Academic Insight Seminar: From strategy to preparedness
How do Swedish municipalities turn preparedness ambitions into action? Drawing on an ongoing national study of all 290 municipalities, this Academic Insight Seminar explores how preparedness is embedded in strategy, organization, implementation, and follow-up. Please note that breakfast will be served from 7:30 AM.
The Center for Security and Resilience (CfSR) invites you to an Academic Insight Seminar with Timur Uman, Professor of Accounting and Control at CfSR, on the theme “From strategy to preparedness: How Swedish municipalities translate ambition into action.”
Swedish municipalities face growing demands to strengthen preparedness. But preparedness also needs to find a place within ordinary systems of strategy, budgeting, implementation, and accountability.
The seminar presents findings from an ongoing national study covering all 290 Swedish municipalities. By comparing municipalities’ overarching strategic documents with their 2025 annual reports, the researchers examine how preparedness is framed in strategic planning and how it subsequently becomes visible in reported resources, actions, risk management, organization, and continuity planning.
Different paths from ambition to action
The study reveals distinct patterns across Swedish municipalities. In some, preparedness is integrated across both strategy and reported implementation. In others, substantial operational activity exists with little strategic articulation, while some municipalities formulate clear ambitions that are only weakly visible in subsequent reporting.
The seminar will use these national patterns to address practical questions for municipal governance: Where does preparedness sit within the ordinary management system? How can municipalities identify gaps between strategic ambition and operational work? Which dimensions of preparedness risk falling between organizational or policy areas?
The discussion will also explore what municipalities can learn from different approaches without assuming that there is a single model that fits all.
Participants will gain a national point of comparison and a framework for reflecting on how preparedness is embedded in their own municipality’s strategy, organization, implementation, and follow-up.
Speaker
Timur Uman
Professor of Accounting and Control, Center for Security and Resilience, Stockholm School of Economics
Moderator
Staffan Holmberg
Executive Director, Center for Security and Resilience, Stockholm School of Economics