Viable Cities is a network organization and the program office is staffed by the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Lund University (LU), Research Institute of Sweden (RISE), and Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). Our employees are located throughout Sweden. KTH is the host organization for Viable Cities and the program office is located at KTH Campus Stockholm.
Stockholm Contact via: info@viablecities.se
Olga is Viable Cities program manager since 2017 and at the same time lecturer in sustainable urban development at KTH. Olga has always been fascinated by science and the beauty of mathematics, while being passionate about issues related to sustainable development, climate and democracy. Her main research interests are complex systems, innovation systems, participatory modeling and reflexive learning aimed at the energy and climate transition in cities.
Stockholm asa.minoz@viablecities.se
Åsa is since 2018 part of the Viable Cities program management and has the role of innovation strategist. She has a background in innovation policy with experience from Vinnova and the Swedish Government Offices. For a number of years, she has run her own company in innovation for sustainable social development and is also an experienced process manager and strategic communicator.
Umeå albert.edman@viablecities.se
Albert coordinates Viable Cities' internationalization work and the link to the EU mission platforms NetZeroCities, CapaCITIES and Driving Urban Transitions. He also contributes to the development of the link to the New European Bauhaus. Albert divides his time between Viable Cities and RISE. He has a background in sustainable community development at European and national level from the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, the Swedish Institute for Ecological Sustainability and several Swedish municipalities.
Stockholm anna-lena.ekenryd@viablecities.se
Anna-Lena has experience in journalism, communication and leadership. From helicopter perspective to word choice, Anna-Lena works to ensure that Viable Cities communication contributes to a movement for climate neutral and sustainable cities, partly through a broad presence in digital channels and through a number of events during the year, such as Climate Breakfast and Transition Lab Forum. Anna-Lena also coordinates the Viable Cities communication network and works with the long-term strategic communication work.
Stockholm anette.olovborn@viablecities.se
Anette is a committed change leader and designer with a passion for the environment and sustainability. She is driven by the desire to build a society where we live within the limits of the planet and everyone is included with equal value. She has extensive experience of leading organizations and driving service and business development in both the public and private sectors in roles such as manager, service designer, project manager and trainer. Within Viable Cities, Anette works with the initiative on system demonstrators.
Umeå carina.aschan@viablecities.se
Carina works mainly internationally within NetZeroCities with a focus on multi-level governance, just transition, collaboration and climate neutral cities. Carina has many years of experience in international collaboration, sustainability work and innovation in urban development and Smart Cities. She has previously worked strategically with sustainable growth and urban development at municipal level, but also with business development and infrastructure issues regionally and internationally, as well as with sustainable mobility and fuel and energy issues. Carina divides her time between Viable Cities and RISE Samhällsbyggnad.
Lund celine.berggreen-clausen@viablecities.se
Celine works mainly internationally within NetZeroCities with a focus on multi-level governance, just transition, policy development and climate neutral cities. She has several years of experience in smart and sustainable community development from the public and private sector as well as industry-related research in Sweden and Norway. Celine's background is in economic geography and she is particularly passionate about sustainability and impact through involvement and participation, business modeling and interdisciplinarity. Celine divides her time between Viable Cities and RISE.
Kalmar charlotte.g.brynielsson@viablecities.se
Charlotte focuses on supporting the transition work regarding the holistic perspective on sustainable development and Agenda 2030. She also works with the collaboration of multi-level governance and supporting structures, to scale up and increase the pace of the transition. Charlotte has extensive experience of development and change work at local, regional and international level, including as head of sustainability in Växjö and Kalmar, where she was responsible for the municipalities' work within the framework of "Climate-neutral cities 2030".
Stockholm daniel.dersen@internetstiftelsen.se
Daniel is part of the project management for the Urban Twin Transition Center, which works with digitalization as a tool for the climate transition. He has previously held leading roles in internet, e-commerce and telecom companies, including as CEO of Spray, Studentkortet, Plus46, Telenor, and others.
Stockholm fedra.vanhuyse@viablecities.se
Fedra is passionate about cities, economy and people, and tries to combine these topics in her research portfolio. At Viable Cities, she leads work on climate investment planning, which involves developing the concept, designing tools and helping cities understand the economic and financial case for climate neutrality. Previously, she has worked for the UK National Audit Office, a local authority in the UK and a labor rights organization in Southeast Asia.
