Sara Harper
Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Textiles, Engineering and Business (including The Swedish School of Textiles)
— Department of Business Administration and Textile Management
I am currently working as Senior Lecturer in Textile Management, which includes research work within the project "Resilient supply chains for local textile and clothing production in small series". Previously, I was working as a doctoral student from December 2017 and then as a Researcher. The aim of my research has been to develop knowledge relevant to the textile and apparel practitioners; specifically, regarding the complexities and challenges of implementing small-series production models in high-cost contexts. My work focuses on addressing these difficulties using the perspective of supply network configuration, to understand the interactions among product, process and supply chain decisions. This work was done primarily within the scope of the Horizon 2020 research project “Fashion Big Data Business Model”, Grant No.761122, from December 2017 through February 2021. I defended my Doctoral thesis entitled “Supply network configuration for small-series apparel production in high-cost contexts: Opportunities and challenges from selected EU countries” in September 2022, and my Licentiate thesis entitled “Supply network configuration for small-series, high-cost production: Exploring the European textile and apparel industry context” in June 2020.
Before working as a doctoral student, I received a Master’s degree in Textile Value Chain Management from the University of Borås. During this time, I focused on the topic of competitive local textile manufacturing, and I worked within the Sparbanksstiftelsen Sjuhärad funded project of the same name. I have also done some work within other projects, including Digimode and Education4Fashion-Tech. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Textile and Apparel Design from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, in the USA. My research interests include digitalization in the textile industry, opportunities for customization and sustainability improvements in the industry, and strengthening European textile and apparel manufacturing competence.
