Elias Isaksson
ResearcherPresentation
Elias Isaksson’s current research concerns how alternative economic models (such as degrowth, post-growth, and doughnut economics) can be applied in local planning contexts, with a special focus on transport. The research is interdisciplinary and, in addition to political science, includes ecological economics, sociology, and human geography.
Elias also has a longstanding interest in what shapes environmental and transport policy, primarily questions of power and language in relation to overarching ideas about sustainability, mobility, and growth. He received his PhD from Lund University with the thesis “Between Growth and Sustainability: The Construction of Sustainable Mobility in Swedish Transport Policy” (2023).
Elias is a researcher at the Department of Political Science at Umeå University and since January 2026, he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Transportation Research Unit at Umeå University (TRUM).
Transportation Research Unit – umu.se
Project
“Sustainable Urban Transformation Beyond Growth? Possibilities and Challenges in Employing Alternative Economic Models in Local Planning” (funded by Formas).
Previous project
“What kind of transport-efficient society do we want to achieve? Visions, definitions, decisions, and measures”, together with LU, MU, K2, and Trivector (financed by The Swedish Energy Agency).