Stockholm jessica.andersson@viablecities.se
Jessica works with Viable Cities international initiatives, focusing on Driving Urban Transitions (DUT), community planning and organization. She has extensive experience in community development in public organisations, in the areas of spatial planning, regional development and European planning cooperation. Jessica has worked with sustainable urban and community development, regional spatial planning, transport and climate issues, collaboration with academia and social sustainability at the regional level.
Stockholm jonas.persson@viablecities.se
Jonas works with Viable Cities international initiative, focusing on Positive Energy District (PED), one of the Transition Pathways within Driving Urban Transitions (DUT). Jonas has several years of experience in the energy transition of cities and neighborhoods in both strategic and operational work. Through innovation management, actor-driven collaboration and process and project management, the focus is on increased resource utilization and sector coupling, interaction between different technologies, proptech, energy communities, positive energy districts and the energy issue in the planning process. Jonas divides his time between Viable Cities and RISE, where he works at the Energy and Resources department. He replaces Sara Ghaem who is on parental leave.
Helsinki/Stockholm karoliina.pilli-sihvola@viablecities.se
Karoliina's expertise is climate change adaptation, and her focus in Viable Cities is the integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation. She works with Climate City Contract 2030 and the Viable Cities international initiative. She has previously worked at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the National Audit Office and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Finland.
Uppsala lars.johansson@viablecities.se
Lars works mainly with the 23 municipalities in the Climate Neutral Cities 2030 initiative, for example with transition support and change management at the system level. Lars has a background in politics, public administration, academia, business and the innovation system, and has worked with sustainability and climate in various roles and contexts since 2004. During 2019-2021, Lars worked within Climate Neutral Uppsala 2030 and close to Climate Neutral Enköping 2030 as an innovation leader and advisor.
Lund/Gothenburg lena.holmberg@viablecities.se
Lena has a PhD in education with a focus on design of learning environments. She is an experienced moderator and process leader with a background in business, academia, public organisations and civil society and specializes in multi-stakeholder innovation collaborations addressing sustainability challenges. Within Viable Cities, she works on developing actors' transformative learning through various activities, both in Sweden and through international efforts.
Solna/Stockholm madeleine.bergman@viablecities.se
Madeleine works with Anna-Lena on Viable Cities communication. She has a broad background in digital communication and illustration, event planning and networking. At Viable Cities she works with planning and coordination of events such as conferences, Transition Lab Forum and European Viable Cities Day.
Stockholm maria.tengvard@viablecities.se
Maria has many years of experience in international cooperation and leading initiatives in climate, energy and business development from a Quadruple Helix perspective. She has previously worked strategically with export promotion and with urban development and climate policy at municipal, regional and national level. At Viable Cities, Maria works mainly internationally within NetZeroCities and CapaCITIES, with a focus on multi-level governance, collaboration and climate-neutral cities.
Stockholm marie.ivarsson@viablecities.se
Marie is a strategist and works within Viable Cities with internationalization, policy development, analysis and high-level relations. She has a long background in innovation and research policy and international cooperation at regional, national and EU level with experience from the Swedish Government Offices and Region Västra Götaland.
Stockholm olena.tatarchenko@viablecities.se
Olena is a research engineer in sustainable technologies. She has previously been involved in research and administration of several international projects such as Climate Neutral Urban Districts in Europe (CLUE), Central Baltic Cooperation in Energy Efficiency and Feasibility in Urban Planning (ENEF), and Alive and KICing - Products and Services of Living Smart City Energy Lab. Olena works in Viable Cities on financial and practical matters, planning and administration.
Stockholm olle.dierks@viablecities.se
Olle leads system demonstrators for climate-neutral cities and an initiative for cooperation between Sweden, the EU and the USA for climate-neutral cities. Olle is Chairman for Team Sweden Smart Cities, one of about ten subgroups within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Team Sweden, coordinated by Viable Cities. He shares his time as a specialist on partnerships for innovation and investment at UN-Habitat.
Lund patrik.ryden@viablecities.se
Patrik is one of the Viable Cities veterans. Patrik has more than 15 years of experience working with innovation and development. Within Viable Cities, he coordinates the work with calls, is the spider in the web when calls are planned, opened and closed, and not least, he is the one who can answer questions from all stakeholders. Patrik works 50 percent for Viable Cities from his position at Lund University.
