Keynote speakers 2026

Carina Listerborn

Professor, Malmö University

Carina Listerborn is a Professor of Urban Planning at Malmö University and Director of the Institute for Urban Research (IUR). Her work explores urban social geography, feminist urban studies, and critical urban theory. She examines housing inequalities, precarious living conditions, and the digitalization of housing markets, often through intersectional and feminist lenses. Listerborn has researched urban safety discourses, participatory planning, and the politics of space, highlighting how gender, race, and class shape urban experiences. She co-founded CRUSH (Critical Urban Sustainability Hub 2013-2019), a network addressing housing and sustainability issues, and her recent projects focus on housing justice, smart cities, and housing as a digitalized service.

Carina Listerborn’s keynote speech is in English.

Abstract:
Where do we go from here? The rise and fall of the Swedish housing model

Once, the Nordic countries were considered forerunners in housing welfare. While Denmark still maintains a large non-profit housing sector and Finland has (had) a state-supported system for affordable rental housing, Sweden has shifted towards a market driven housing system—described as dysfunctional (for different reasons) by both the political left and the right. At the same time, the EU is launching the European Affordable Housing Plan in 2025, and the push for climate neutral construction is transforming the industry. Is there now new hope for a more inclusive housing market—for all?

Departing from the Swedish case, this talk will examine the structural lock ins of the post war housing welfare system, the role of new institutional investors in the housing market, and the consequences for tenants in their everyday struggles to find and keep a home. In particular, young adults, women, and immigrants are disproportionately affected by the lack of affordable housing and often end up on an insecure sublet market operating in legal grey zones. What can be learned from the Swedish housing system—once so successful, now so widely criticized?

Eleanor Jupp

Dr Eleanor Jupp is Reader in Sociology and Social Policy in the School of Social Sciences, University of Kent, UK. Her teaching and research interests combine social policy and urban social geography, with particular interests in disadvantaged communities, care, emotions and social action, especially in contexts of crisis. She also has particular expertise in creative participatory methods, often working with artists and communities to co-produce research. Her monograph Care, Crisis and Activism, (Bristol University Press, 2023) drew together research on austerity, everyday lives and community action from ten years of research. Recent research has included projects on community provisioning of food and household goods (Gifting and sharing in a context of crisis: New infrastructures of solidarity between strangers?) and Creative Healthy Neighbourhoods, exploring lived experiences of health inequalities and the role of creative health in two neighbourhoods in Kent. She is currently developing research on socio-digital sharing infrastructures to tackle welfare and climate justice.

Eleanor Jupp’s keynote speech is in English.

Marketta Kyttä

Professori, Aalto-yliopisto

Marketta Kyttä työskentelee maankäytön suunnittelun professorina Aalto yliopiston insinööritieteiden koulussa. Kytän monitieteinen tutkimustiimi keskittyy paikkalähtöiseen ihmis-ympäristötutkimukseen ja vuorovaikutteiseen suunnitteluun. Keskeisinä tutkimusteemoina viime vuosina ovat olleet mm. terveyttä ja hyvinvointia edistävien ja sosiaalisesti kestävien elinympäristöjen tutkimus, eri asukasryhmien liikkuminen ja elämäntavat, lapsi- ja ikäystävälliset elinympäristöt sekä toimivien käytäntöjen kehittäminen entistä laaja-alaisemman ja vaikuttavamman vuorovaikutteisen suunnittelun tueksi. Parhaillaan ryhmä tekee myös interventiotutkimusta kestävän liikenteen ratkaisuista. Tutkimusryhmä on tehnyt pioneerityötä digitaalisen, ns. pehmoGIS-metodologian luomisessa. Metodologiaa on käytetty jo 40 maassa yli 15 000 projektissa.

Marketta Kytän keynote-puheenvuoro on suomeksi.

Marketta Kyttä works as a professor of Land use planning in the School of Engineering in Aalto University. Her multidisciplinary research team concentrates on place-based human-environmental research and participatory planning. Among the recent research themes are e.g. the study of environmental health promotion, socially sustainable environments, lifestyles and mobility patterns of various groups of people, child- and age-friendly environments and the development of new practices to support large-scale and influential participation. At the moment, also an intervention study about sustainable mobility solution is ongoing. The research team has pioneered in the development of digital public participation GIS (PPGIS) methodology, that has been used in 40 countries in more than 15 000 projects.

Marketta Kyttä’s keynote speech is in Finnish.