Pedestrian Expertise in Historical Perspective: The Science-Policy Nexus around Walking in Sweden and the UK
This project critically examines the historical interplay between walking-related research and policy in Sweden and the UK, shedding light on how scientific knowledge has shaped - and been shaped by - urban transport planning since the 1950s.
Project name: Pedestrian Expertise in Historical Perspective: The Science-Policy Nexus around Walking in Sweden and the UK
Project leader: Martin Emanuel
Participating Project Partners: Uppsala University, Lancaster University
Project period: 2025
Funding: Volvo Research and Educational Foundations (VREF)
Improved conditions to walk are currently high on policy and urban planning agendas, at least in the Global North. This is reflected in a growing and increasingly diversified scholarship that seeks to steer policy making towards more and safer walking. Yet the extent to which new knowledge about walking translates into policy and practice is unclear. This project situates what we here refer to as the science-policy nexus around walking in historical perspective. Based on inventories of research projects and stakeholders in policy making around walking in Sweden and the UK since the 1950s, as well as a few pointed in-depth studies of research groups and policy stakeholders, the project seeks to uncover national research trajectories on walking and provide a first assessment of their co-production with urban transport policy, planning, and design. Hence, it takes a critical view of policy making around walking and its scientific underpinnings, and how they frame walking. The rationale of the project is that an understanding of how walking-oriented research, policy, and planning practice developed is important for identifying desirable future pathways.
This historical approach will outline emergent trajectories that might today appear as suitable to continue pursuing, or, alternatively, abandoning. In this way, the project seeks to nuance the debate regarding how walking is understood, framed and valued, and in that respect, specifically the role of scientific enterprise and its relationship to policy. Meanwhile, the combination of inventories and a selection of in-depth studies provides a basis for the later development of an efficient research strategy with a wider geographical scope, including also the transnational circulation of knowledge around walking.