How can social and cultural meeting places become engines of the energy transition? Co-PED – Community-based cultural and social centres as incubators for Positive Energy Districts – is a European research project that explores this very question. By establishing energy communities around cultural and civic centers in eight urban, peri-urban, and rural contexts across Europe, the project aims to empower local communities and promote sustainable energy systems.

As a research partner, RISE contributes with method development, energy systems expertise, and analysis of both technical and social impacts in these contexts. We collaborate closely with the eight participating cultural hubs – known as Urban Living Labs – supporting their development and how their facilities can be transformed into positive energy assets for their communities.

The eight cultural centers participating in Co-PED are:

• 1. Ifö Center – Bromölla, Sweden
• 2. La Friche La Belle de Mai – Marseille, France
• 3. BASIS Vinschgau Venosta – Silandro, Italy
• 4. Die Bäckerei Kulturbackstube – Innsbruck, Austria
• 5. Bakelit Multi Art Center – Budapest, Hungary
• 6. Bartók Quarter – Budapest, Hungary
• 7. Hart van Zuid – Rotterdam, Netherlands
• 8. Green Kommon – Plaine Commune (north of Paris), France

The project combines technological, social, and economic innovation with a strong focus on energy and climate justice. Through inclusive processes, where marginalized groups are also given a voice, Co-PED aims to create scalable, adaptable solutions for diverse local contexts across Europe.

Background

Weeds must be managed to avoid crop losses, but today's large use of herbicides and tillage is problematic from both an environmental and production perspective. However, good alternatives are rare, which means that systems that do not use herbicides (e.g. organic farming) often have to use intensive tillage, and those that prohibit or restrict tillage (e.g. conservation agriculture (CA)) usually have to use a lot of herbicides. Perennial weeds are particularly problematic from this perspective. 

Aim

The aim of the IWM-CA project is to develop integrated strategies that reduce both herbicides and tillage and improve soil health for Swedish farmers with a focus on CA, regenerative agriculture and ploughless organic farming. The strategies will, among other things, integrate the newly developed root cutters that are effective at controlling perennial weeds with low soil disturbance – and can be used in cover crops and grassland.

Goals

• Develop a system where the horizontal root cutter and the vertical root cutter are integrated with cover crops, herbicides and shallow tillage within conservation agriculture, regenerative agriculture and ploughless organic agriculture.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of spot-applying horizontal root cutter on perennial weed patches in leys and pastures. 
• Evaluate the effect of HRC on perennial weed species not previously studied (e.g., Tussilago farfara [coltsfoot], Silene latifolia [white campion), Senecio jacobaea [ragwort], Rumex spp. [docks], Taraxacum officinale [dandelion]).
• Evaluate the economic cost-benefits of integrating HRC on example farms using CA, RA, or PLOF.

Financing

IWM-CA is financed by Swedish farmers' foundation for agricultural research. Kverneland Group AS provides the root cutters as in-kind. 

Background

Small-grain cereals are currently sown with a low level of precision, both in x-, y-, or z-dimensions. Low precision results in uneven emergence and poorly distributed plants, which affects internal competition in the row, crop nutrient utilisation, competitiveness against weeds and the risk of plant diseases, which affects the yield quality and quantity.

Aim

The project Precision seeding of small-grain cereals as a component of integrated pest management (IPM) will study whether precision sowing of cereals makes it possible to grow cereals with lower seed rate and pesticide use while maintaining or increasing the grain yield, thereby improving the economy of
Swedish small-grain cereal production. In the project a concept machine for precision sowing of cereals is evaluated both in small-scale field trials with different row distances and seeding rates, and in large-scale field demonstrations. The project will provide an economic and agronomic analysis of the benefits and costs of precision sowing small-grain cereals and as a part of integrated pest management.

Funding and collaboration partners

Precision seeding of small-grain cereals as a component of integrated pest management is financed by the JTI-foundation and is a collaboration between RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, HIR Skåne, Lantmännen and Väderstad. Several of the trials will be conducted at Lantmännens future farms Svalöv och Bjertorp. Väderstad contributes with the precision sowing machine as in-kind.   

Building on the industrial needs identified in previous project phases, this project focuses on three thematic areas across three different value systems:

• Users: Collaboration, culture, competence, and knowledge, including the management of organizational challenges.
• Regulatory systems and standards within the value chain and circular product life cycles. Emphasis is placed on Digital Product Passports and their associated digital platforms.
• Data and security for digital value chains, linking users with regulatory systems and their digital platforms.

