Anders Wästfelt to become the new Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities

He will take up his post on 1 January 2027, succeeding Torun Lindholm Öjmyr, Professor of Social Psychology at Stockholm University, who is the current Permanent Secretary. Wästfelt has been an active member of the Academy since 2022 and has served on the Administrative Committee since 2025.

Commenting on his new role, Wästfelt says:

“It is an honour and an interesting challenge to be involved in further developing the Academy’s activities. I am particularly looking forward to working with members and staff to strengthen research in the humanities and social sciences. I also wish to develop the Academy’s properties so that they become interesting research centres and visitor destinations.”

Anders Wästfelt was born in 1965 and has been a professor at the Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, since 2020. His research focuses on historical geography, at the intersection of cultural heritage conservation, landscape studies and agricultural geography. He studies how local and global processes leave their mark on the landscape and links historical perspectives to contemporary issues concerning food production and the environment. He also examines the values that guide the heritage priorities of landscape conservation, and how these relate to the historical processes that have shaped the landscapes we wish to preserve today.

His research is interdisciplinary, bringing together the humanities, social sciences and information technology. It spans agricultural history, cartography, geographical information systems and satellite image analysis, as well as the future of agriculture and its global integration.

Wästfelt previously conducted research at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (2009–2015) and was a visiting researcher in Waterloo, Canada (2023–2024). He is currently comparing urban agriculture in Stockholm, Tallinn, Lisbon and Montreal. He is also examining the vulnerability of Swedish agriculture during the First and Second World Wars and in the context of today’s climate crisis.