SURE is the academic home for a number of internationally successful researchers working together in various research projects relating to contemporary social and spatial processes. Projects empirically cover challenges in urban and regional contexts throughout Sweden, Europe, Africa and beyond.

This research group investigates the relation between farming, livelihoods and the environment in the past, the present and the future. The historical geography of agricultural landscapes in Sweden has been a core specialty of the Stockholm Department of Human Geography for more the fifty years. In recent years the interest has broadened to farming landscapes globally. Field projects are carried out in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania and Ukraine.

The Population geography research group has an orientation towards residential mobility, segregation, neighbourhood studies, housing studies, and migration. Population geography is a field of studies that sees human agency as a fundamental force shaping social processes and social change. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, population geography seeks an understanding of how individual life courses are formed and how life courses influence social outcomes. Methodologically we combine qualitative methods with the analysis of longitudinal population data using GIS and other tools.

The research group investigates the multi-faceted social, economic and political processes shaping cities on the African continent. Attentive to the global forces influencing conditions and opportunities in cities, research by the group also explores the role played by highly diverse local actors.