Master thesis in Sustainable Development 2020/04 Examensarbete i Hållbar utveckling Collaboration for Sustainable Rural Development among public actors in Uppsala County Charlotta Hallnäs DEPARTMENT OF EARTH SCIENCES INSTITUTIONEN FÖR GEOVETENSKAPER Master thesis in Sustainable Development 2020/04 Examensarbete i Hållbar utveckling Collaboration for Sustainable Rural Development among public actors in Uppsala County Charlotta Hallnäs Supervisor: My Sellberg Subject Reviewer: Örjan Bodin Copyright © Charlotta Hallnäs and the Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University Published at Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University (www.geo.uu.se), Uppsala, 2020 Content 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Research Aim ................................................................................................................................... 2 1.1.1. Research Questions .......................................................................................................................... 2 1.2. Thesis Outline .................................................................................................................................. 2 2. Theoretical background ................................................................................................................ 3 2.1. Sustainable Development ................................................................................................................. 3 2.2. Sustainable Rural Development ....................................................................................................... 4 2.3. Collaboration .................................................................................................................................... 5 3. Methods ........................................................................................................................................... 8 3.1. Research Approach and Design ....................................................................................................... 8 3.2. Actors included in the study ............................................................................................................. 8 3.3. Data collection ................................................................................................................................. 9 3.3.1. Semi-structured Interviews .............................................................................................................. 9 3.4. Coding and Data analysis ............................................................................................................... 10 3.5. Limitations ..................................................................................................................................... 10 4. Case study area............................................................................................................................. 12 4.1. Uppsala county ............................................................................................................................... 12 4.1.1. The role of the EU in Rural Development ..................................................................................... 13 4.1.2. Upplandsbygd Lokalt ledd utveckling ........................................................................................... 13 4.1.3. Uppsala County Administrative Board .......................................................................................... 14 4.1.4. Uppsala County Council ................................................................................................................ 14 4.1.5. Municipalities in Uppsala County .................................................................................................. 15 5. Results ........................................................................................................................................... 17 5.1. Challenges, Opportunities and Changes for Sustainable Rural Development ............................... 17 5.1.1. Infrastructure .................................................................................................................................. 17 5.1.2. City and Countryside ..................................................................................................................... 18 5.1.3. Sustainable living and transformation ............................................................................................ 19 5.1.4. Grow sustainably............................................................................................................................ 19 5.1.5. Changing the rural fabric ............................................................................................................... 20 5.2. Hindrance, Enablers, Needs and Conditions for collaboration ...................................................... 20 5.2.1. The need for collaboration ............................................................................................................. 20 5.2.2. Organization size............................................................................................................................ 21 5.2.3. Collaboration on the County level ................................................................................................. 22 5.2.4. Roles and Responsibilities ............................................................................................................. 22 5.2.5. Regional Coordination and Planning ............................................................................................. 23 6. Discussion ...................................................................................................................................... 25 6.1. Where does Sustainable Rural Development belong? ................................................................... 25 6.2. Organisation structure .................................................................................................................... 26 6.2.1. Small organisations ........................................................................................................................ 26 6.2.2. Large organisations ........................................................................................................................ 27 6.3. Demographic patterns .................................................................................................................... 27 6.3.1. Sustainable growth ......................................................................................................................... 28 6.3.2. Sustainable lifestyle ....................................................................................................................... 28 6.4. Implications for Regional Collaboration ........................................................................................ 29 6.4.1. Regional Planning .......................................................................................................................... 29 6.4.2. The issue of Trust ........................................................................................................................... 30 6.5. Implications for Upplandsbygd ...................................................................................................... 31 7. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 32 8. Acknowledgements....................................................................................................................... 33 9. Reference list ................................................................................................................................ 34 10. Appendix ....................................................................................................................................... 42 Appendix A: Interview guide .................................................................................................................... 42 Appendix B: Definitions of code groups ................................................................................................... 43 Collaboration for Sustainable Rural Development among public actors in Uppsala County CHARLOTTA HALLNÄS Hallnäs, C., 2020: Collaboration for Sustainable Rural Development among public actors in Uppsala County. Master thesis in Sustainable Development at Uppsala University, No. 2020/04, 46 pp, 30 ECTS/hp Abstract: Collaboration is increasingly seen as an important aspect for sustainable development and sustainability, both within academia as well as among practitioners. The very nature of many sustainability issues requires collaboration and in the Swedish context collaboration on a county level is deemed necessary for the achievement of Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. The divide between urban and rural is likewise an important topic for achieving sustainability, where neither exist in isolation but are rather dependent on each other. Ensuring that Sweden has a thriving countryside, where people want to live and work is therefore paramount for sustainable development. With this backdrop this thesis takes a closer look at Uppsala county, with the aim of gaining a better understanding of public actors’ ability to collaborate for sustainable rural development in