To mark the start of the knowledge partnership, Bhavana Vaddadi, post doc at ITRL, took a chance to interview Maria Huge-Brodin, Professor at Linköping University.
Main focus of the interview was to find out more about the motivations behind the collaboration, shared research challenges, and ambitions for the coming years.
Bhavana: What motivated Linköping University to formalise this collaboration with ITRL?
Maria: We have very good experiences from working with ITRL researchers over many years. What makes the collaboration strong is that we have complementary competencies but overlapping interests. We often want to address the same problems, but we approach them from different perspectives.
Bhavana: Where do you see the strongest complementarity between your research and ITRL’s work?
Maria: Our research focuses mainly on organisational and managerial aspects of logistics and freight transport, while ITRL brings strong capabilities in system dynamics and modelling. Combining qualitative research with modelling makes it possible to understand both decision-making and system-level effects.
Bhavana: Which challenges are most relevant for joint work right now?
Maria: Decarbonisation has long been central for us, but resilience and efficiency in logistics are becoming increasingly important. We are interested in how logistics systems can remain robust without losing efficiency, and that aligns very well with ITRL’s focus areas.
Bhavana: Looking ahead, what would you like this partnership to lead to?
Maria: I would like to see a number of joint projects where researchers from both sides work closely together, including developing proposals jointly. That kind of collaboration makes the research both stronger and more rewarding.
