Håkan Johansson took his PhD in social work (Lund University, 2001) and has a background from sociology and the department of Sociology, Uppsala University. He became Associate Professor in 2007 (Växjö University) and serves since 2012 as a Professor in Social Work, School of Social Work, Lund University.

His research interests cover topics such as civil society and elites as well as comparative social policy, poverty, activation and Nordic and European social policy.

He previoulsy has profiled in research on civil society and has led several external funded projects related to civil society in Swedish, political strategies among domestic CSOs, yet also in a European perspective. He currently acts as a PI of several projects on civil society elites in a comparative and historical perspective, funded by major Swedish research councils. 

He also runs projects on sustainability and sustainable welfare and the possibilities of present societies to transform environmental and social policies for future challenges regarding climate change.

He has worked at several Swedish Universities (Uppsala, Linköping, Lund, Malmö and Växjö). He did a post doc at Bath University (2002) and has also worked at the Norwegian Social research (NOVA). He serves as several departmental boards and is a frequent participant in international conferences such as ECPR, ISTR, ESA, ISA, to mentioned a few.

He currently supervises six PhD Candidates working on topics related to migration, unemployment protection, social work practice, institutional theory and the history of local social policy. He serves in the Faculty research committee and is a member of the departmental board.