Södertörn University

Michael Gilek is Associate Professor in Ecology and has extensive research experience on environmental issues and their governance in marine environments. Understanding challenges and possibilities in science-policy interactions has been a topic of particular interest. In his current research Michael leads international interdisciplinary studies analysing environmental governance and maritime spatial planning in the Baltic Sea.
In BALTSPACE Michael is, apart from taking an overarching coordinator role, mainly working on the analytical framework and with knowledge integration in the case studies.

Björn Hassler, is Associate Professor in Environmental Studies with expertise on environmental policy, governance and Baltic Sea regional studies. He has published extensively in scientific journals and books on topics related to marine governance in the Baltic Sea region, such as on oil spills and shipping, regional institutions and cooperation and environmental risk governance.
In BALTSPACE, Björn is mainly contributing to the development and validation of the analytical and evaluative frameworks and to the analysis of policy and sector integration within the case studies.

Mikael Karlsson is agronomist and PhD in Environmental and Energy Systems. His research focuses on environmental governance and policy, including risk management, science-policy studies, chemicals law, climate policy and marine governance.
In BALTSPACE, Mikael will mainly work with analyses of policy and sector integration within the case studies with a focus on the challenges of integrating environmental objectives with Blue Growth in MSP.

Fred Saunders is a post doc researcher with expertise in participative natural resource governance, conservation and development. He is currently working with socio-environmental issues related to small-scale fisheries (in Chile, South Africa, Vietnam and Poland) and agriculture (in the Baltic region). Fred has also recently commenced work on the BALTSPACE research project to develop social science based approaches to better understand the essential role that integration plays in different aspects of maritime spatial planning. He has also worked in Australia as a park planner and ranger. His main responsibilities in BALTSPACE will be linked to the development and validation of the analytical and evaluative frameworks.

Ralph Tafon is PhD student in Environmental Studies. He has a Master of Science in both Human Geography and Environmental Studies with specializations on the political ecology of integrated conservation and development projects, considering conflicts and power relations in decision-making processes.
Ralph’s involvement in BALTSPACE will focus on stakeholder integration aspects connected within the analytical framework and the case studies. However, Ralph will subsequently work across all work packages in connection with his Doctoral Thesis.