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En tecknad bild där fyra unga vuxna står och tittar ut över ett vattendrag. De omgivs av höstfärger och gulnade björkar.

APECS Sweden Conference 2025

Early Career Arctic Sustainability Research

22–23 September | Umeå, Sweden

 

Welcome to APECS Sweden Conference 2025, where we focus on the future of Arctic Sustainability Research. This is where early career researchers from all disciplines come together to discuss challenges and opportunities of Arctic research in relation to sustainability and indigenous perspectives. Join us for an opportunity to connect with like-minded professionals, extend your network, gain valuable knowledge, and discover how we can collectively shape a resilient and thriving world. Let's build a sustainable future together!

The conference is held for two days 22 and 23 September 2025. These days will be filled with keynotes and panel discussions about sustainability in the Arctic. You will also be able to take part in an excursion, and participate in a one-of-a-kind interactive 2023 SDG workshop where you get to influence a made-up world with sustainable decisions, and see the effects of your decisions!

Registration

Registration form

Deadline: 15 September

Program (will be updated)

Program

Day 1

Moderator: Rebecca Tapper, APECS Sweden

11:00   Welcome and opening remarks
Remarks from the APECS Board, The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, Arctic Center in Umeå and Swedish Centre for the Arctic and Antarctic

12:00   Lunch

13:00   Panel Discussion: What is a Sustainable Arctic
Five keynote speeches elaborating on “The Sustainable Arctic” from their respective research fields, and a panel discussion on the translational and transformational research in a sustainable Arctic.
Moderators
Rebecca Tapper, APECS Sweden
Paul Schmidt, APECS Sweden
Panelists
Anastasia Emelyanova
, Postdoctoral Researcher in Arctic Health, University of Oulu
Gesche Blume- Werry, Ecosystem Ecologist, Umeå University
Johan Cederqvist, PhD Candidate in History, Luleå University of Technology
Luisa Ickes, Associate Professor in Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Chalmers University of Technology

14:30   Fika

15:00   Interactive Workshop: Sustainable Development – Challenges and Opportunities
A workshop where you get to interact in a game that focuses on the Agenda 2030. Based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG:s) you get to start project and make important decisions in terms of sustainability. See how the world unfolds based on your decisions! Learn more about the game below.
Facilitators
Emma Vogel
Alexandra Abrahams

Day 2

Moderator: Rebecca Tapper, APECS Sweden

09:00   Excursion
More information will come

10:00   Fika

10:30   Panel Discussion: A Sustainably Changing Arctic? – Indigenous Perspectives
Keynote speeches elaborating on “The Sustainable Arctic” from their respective research fields, and a panel discussion on indigenous perspectives on the sustainability of past, present and future changes, with a focus on changes in Sapmi.
Moderators
Freja Fagerholm, APECS Sweden
Anngelica Kristoferqvist, APECS Sweden
Panelists
Janne Sirniö, Independent Researcher in Arctic Sustainability
Johan Sandström, Professor of Business Administration, Luleå University of Technology
Lena Maria Nilsson, Doctor of Public Health, Umeå University
Åsa Andersson, Indigenous Sámi and Tornedalian artist and researcher

12:00   Lunch and end of conference

The afternoon will consist of the APECS Sweden annual meeting for members.

Get to know the panelists

 

Day 1

Anastasia Emelyanova

Anastasia Emelyanova

Postdoctoral Researcher in Arctic Health, University of Oulu

Anastasia Emelyanova works in the Arctic Health research group of the University of Oulu. She is a Vice-Lead of the UArctic Thematic Network on Health and Well-being. Her research interests include One Health, healthy ageing in the Arctic communities, demography and population changes across the Arctic region, northern health and well-being, and policy in respective fields. She holds academic degrees in Arctic Medicine from the University of Oulu (Finland) and Social work from the Northern Arctic Federal University (Russia). In 2024, she has been awarded the Jens Peder Hart Hansen award that recognizes excellent emerging researchers in the field of circumpolar health. She coordinates the project “The Nordic AHA Communities - Arctic Healthy Aging communities: Safe and inclusive outdoor environment and public spaces” (2023-2026). Anastasia is an author to several ongoing international projects related to circumarctic health such as ArcSolution (2024-2028), One Health in Northern Communities and Ecosystems (2020-2025) and also an recurrent invited teacher to university courses such as Global Public Health, Arctic and Nordic Perspectives on Sustainable Development, and others.

Gesche Blume-Werry

Gesche Blume-Werry

Ecosystem Ecologist, Umeå University

Gesche Blume-Werry is an ecosystem ecologist with a passion for high latitude ecosystems and an interest in the interplay of plants and their environment. Her work in Arctic tundra and peatlands focuses on belowground plant processes, such as root phenology and root production, and often includes measurements outside the summer season.

Johan Cederqvist

Johan Cederqvist

PhD Candidate in History, Luleå University of Technology

The main interest of Johan Cederqvist's research has been the environmental history of rivers and seas in the industrial age. In line with this, his dissertation project is an environmental history of salmon populations in the Swedish north.

