Rebecca Eriksson Joins UW as Researcher
We’re excited to welcome Rebecca Eriksson to our team as a researcher for the coming year! Rebecca is a second year master's student at UW in the Coastal Communities and Regional Development master's program. At UW, we’re committed to involving our students in meaningful research—and in recent years, we’ve seen a growing number of our master’s students become involved in both national and international research projects.
Rebecca is one of them. She wrote her master’s thesis as part of the international research project "Local Knowledge in Marine Spatial Planning, Green Transition, and Digital Transformation" led by Nordregio, with the University of the Highlands and Islands and UW as partners. The project explores how local and Indigenous knowledge can be meaningfully integrated into marine spatial planning (MSP), especially in the context of increasing digitalization and the green transition.
In her thesis, Rebecca investigated how digital tools and artificial intelligence (AI) influence the inclusion of Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) in Nordic MSP processes. Her research highlighted the opportunities and challenges of this shift toward data-driven planning: while digital tools can enhance participation, they can also reinforce existing power imbalances by sidelining knowledge that doesn't easily fit into standardized formats. Her work involved a systematic literature review, expert interviews, and a transdisciplinary workshop with stakeholders from across the Nordic region.
Rebecca has already contributed to the project as a research assistant over the past year. Most notably, she organized and facilitated a transdisciplinary session on local knowledge and digitalization during an international workshop in Scotland.
With her thesis defense just around the corner, Rebecca is making the leap from student to researcher. She’ll continue working with Matthias Kokorsch and colleagues from Nordregio and the University of the Highlands and Islands. Please join us in giving Rebecca a warm welcome—we’re so happy to have you as part of the UW family! We hope to see more opportunities and funding in the future that allow our students to continue their research journeys here at UW.