Project Goals

• More companies across multiple value chains gain the insights, tools, and knowledge—i.e., the capabilities—needed to continue developing and adapting their operations and to contribute to the efficiency and circularity of the overall system.
• Collaboration based on trust, where actors share and apply each other's experiences and developed knowledge to create value for themselves as well as for others in the value chains.
• Enabling conditions for circular business models, Scope 3 actions, and increased resource efficiency. The project primarily addresses the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030): Goals 9, 12, and 13, with indirect relevance to several others.
• Leverage and contribute to specifications for information exchange through participants' links to relevant EU projects and initiatives.
• Best Practice: A new method, process, or technology with strong potential to increase efficiency, applicable across industries and thereby enhancing the overall competitiveness of Swedish industry.

Project Structure

The project includes two industrial cases (IC) and three work packages (WP):

• IC1: Digital Product Passports, including digital platforms, data, and security
• IC2: Users – collaboration, culture, competence, and knowledge
• WP1: Project Management
• WP2: Mobilization | Knowledge aggregation, industry collaboration, dissemination plan, demonstration, and implementation
• WP3: Project Communication

The Polemocene, Greek for "The Era of War," is a project that, based on contemporary research, experiences, and reflections, explores a hypothetical future where the human-forest relationship is not only unsustainable, but the forest itself has declared war on humanity. Through an interactive future prototype, a visualization that resembles a reverse archaeological excavation not of the past but of the future, we aim to provoke reflection, dialogue, and action regarding sustainable business models, governance tools, and approaches in the forest value chain. The goal is to inspire both within and outside the forest value chain towards long-term and preventive actions in response to future and contemporary ecological and social challenges concerning humans and the forest.

Today's model of expansion, increased yield, and technological innovation to balance industrial, ecological, and cultural goals entails contradictions, conflicts, and risks. The forest is assumed to be a passive object and underestimated as an active and unpredictable force that reacts beyond human control. Everything from invasive species to zoonotic diseases and geological changes demonstrates the forest's response to human actions.

By pushing the question to its extreme, we create conditions to collectively develop new solutions. We do this in four steps: environment and signal scanning, development of future scenarios and prototype concepts, production of an interactive experience, and exhibition and dialogue. Through interdisciplinary collaboration between design, research, and stakeholders within, around, and outside the forestry sector, we design a speculative future prototype that challenges and inspires sustainable transformation.

The project is expected to lead to new strategies, business models, and governance tools for a sustainable forest value chain. Through dialogue and reflection on the future scenario and its relevance to our present, the project contributes to systemic change through cross-sector collaboration and strengthened innovation capacity in the transition towards a sustainable bioeconomy, in line with and beyond sustainability goals.

Result

Through a foresight process together with the project's reference group, with a signal scanning phase and a scenario development phase, four future narratives were developed, serving as a foundation for discussions in the project and for the project's resulting future prototype, the exhibition at the Röhsska Museum. The exhibition was designed to encourage visitors to take on the role of a speculative future international body, the Expert Committee on Polemocene Affairs, abbreviated to ECPA, and in that role, to view and reflect on a number of objects collected from an area where humans and the forest have entered into open conflict. In addition to all the speculative artifacts designed for the future prototype, both internally at RISE and by external creators, an artistic zine was also produced, interpreting the project's underlying scenario and the four future narratives created in the previous foresight process.

Participants from RISE included Marina Matteoni, László Sall Vesselényi, Patrik Eriksson, Stephanie Kawan and Martin Johansson.

The project was exhibited with two other projects for the same Vinnova call at Röhsska museet in Gothenburg June 10-12 2025: https://rohsska.se/utstallningar/designhistorier/super-o/manniska-material-och-skog

The exhibition was well attended and led to many different, both organized and spontaneous, discussions and many documented reflections.

Some of the materials from the project and the exhibition can be found on the Swedish version of this page.

The project uses consumption patterns from different household groups (based on income levels, place of residence, and environmental awareness) to develop national scenarios aligned with the IPCC’s socioeconomic development pathways. These consumption patterns, together with an energy system model, enable quantification of how various measures impact the energy system—such as the Fit-for-55 package and new technologies (e.g., flexible control of heating)—as well as their effects on household expenditures and carbon footprints, while also capturing rebound effects from lifestyle changes.

In the project, RISE focuses on demand-side flexibility in the energy system.

The project results are expected to be useful for designing Swedish climate policy instruments and are being developed in close collaboration with the business sector and the greentech company Svalna.

To reduce emissions, the industry has explored several different methods that are now being commercialized. These include the use of CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage) and hydrogen-based direct reduction of iron ore to produce low-emission steel. Large subsidies have been granted both within the EU and internationally to accelerate the transition of the industry and strengthen its competitiveness. The purpose of this project is to map and compare subsidies and other policy instruments used in different EU countries to speed up the transition of the iron and steel industry. The goal is to increase understanding of how subsidies affect the Swedish iron and steel industry and to provide input for future policy development within the EU and Sweden that can help accelerate the transition while maintaining competitiveness. The coordinating project partner is RISE. Other participants include Chalmers, Jernkontoret, SSAB, and Stegra.