Mats Björkman

Mats Björkman, researcher in Ecosystem Science at the University of Gothenburg, focused on understanding current and future environmental changes in cold regions. His research spans a broad range of topics—from shifts in vegetation and soil microbial communities to transformations in carbon and nutrient cycling. In addition, he investigates the chemical, physical, and biological processes that govern seasonal snow. Together, these areas provide essential insights into how rapidly changing cold‑region ecosystems respond to a warming climate.

He is also involved in the establishment of the international cross-disciplinary Svalbard Snow Network, which aims to facilitate and strengthen snow-related research in the Svalbard archipelago.

Åsa Larsson Blind

Åsa Larsson Blind is a member of the Sámi Parliament in Sweden. She also works as a project manager for the project “ReCap ASáp – Regaining Capacity in a Changing Sápmi”, led by the Saami Council and Suoma Sámiid Guovddašsearvi. She served in the Saami Council from 2008 to 2025, including as President from 2017 to 2019, and was the first woman to be elected Chair of the National Sámi Association in Sweden 2019-2021. Between 2011 and 2015, she represented the Saami Council board member of the Indigenous Peoples Secretariat (IPS), and served also in that period as the Head of Delegation to the at Arctic Council SAO meetings.

Maria Jernnäs

In her research, Maria Jernnäs, Assistant Professor at Linköping University, engages with ideas on how climate change governance is conducted under the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda. She is particularly interested in how different portrayals of climate change as a political problem enable and constrain solutions, and the effects this has for how we define politically legitimate climate actors and actions.

TBA

Maria Wolrath Söderberg

Peter Alestig

Maria Wolrath is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric at Södertörn University. Her research focuses on how people reason about societal transformation, and she is deeply committed to critical cultural self-reflection—that is, helping us become aware of our collective ways of thinking, especially those that are harmful, so that we can relate to them in more discerning and responsible ways.

Maria also has extensive experience participating as a researcher in the public sphere and has experimented with various formats for doing so. In addition, she leads the work of the research network Researchers Desk, which supports scholars in advancing the role of research in public debate while maintaining a strong commitment to scientific integrity.

Peter Alestig is a climate expert and journalist who wrote the book Världen som väntar (The World That Awaits). The book deals with how Sweden is affected now and in the future by global warming, both from a societal and socio-economic perspective. He is climate editor at Dagens Nyheter and has long studied climate change and how it has rapidly created a different climate in Sweden.