WILCO - Welfare innovations at the local level in favour of cohesion,

Ersta Sköndal University College

(ESUC), Sweden

Ersta Sköndal University College (ESUC) is a private university college. ESUC offer education at basic and advanced level in the caring sciences, social work, psychotherapy, deaconry, church music and theology. Research at ESUC is primarily centred around social and care sciences and research of civil society. The pioneering character in the Swedish context of some of this research has given the department a leading role in research on non-profit organisations and voluntary work in Sweden. The research department is multidisciplinary, such as social work, sociology, political science, theology, history, social anthropology, and social and economic geography.
The department endeavours to create and maintain good, long-term relations with research departments at other universities. At present there are collaborations with, among others, Stockholm University, Lund University, Uppsala University, Linköping University and Åbo Akademi University in Finland, Roskilde University in Denmark and University of California, Berkely, USA. Recent projects include Aspects of Citizenship. A longitudinal study on civic involvement (five population studies carried through from 1993 to 2009); State and Civil Society in Northern Europe: The Swedish Model Reconsidered; Mental health and self-help in civil society. A study on self-help and rehabilitation for people with mental illness in USA and Sweden; Civil Society in a Scandinavian Welfare State Context – Trends in Informal Care and Volunteering. The Department participated as a Swedish partner in The CINEFOGO Network of Excellence.

The researcher in charge will be Ass. Prof. Marie Nordfeldt, at Dept. of Civil Society Studies at ESUC. She has a PhD in Social and Economic Geography from Uppsala University (Sweden). She works as a researcher and lecturer at Ersta Sköndal University College. Main focuses for her research have been relations between civil society organizations and public sector, especially at the local level, and issues of social exclusion and homelessness. She participated in an interdisciplinary collaborative research project - Third Sector European Policy (TSEP) - involving nine European countries. She has also participated in Nordic and Swedish research projects studying local welfare systems with comparative perspectives. For the moment, Marie Nordfeldt is project leader of a following up study of the Swedish “compact” that was agreed between the state and civil society organizations in 2008.

Contact information: Marie Nordfeldt.

Other members

	Lars Svedberg Lars Svedberg, Professor and Research Director, Dept. of Civil Society Studies at Ersta Sköndal University College. His main research fields are civil society, volunteering, citizenship and marginalisation. Recent publications: with Lars Trägårdh (in press) Social Rights vs Individual Rights. The Case of Sweden. In Evers, A. and Guillemard  A-M. (eds.) Social Policy and Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. With Karin Gavelin, (2011). Estimating the Scope and Magnitude of Volunteerism Worldwide: A review of multinational data on volunteering.A UN-report Stockholm: Ersta Sköndal University College.  With Lars Skov Henriksen (2010). Guest editors and authors of Volunteering and Social Activism: Moving Beyond the Traditional Divide? In Journal of Civil Society, v. 6, no 2. With Lars-Erik Olsson (2010). Civil Society and Welfare Provision in Sweden Is There Such a Thing? In Zimmer, A. and Evers, E. (eds.) Third Society Organizations Facing Turbulent Environments: Sports, Culture and Social Services in Germany, Italy, U.K:, Poland and Sweden. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag.
	Ola Segnestam Larsson Ola Segnestam Larsson has a PhD in organization and management from the School of Business and Economics, Åbo Akademi University. During the last years, Ola has worked with civil society research at the Institute for Civil Society Studies, Ersta Sköndal University College.
	Anna Carrigan Anna Carrigan is the research assistant of the Swedish team. She is a Master Student in Social Work at Ersta Sköndal University.