Stockholm rebecka.engstrom@viablecities.se
Rebecka works on exploring and conceptualizing how cities can demonstrate systemic change in the energy system beyond pilot and demo projects - for example in system demonstrators - and how their transformative potential can be evaluated along the way. She also builds on her previous research on how climate adaptation, resilience and risk perspectives can be built into the transition work in cities from different perspectives.
Stockholm sandra.sjoo@viablecities.se
Sandra has a solid education in innovative coordination of media, design and communication, as well as a broad background with experience in graphic design, web development, social media, media management, sustainable communication and gender equality design. Sandra is responsible for Viable City's digital communication, channels and events and also works with communication as a tool for change, as well as supporting the development, adaptation and implementation of methods and tools for communication and meaning-making.
Stockholm sara.modig@viablecities.se
Sara works with analysis and follow-up of Climate City Contract 2030. She has a long background in research and innovation policy with experience from Vinnova and the Swedish Government Offices. She has also run her own company in innovation for sustainable social development and worked as a consultant with design-driven development of services, organization, strategy and systems. Sara is passionate about people's potential and power to learn, grow and co-create a sustainable society.
Stockholm sara.ghaem@viablecities.se
Sara works with the Viable Cities international initiative, focusing on the Positive Energy District (PED), one of the Transition Pathways within Driving Urban Transitions (DUT). Sara has several years of experience in integrated energy solutions for cities and holds a PhD from KTH in this field. She has previously worked on expanding business opportunities for innovative solutions, research and strategic project development across Europe. Sara divides her time between Viable Cities and RISE, where she works at the Energy and Resources department.
Umeå vanja.ostman@viablecities.se
Vanja is an intermediary and process leader who supports ecosystems between different actors from different spheres of society. She coordinates the work with our over 140 member organizations. Vanja connects Viable Cities with, among other things, the Transition Lift initiative, the societal transition in northern Sweden and the regional dimension. Vanja is based at RISE, at the unit Societal Transformation. Vanja has previously worked in municipal operations, in recent years as head of growth at the municipality of Örnsköldsvik.
Ana works on Urban Sustainability Governance processes and instruments and is a PhD student/researcher at INGENIO (CSIC-UPV). She has been involved in the Energy Transition Roundtable and its Agriculture and Food Roundtable in Valencia. Ana is also part of the working group of the 2030 Climate Neutral Mission of Valencia and is involved in the Spanish platform CitiES2030. She is particularly interested in co-creating a fair and inclusive urban transition.
Harald researches infrastructural change in the field of energy systems - the introduction of renewable energy technologies, sustainability and energy efficient buildings, and the transformation of electricity grids. A particular focus of the work is on cities as a specific context for socio-technical change and on the increasing integration of information and communication technologies in infrastructures, a development often labeled "smart" - smart grids, smart cities, smart homes.
Indy Johar is an architect, co-founder of Architecture 00 and founder of Dark Matter Labs. In his work, he is primarily focused on the strategic design of new super-scale community assets for transition; specifically at the intersection of financing, contracting and governance for deeply democratic futures.
Jaime works with a focus on international perspectives. He is also a postdoctoral fellow at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and the Technical University of Madrid, and works with CitiES2030, the Spanish sibling program of Viable Cities. He is passionate about multi-stakeholder collaborations.
kateryna.pereverza@viablecities.se
Kateryna explores methods of transformative systemic change for sustainability in close cooperation with societal partners. She studies the emerging transformative portfolio-based approaches to managing the transition. She is interested in experimenting with innovative ways of teaching and facilitating learning.
Lars is Professor of Innovation and Sustainability Transitions. He is an economic geographer and researcher in innovation studies. He is particularly interested in addressing a broad set of issues on innovations related to pressing societal challenges such as climate change and has international recognition and experience.
per.grankvist@viablecities.se
Per works with explaining things in a thoughtful and entertaining way
that creates understanding, relationship and commitment. He is working on developing a storytelling method that will increase engagement and understanding of the climate transition in cities and communities, and has done a number of pilot projects in Malmö and Umeå.
Thomas Olofsson is a professor of energy efficiency at Umeå University and conducts research aimed at contributing to a transition to more energy-efficient construction and management. He has been appointed Climate Ambassador in Västerbotten several times. Within Viable Cities, Thomas supports the EU initiative PED (Positive Energy Districts).
City of Gothenburg
City of Stockholm
Lund University
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden
Umeå municipality
Royal Institute of Technology
Ericsson
City of Malmö
Scania CV AB
