Annika Göran-Rodell

About Annika Göran-Rodell

Annika Göran Rodell - Academic Entrepreneur is a lecturer in Culinary Arts and Meal Science.

Annika's interdisciplinary background with studies in Hospitality, Culinary Arts and Meal Science, Expressive Arts, Pedagogy and Sustainable Leadership contributes to a broad research interest with several specializations, often with aesthetics as a starting point. Annika is part of the education group at the ORU Platform for a Sustainable Future (PSF), which develops new courses together with the Center for Higher Education Pedagogy.

Annika's research interest can be said to be at the intersection of sustainability, aesthetics, leadership and pedagogy. Annika was appointed Excellent teacher at Örebro University in 2012 and received the students' pedagogical prize in 2020.

Teaching and collaboration

Annika likes to work with complex issues and in the course Development of meal experiences 15 HP for year 3, the meal maker is challenged as a gastronomic change agent.

In close collaboration with chef Paul Svensson, who is also an honorary doctor at ORU, Annika has, in an iterative process over several years, developed a new training method designed as a design process. The first course prototype was called: What does Grythyttan taste like in 2030? What does a place taste like and how can students understand the whole food chain and their place in it? The student learns how to gain a horizontally broadened understanding of a place and at the same time vertically anchor their sustainable dining experience in the place. Different themes for the course over the years have been: What can a self-sufficient municipality taste like in the future?  What do purpose-driven meals taste like? What does uniqueness and storytelling taste like in a place? The course can be seen as an action research project from which new research collaborations have emerged that have generated research funding from SLU and Vinnova, among others.

Annika is also responsible for the basic course in aesthetic methods in grade 1 where she has worked for 15 years with method development in applied aesthetics in Culinary Arts and Meal Science. She also teaches performative presentation, presence training and sustainable leadership.

Other assignments

2020 - Member of the Committee on Education at undergraduate and graduate level.

2013-2015 Annika worked, alongside her work at RHS, as a pedagogical developer at PIL (Unit for University Pedagogy, ICT and Learning) and currently holds a pedagogical development assignment at RHS.

2016 -2022 Annika has been one of three course leaders on Konstfack's international master's course Back to the land - reconnecting Urban and Rural Through Food Systems together with John Thackara and Cheryl Akner Koler where Annika has been responsible for the educational process with a focus on social co-creation based on Theory U (Sharmer, 2007; Scharmer & Kaufer, 2013; Scharmer, 2018) and meal rituals.