IVA's President: some thoughts on Swedish Futures

Dear IVA Friends, 

Next week, I will celebrate one year as president of IVA—the world's first academy of engineering sciences. During the 12 months since I took office, I have met with many of Sweden's most important players: the business community, academia, government agencies, organizations and think tanks, labor market partners, and politicians. Sweden is rich in committed representatives, and the desire to contribute to a strong Sweden in the future cannot be overestimated.  

In virtually every context, I hear the same questions: How can we secure our future prosperity in the face of global competition? How can Sweden defend its position as one of the world's most innovative and technologically advanced countries? In short: Where is the vision for Sweden?  

I believe Sweden needs a well-established, comprehensive, and shared vision for the future. That is why IVA is launching “Swedish Futures” (“Svenska framtider”), a project that aims to develop an overarching vision for Sweden as a world-leading technology and innovation country by 2035. The purpose of the project is to answer: Where are we today? Where are we headed? And most importantly: Where do we want to go? 

For the project, IVA has established partnerships with all sectors of society, and I am very pleased in the tremendous interest in contributing to the effort—from businesses, universities, labor market partners, government agencies, researchers, and many others.  

We will soon present a fundamental analysis of Sweden's position in strategically important technologies. The analysis was produced for IVA by CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies) and is a further development of the data analysis that was the basis for the Draghi report on the EU's technological competitiveness. Covering 48 strategic technology areas, it addresses Sweden's strengths and weaknesses from a global perspective and answers questions about how developments have progressed over time, which Swedish regions are strongest, and which collaborations within the EU should be prioritized in order to strengthen Sweden's position.  

This analysis is the first of its kind among EU member states and will form the basis for a number of reports and recommendations that IVA will present in the near future.  

We welcome you to attend the presentation of the report on September 29 at IVA or online. 

I would also like to highlight the second issue in the series “Global Outlook: Asia,” which provides quarterly thematic status reports on Asia. This issue focuses on how economies in Asia (China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan) are planning for technological investments and international scientific collaborations in the long term. We in Europe can learn a lot from this.