IVA’s Great Gold Medal 2026: Staffan Truvé
Staffan Truvé has been awarded IVA's Great Gold Medal 2026 for his ability to turn research into application. As an entrepreneur, technology leader and bridge-builder between academia and industry, he has left his mark on technological development both in Sweden and internationally.
Staffan Truvé was born in 1963 in Lerum. He holds a Master of Science in Engineering and a PhD from Chalmers University of Technology, and later took a degree in business administration at the University of Gothenburg. During his doctoral studies he combined academic research with entrepreneurship and spent a period as a Fulbright Scholar at MIT. In the 1990s he co-founded several research-based technology companies, among them Spotfire, which developed new methods for information visualisation and the analysis of large data sets. Spotfire went on to become an international success. Alongside this work, and subsequently, he held senior positions in Swedish industry-oriented research, including at Swedish ICT Research.
In 2009, together with Christopher Ahlberg, Truvé founded Recorded Future with the aim of using artificial intelligence and large-scale data analysis to structure and interpret information from open sources.
As Chief Technology Officer at Recorded Future, he has helped establish methods for applying AI to the analysis and assessment of threat intelligence and other intelligence information, at a time when the technology was not yet established in the field. The result is a company with global reach and clear significance for the public and private sectors alike. The essential point, however, is not the company itself, but that it demonstrates how research-based technology can be scaled up into practical use that is viable internationally.
Truvé has worked for many years at the interface between academia and industry, not only taking advanced research forward into application but also engaging industry in collaboration with academia. Not least, this is a matter of creating stable structures that allow information and experience to be exchanged over time. One example is his contribution, as Chief Executive of SICS and the Interactive Institute, to strengthening the links between research, industry and society. Through his work with AI Sweden he has also helped establish a national structure for applied artificial intelligence. Within the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, Truvé has contributed in much the same way to developing the interplay between research, business and society, most recently in IVA's report on AI-driven cyber threats.
In summary, Staffan Truvé's achievement lies in taking ideas from research and putting them to practical use, time and time again. This is what gives his work its significance for innovation, competitiveness and societal security.
"It is remarkable to have the opportunity to help develop genuinely exciting, ground-breaking technology and at the same time put that technology to real use. That combination in particular matters to me."
Staffan Truvé
Citation for IVA's Great Gold Medal
Dr Staffan Truvé is awarded IVA's Great Gold Medal for exceptionally distinguished contributions to taking advanced digital technology and artificial intelligence from research to applications of relevance to society. Through ground-breaking entrepreneurship and determined, long-term technical leadership, he has established AI-based analysis for societal and security purposes in internationally successful companies, and has built strong bridges between academia, industry and society.