Luisa Ickes

Luisa Ickes

Associate Professor in Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Chalmers University of Technology

Luisa Ickes is a meteorologist by training and works as a associate professor in the division "Earth Sciences and Remote Sensing" at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. She earned her doctorate in Switzerland and has worked as a researcher in Switzerland, Germany, and Sweden, as well as spending a year with the United Nations before moving to Chalmers. Her research focuses on clouds and how clouds are influenced by aerosol particles. She investigates how climate change and clouds are connected, with a particular focus on the Arctic. One of her research topics focuses on marine fuel regulations and how they impact ship emissions, Arctic clouds and Arctic climate.

Luisa Ickes primarily works on model development and uses various models, such as global climate models and small-scale process models, but she is also active in the field – she was participating in the ARTofMELT expedition to the Arctic in 2023.

Day 2

Janne Sirniö

Janne Sirniö

Independent Researcher in Arctic Sustainability

As a multidisciplinary researcher, Janne Sirniö specialises in cultural traditions, regional development, and socio-environmental sustainability. His work bridges Indigenous knowledge systems with contemporary sustainable development efforts, embodying an intellectual extension of my background as a traditional healing professional. Raised in livelihoods centred around the handcrafting of fishing lures and reindeer ownership, and having lived on both the Swedish and Finnish sides of Sápmi and the River Valleys, Sirniö has developed a profound understanding of the cultural significance of nature and place in shaping cognition, health, and identities, a connection crucial in his role as Research Assistant for the Sámi Trail of Tears research project (2022-2024). His research examines how Indigenous practices and spirituality contribute to Arctic sustainability while also addressing the ethical challenges of integrating these perspectives into contemporary frameworks.

Johan Sandström

Johan Sandström

Professor of Business Administration and Arctic Six Chair, Luleå University of Technology

Johan Sandström is Professor of Business Administration at Luleå University of Technology (LTU), Sweden, and during 2024-2026 one of the Arctic Six Chairs. He defended his PhD on organizational greening at Umeå University in 2002. Since 2015 his research has been situated in the Arctic, predominantly focusing on the relation between mine and community, but also on issues related to migration. The main methods are ethnographic, based on engaging with community members and spending time on site. His research is communicated in various forms, through scientific publications, but also through photography, film, music, and theatre. The Organizing rocks project (est. 2015), targeting Kiruna (Sweden) and northern Saskatchewan (Canada), was presented in the form of a multi-media art exhibition in Luleå, Kiruna and Vienna. Conceptually, his studies focus on analyzing power relations and enactments of responsibility and accountability. He has also conducted comparative work on the iron ore region of the Pilbara, in western Australia. Currently he is developing research on promises attached to "green" transitions in the Swedish Arctic, with comparative outlooks in Alaska and, through Arctic Six Chair position, also in the Norwegian and Finnish Arctic. He is also engaging in comparative work on how newly arrived migrants are organized in the Swedish Arctic, but where the comparative cases are in Italy and the UK, respectively. Aside from his scientific engagements, Sandström also sits on the board of Havremagasinet, Norrbotten’s largest exhibition hall for contemporary art.

En kvinna med glasögon står framför träd

Lena Maria Nilsson

Doctor of Public Health, Umeå University

Lena Maria Nilsson is Sámi, with roots in the forest Sámi community of Máláge/Malå in Västerbotten County, Sweden. Currently, she leads a project funded by Forte on healthy ageing in Indigenous communities, looking at access to traditional foods in elder care in both Sápmi and among the Mal Paharia in Eastern India. She is also involved in a project examining historical data on diet and health among school children from the unique Norrland Survey conducted between 1921 and 1931.

Åsa Andersson

Åsa Andersson

Indigenous Sámi and Tornedalian artist and researcher

Åsa Andersson is a conceptual artist, storyteller, and traditional healer based in Kiruna, Swedish Sapmi. Her main interests are working with the place-voice of nature and reconnecting the inner human nature with the outer in order to balance and heal relationships and communication with the earth. Her platform is the 3 cultures of Sapmi and Tornedalian (Torne Valley) and the arctic nature. In contrast with colonialism, modernity and extractive green industry created environmental disasters and severe place loss. How to rethink this relationship?

Åsa studied typography, graphic design, landscaping, psychology, rhetoric, dreams, and healing arts of traditional Chinese medicines, European- and north Scandinavian/Sami- and Finnish traditional healing practices.

2030 SDG Workshop

An invitation to explore the world and yourself

The workshop is based on the interactive 2030 SDGs Game, a multiplayer, in-person, card-based game that simulates taking the “real world” into the year 2030. The game was developed 2016 in Japan.

The rules are simple: players use money and time to start projects to achieve their goals by the end of the game.

One player might have the goal of Acquiring Wealth, so for these players, money is the most important thing. For others, the most important thing might be to Enjoy Leisure, to have the freedom to relax or to spend time doing what they want. Others may want to end poverty, or to protect the environment. Just like in the real world, in this world there are diverse people with different values.

This experience has become a powerful and impactful social phenomenon, earning extensive media coverage and reaching over 400,000 participants. During the conference you will have the unique opportunity as we invite the only facilitators in the Nordics!
Learn more about the 2030 SDGs Game

 

Organisers

The conference is hosted by APECS Sweden, with funding and support from Umeå University, UTRI, Arctic Centre, and Centre for the Arctic and Antarctic.

Tag us on social media! #APECSSweden25 @APECS Sweden

Latest update: 2025-06-19