Universities and Regional Green Transitions: Complexity, Contestation and One Way Forward

Abstract

As the HEREGREEN project drew to a close in 2025, it did so at a moment when the policy environment that framed much of the project’s early work has shifted in ways few of us anticipated. The project unfolded through workshops held in Kristiansand (June 2023), Tampere (April 2024) and Linköping (March 2025). At the workshops in Kristiansand and Tampere, the sense of directional momentum in favour of green transitions—even if gradual, contested or uneven—seemed broadly stable. The political centre appeared to be holding: in the Nordics, in Brussels, and across much of Europe.