Urban Gråsjö is a Doctor of Economics and a senior lecturer in economics at University West. His research relates to regional development.
During 2012-2014 Urban Gråsjö is involved as a researcher in the Interreg project MARIFUS (Maritime inland - past, present and future strengths). This is a project within the EU's Regional Development Fund, KASK and aims to promote sustainable destination development through cross-border cooperation around tourism in areas characterized by water. It deals with the Limfjord and Kattegat Vendsyssel Coast in northern Denmark, and the Trollhättan Channel and Lake Vänern in Sweden.
In a current project Urban Gråsjö is examining the extent to which a region's innovative capacity is affected by the efforts in research and developments in nearby regions. The project is designed as a meta-analysis. This means that other researchers' results are compiled, compared and analyzed. The meta-analysis is performed on studies of knowledge flow between regions in different European countries.
In another current project Urban Gråsjö studies how the presence of companies linked to multinational companies affects the productivity of other companies in the same municipality or region.
Urban Gråsjö defended his thesis, Spatial Spillovers of Knowledge Production An Accessibility DrApproach, at Jönköping International Business School in 2006. In this, he showed that research carried out by companies affected local economic development. The region's exports and the number of patents both grew. However, university research did not have any appreciable local effect in terms of exports and patents. The importance of universities and university colleges lay more in the fact that they provided a highly-educated workforce.
Urban Gråsjö teaches economics at University West. He has been employed at the university since 1993.