Maria Udén
Professor
Research subject: Design
Division: Humans and Technology
Department of Social Sciences, Technology and Arts
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Luleå, A3518
About me
Maria Udén is a Professor in Gender and Technology and works at the unit for Industrial design. She graduated in 1988 with a MSc in Mineral Processing and Metallurgy. Her interdisciplinary doctoral thesis "Women technically speaking" was defended at Luleå University of Technology, the Department of Human Work Science, in 2000.
June 2018 - May 2020, Maria is one of four researchers in Gender Smart Arena, a collaboration with a group of companies and municipalities in Norrbotten and Västerbotten Counties on business model development. Gender Smart Arena clarifies how one both in thought and action can move from an existing business model to a gender-conscious model.
A new project 2020 is “Resource pool for entrepreneurship in the reindeer industry with associated industries: Quality in slaughter and cutting” or “Reindeer Resource” (Swedish: RenResurs).
Combining feminist knowledge and engineering science
The long-term work I started as a PhD student aims at, and explores the possibilites for, combining feminist thinking and engineering science. Some of my texts elaborating this topic are provided below.
Reindeer Resource
Resource pool for entrepreneurship in the reindeer industry with associated indsutries: Quality in slaughter and cutting runs from April 2020 to September 2022 and is financed by the EU Interreg Nord, the parties themselves and, Region Norrbotten provides the Swedish national co-financing .
Personnel supply is a bottleneck in reindeer slaughter and cutting, which in turn affects the development potential in local processing of food products, arts and crafts, catering, and more. There is a need for renewal and new business models. Innovative training for entrepreneurs and their staff has been identified as one of the prerequisites. The idea of a staff resource pool was created in a previous project. This project will produce a course package for reindeer slaughter and cutting, for folks who want to qualify for joining a high-quality resource pool.
Sápmi Innovation AB and Lapin ammattikorkeakoulu Oy and Luleå University of Technology (coordinator) are participating in the project. The project leader is Maria Udén and the Chair of the steering group is Jörgen Normark.
The project is actively working to increase the proportion of small and medium-sized companies with cross-border business models in Sápmi.
Sámi Network Connectivity (SNC), SAGA and CroCoPil
Sámi Network Connectivity, 2004-2006 and the follow-up SNC+1 were financed from Vinnova's program Future Communication Networks. SNC developed from a co-operation between an affirmative action for women in reindeer husbandry and the LTU Gender and Technology unit.The technical concept was originally developed by Avri Doria, Anders Lindgren and Elwyn Davies, based on the DTN standard published by Vint Cerf et al in 2002. The first DTN field tests with the reindeer husbandry community were carried out in 2006. The idea was furthered developed in N4C.
SAGA – Sámi Network Connectivity Gender Allocation, 2005-2007 was co-financed by EU Structural Fund Objective 1. The goal was to secure an active gender profile in SNC. In practice - as SNC was a high-tech project, this meant paying attention to women's participation.
CroCoPil: Cross-border Co operation Pilot Networks was about border regions' cooperation on the topic of Mobile Internet in sparsely populated areas. It was run 2005-2007 and was financed by EU Interreg Nordkalotten. The aim was to exchange experiences through co-ordinated pilot tests, and to develop IT-based product concepts tailored to the needs and conditions in the Arctic. Maria Udén participated in the project development and the project leader was Annika Sällström, CDT.
Research related to the women's movement
Women and natural resources in the Arctic - During the first half of the 00's I was involved in two initiatives run by the Kvinneuniversitet Nord (Women's University North) in Steigen, Norway:
- Women's participation in decision-making processes in Arctic fisheries resource
- Women and natural resource management in the rural North
For the first part, the fisheries project I got Swedish funding and made a study of the coastal fisheries in Norrbotten. In the second part, I was involved mostly as a reference person. The two initiatives were integrated in the agenda of the Arctic Council's Sustainable Development Working Group.
Lyftet - The project Lyftet, a collaboration with Mälardalen University, was about innovation. It was based on experiences from women's businesses, networks, resource centers, associations, cooperatives and village development groups - in Norrbotten, Västerbotten, Västmanland and Södermanland.
New opportunities for women in reindeer husbandry (NMKR) was a collaboration with an affirmative action for women in Sirges Sami village (grazing community) in Norrbotten. The idea was to follow the local project's activities as independent researcher, and support with questions, analysis, documentation and ideas. One result of NMKR was that some of the women in Sirges got engaged in developing the technology projects SNC and N4C.
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