. 703-720 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

Finished projects

CV

Organisation