International Affairs

IVA is a national academy with a global outlook. The Academy’s international activities are focused on a global outlook and developing influential international relations.

Digitalisation

Sweden’s competitiveness will increase if we can exploit the opportunities offered by digitalisation. The conditions are good, but we need to deal with the challenges, not least by stimulating the digital transformation of companies, strengthening cybersecurity and engaging in a nuanced discussion about digitalisation as an enabler of future welfare.

Focus Areas

IVA drives factual, science-based debate in several areas that are important for society. Below you can see what IVA has to say in these areas, in the form of reports from project activities, consultation responses, statements from the President and press releases.

Energy and Resources

Energy and resource efficiency and the circular economy are key to Swedish competitiveness and achieving the climate goals. Sustainable alternatives are needed if promises of a fossil-free energy system and a climate-smart industrial and transport sector are to be realised.

How can the Swedish mining cluster strengthen Europe's supply of metals and minerals?

Sweden is one of Europe's most important mining countries, and the Swedish mining cluster is world-leading. But what role can Sweden, together with Finland, play in securing the supply of metals and minerals in Europe? Welcome to an international seminar where leading experts from the IVA project's international reference group, with participants from the USA, Latin America, Australia, and Europe, will discuss how we can strengthen our supply chains.

Seminar with Professor Geoffrey Hinton

Mentor4Innovation

Mentor4Innovation is an annual mentoring programme offered to Wallenberg Academy Fellows as the largest private initiative for young researchers in Sweden. The purpose of Mentor4Innovation is to increase the ability of Swedish research to innovate over the long term, by giving this group of leading young researchers a hand-picked mentor.

Tekniksprånget

Tekniksprånget gives young people throughout Sweden the chance to try out the engineering profession through four months of paid work experience. The internship programme has been run by IVA since 2012, with the aim of inspiring more people to choose engineering at university level.

Roadmap for Metals and Minerals

The green transition means a sharp increase in demand for metals and minerals. Today, a few countries outside Europe control these resources. But Sweden and other countries in the EU have great potential to secure their supply, not least through rich ore deposits. The main question for IVA's project Roadmap for Metals and Minerals is how Sweden and Europe can sustainably secure the supply of metals and minerals.

Projects and programmes

IVA believes in humanity’s capacity to contribute positively to society through the engineering and economic sciences. We run a number of projects and programmes, both short and long-term, with the ambition of promoting social development through knowledge and common sense.

R2B Summit 2023

The full-day event R2B Summit 2023 took place at 7A Posthuset in Stockholm on 4 October. The R2B Summit is a unique meeting place with opportunities for researchers and the business community to find each other and exchange experiences and perspectives, with a view to creating innovations and business opportunities together. The programme is aimed at those who hold a leading position or are responsible for innovation, research and development at a company or an organisation. And at researchers on IVA’s 100 List 2023.

Cybersecurity for Increased Competitiveness

Antagonistic cyber threats impact all parts of Swedish society. The project under the heading “Cybersecurity for Increased Competitiveness” is focusing on how organisations in the private and public sectors can improve their ability to deal with cyber threats. The project is also looking at which political initiatives and decisions are necessary to strengthen cybersecurity in Sweden.

Commercial R&D investment

The project publishes an annual R&D barometer that highlights how companies view the R&D investment climate in Sweden and makes the development of investments over time visible. IVA's R&D barometer aims to improve the understanding of this development and provide a basis for proposals that can help increase Sweden's attractiveness for R&D investments.

IVA’s Entrepreneurship Academy

IVA's Entrepreneurship Academy works with exchange of experiences, knowledge acquisition and policy development to promote and strengthen entrepreneurship and stimulate more entrepreneurs in Sweden. In practice the project aims to increase knowledge about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial abilities and contribute to improving policy and regulations.

Research2Business

Through targeted activities and initiatives for knowledge transfer, new successful research collaborations are promoted. Among other things, the project has produced IVA’s 100 List during 2019–2024 and hosted the R2B Summit meeting arena.

Resource Effectiveness and the Circular Economy

This project focused on resource effectiveness and the circular economy, crucial matters for a future with greater global prosperity. A number of initiatives and projects around the country are examining how resource efficiency and circularity can be introduced in various sectors. But there is no unifying arena where industries and perspectives can meet. A platform is needed for resource efficiency and a circular society where industry, research and policy-makers can work together.

Chester Carlson Research Award

The Chester Carlson Award is managed by IVA’s Foundation for Research in Information Science and is awarded to people, institutions or organisations for innovative research or development work in the field of information science.

The Academy’s Gold Medals

For more than a century, IVA has celebrated excellence in technology, economics, business and society by awarding Gold Medals to people who, through their outstanding achievements, have helped to create a better society.

IVA's Smart Industry

Through IVA’s Smart industry project the Academy wants to stimulate digital transformation in small and medium-sized enterprises by, for example, highlighting and sharing good examples. The project originates from Smart industry – a new industrialisation strategy for Sweden (Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications 2015) and mainly operates through the Smart Industry competition.

Global Outlook: Asia #2

Technology has now globally gained a prominent place in national economic policymaking. Innovation is something to protect; access to technologies such as high-end chips is something to contest.