Research for a sustainable future awarded almost SEK 20 million

“Can you say Beteendevetenskaplig Materialvetenskap in Swedish? It doesn’t sound that good,” says Daniel Västfjäll, professor at the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning.

No, the project has no official Swedish name, but in English it is called Behavioural Materials Science - for increased sustainable action. It came about when Daniel Västfjäll approached Johanna Rosén, a professor of materials science, to investigate possible collaborations. It turned out that they had been thinking along the same lines.

Materials and people

“We materials scientists have a very important mission, because society has to make a transition. But it doesn’t matter what we research if people don’t understand and want to use it,” says Johanna Rosén.

And that is what the project is about: getting people to take advantage of the progress being made – in this case in materials science. For example, researchers at LiU are currently developing more efficient and environmentally friendly methods for water purification through the use of thin nanowires. But the combination of nanotechnology and water or food can make many people hesitant.

Therefore, material scientists and behavioural scientists are to jointly develop ways to communicate about different technologies that give people the courage to test them. Johanna Rosén’s researchers contribute their knowledge of materials, while Daniel Västfjäll’s group brings insight into how people function. The goal is for researchers to become better at talking about what they are doing.

“It’s about understanding what barriers you might encounter when introducing new technologies and how to avoid them. But the result mustn’t be a guide for how to get people to embrace something they don’t want. Rather, it’s about avoiding certain mistakes to increase the chance that they start using technology that is positive for the environment,” says Daniel Västfjäll.

Behavioural Materials Science - for increased sustainable action will receive SEK 10 million over three years.

A new generation of climate services

The second project to receive a grant is called Exploring the Transformative Potential of Climate Services. This concerns so-called climate services, i.e. data and information on climate and climate change that can be used to underpin decisions on adaptation and emission reduction. Such services are already available through, for example, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), but research shows that there is a need to develop and better adapt them to the needs of users.

A group of researchers from TEMA Environmental Change and the division for Media and Information Technology will now have the opportunity to work on this in collaboration with researchers at SMHI. They will focus primarily on climate services for agriculture, urban planning and the energy sector. Insights from communication research, visualisation research and climate modelling will be used in the project.

The vision is to be able to contribute to a sustainable societal transition.

“Our goal is to advance the frontier of research, to raise climate services to a new level and to identify what is required for climate services to have transformative potential,” says project leader Professor Tina-Simone Neset of TEMA Environmental Change.

Exploring the Transformative Potential of Climate Services receives SEK 9 million and will run for five years.