Project: Saving of Swedovia

Project information

Project manager
Joel Martinsson
Project members
Anders Bremer, Linnaeus University; Veronica Sundstedt, Blekinge Institute of Technology
Participating organizations
Linnaeus University; Blekinge Institute of Technology
Financier
Vetenskapsrådet, Crafoordska stiftelsen
Timetable
1 Oct 2025 – 1 Jan 2029
Subjects
Political Science, Health and Life Sciences, and Computer Science (Department of Political Science, Linnaeus University; Department of Health and Caring Sciences, Linnaeus University; Department of Computer Science, Blekinge Institute of Technology)
Research environment
the Centre of Interprofessional Collaboration within Emergency care (CICE)

More about the project

Climate change is driving a growing number of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, in which politicians, public officials, and emergency responders are confronted with difficult ethical dilemmas. Should some areas be evacuated before others? How should scarce resources be distributed fairly? How should authorities respond when residents refuse to comply with evacuation orders? Decisions of this kind are central to effective crisis management, yet we still know relatively little about how they are made in practice and how they are perceived by citizens. To address these questions, the project Saving of Swedovia develops a simulation game in which participants assume the roles of key actors in crisis management — such as firefighters, police officers, and public officials — in order to make difficult decisions during an ongoing wildfire.

As the consequences of climate change become increasingly tangible, understanding how ethical decisions are made in crisis situations becomes ever more important. When decision makers and emergency personnel must balance democratic values, professional norms, and ethical principles under conditions of time pressure and uncertainty, there is a heightened risk of moral stress and weakened crisis response. Despite this, research remains limited on how ethical dilemmas are handled in practice, what consequences different decisions have for overall crisis management, and how citizens believe professionals ought to prioritize when fundamental values come into conflict.

Saving of Swedovia addresses these challenges by combining qualitative interviews with game based research methods. Interviews with professionals working in crisis management are used to identify central ethical challenges as they emerge in real decision making contexts. These empirical insights form the basis for the development of the SOS game, which is then used to explore decision making and ethical reasoning in realistic crisis scenarios among both professionals and citizens.

The overall aim of the project is to generate new knowledge about how ethical dilemmas are handled in climate related crises and how decision making can strengthen both individual and societal resilience. The project seeks to make its findings accessible to the academic community through scholarly articles, to professionals through policy briefs and workshops, and to a broader public through the SOS game and accompanying materials.

The project is part of ongoing research at the Department of Political Science and the Centre of Interprofessional Collaboration within Emergency care (CICE), as well as at the Department of Computer Science at Blekinge Institute of Technology.