John Brauer

About John Brauer

About John

John Brauer is assistant head of the unit of Social Work. He is a qualified social worker who successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in social work, June 2022. The thesis concerned labour market policies, focusing on local governments’ efforts to increase employment rates among social assistance claimants.

Research

John Brauer´s research can be divided into two over-arching strands. The first concerns employment and labour market policies. Since March 2023, John Brauer is principal investigator for an evaluation of an ESF-funded programme delivered in collaboration with civil society organisations and psychosis care. In 2024 he becomes principal investigator of two additional projects. The first is done together with Katarina Hollertz (University of Gothenburg) and Lisa Wallander (University of Lund). It concerns work-capacity assessments and is funded by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte). The second project concerns collaboration between municipalities, the Public Employment Services and the Swedish Prison and Probation Service to enhance labour market (re-)integration of people who served time in prison. It is funded through a personal scholarship by the Åke Wiberg foundation.

During 2023, John Brauer is finalising a special issue on welfare-to-work in Nordic Social Work Research together with Tanja Dall (Aalborg University) and Rik van Berkel (Utrecht University).

The second strand concerns the changing role of Swedish public libraries caused by a pressured welfare state. Within this strand, John Brauer investigate collaboration between public libraries and other public as well as non-public organisations when facing visitors in severe social depravation, together with Sofia Lindström Sol, University of Borås. In 2024, John Brauer will be principal investigator of a project funded by Allmänna Barnhuset where these issues will be studied through a national survey.

Teaching

John Brauer teaches at the social worker-program at Örebro University. Currently, the bulk of his teaching is within the course "Professional Role and Discretion Informed by a Scientific Approach" where he is head of course.

Collaboration and assignments

In terms of internal research groups, John Brauer is a contact person for Profession and Organization in Social Work, a member of Social work and care in a life-course as well as the research environment OPaL. Concerning external research groups, John Brauer is currently coordinating a regional research environment that gathers social work scholars researching unemployment, social assistance, and debts. He is also a member of the Swedish network on collaboration research.

John Brauer engages in issues of social innovations by representing Örebro University in a regional partnership that gathers regional and municipal representatives as well as civil society organisations. He is also member of the scientific advisory board for a national centre on social innovations funded by the ESF.