First formed in the autumn of 2008, CSSA is a research group focusing on civil society from the social work perspective, lead by professors Anna Meeuwisse and Håkan Johansson. The group builds on a tradition at Lund University's School of Social Work to conduct research on voluntary social work. One overall area of interest is the study of changing conditions of welfare systems and organisation and how NGOs are affected by and involved in shaping the development of the welfare state. The group includes researchers associated with the School of Social Work, as well as PhD students and researchers from other universities.

Research themes:
The affiliated researchers work with a variety of research projects that relate to the voluntary sector / NGOs for development at local, national and international level. Primarily, NGOs are analysed in light of a changing welfare state and what consequences this has for organisations, such as how the welfare state reforms affects organisations' roles as the advocates and service providers.

Several research projects also have an international focus and study, for example, sharing ideas and organisational models between countries and comparing the voluntary sectorss structure and organisation of the different types of welfare states. A central theme is how an increased supranationalisation affect the voluntary organisations on a national level. This means, for example, various EU initiatives with the objective of influencing the member states' social policy, a new political opportunity structure for NGOs representing disadvantaged groups?