Innovation

High-level international meetings, education projects for Indian school children, women’s education and skills supply – these are part of the programme for Minister for Upper Secondary School and Adult Education and Training Anna Ekström when she visits India on 1–3 November.

For the first time, the National Innovation Council is hosting a regional meeting, to take place in Trollhättan on 25 October. Below, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven tells us more about the Council’s work and the importance of developing innovation policy that benefits all of Sweden. The Council is also hosting an open seminar to discuss the Government’s policy with those most closely affected by it.

The Swedish government wants to increase exports of health and medical care, social services, pharmaceuticals, biomedicine and medical technology. These areas are already an important component of Swedish exports, but their share can be increased. Swedish social services and health and medical care produce world-class medical results. To make use of the available opportunities and potential, a new, active working group will be established under the Team Sweden concept, called ‘Team Sweden Care and Health’.

The collaborations, initiatives and projects that have resulted so far from the five innovation partnership programmes were presented when the National Innovation Council met on Monday 28 August. Together, the project managers and the Council looked to the future and discussed critical success factors, goals and opportunities for developing these partnerships. The experiences of partnership working, where the business sector, academia and organisations work together strategically, were highlighted and discussed by the Council.

Innovation and globalisation – two areas that go hand in hand for Sweden’s continued national growth and development. Since Prime Minister Stefan Löfven established the National Innovation Council in February 2015, several initiatives have been taken aimed at promoting Sweden’s exchanges with leading innovation communities. There is greater focus today on the link between innovation and globalisation, and this was discussed at the National Innovation Council’s meeting on 28 August.

On 31 July, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven will travel to Paris for meetings with President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. The agenda for talks includes Swedish-French cooperation, the future of the EU, migration and security, and jobs and growth. Minister for Enterprise and Innovation Mikael Damberg will also travel to Paris, as one important issue to be discussed is innovation cooperation and the business sector.

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven will be in China on 26–28 June. He will be joined on the trip by several ministers and a business delegation with a focus on green innovation and sustainability. Mr Löfven will also have talks with China’s Premier Li Keqiang and speak at the World Economic Forum.

Open data for new solutions. This was one of the items on the agenda of the National Innovation Council meeting on 15 May. Ms Barbara Ubaldi, project manager at the OECD, where she leads the work on digital government and open data, was invited to the meeting to inform about open data initiatives in other countries. The Government has asked the OECD to review and deliver proposals on how Sweden can accelerate the use of data in the public sector.

Sweden is innovative, vibrant and globally competitive. According to the OECD and the World Economic Forum, Sweden ranks at the top end of the scale in many rankings. This includes economic development, subjective wellbeing and social connections, environmental quality, health status and health care, gender equality, personal safety, education and skills.

On 21–25 May, Minister for Higher Education and Research Helene Hellmark Knutsson will travel to California, USA, to visit world-leading actors in research and industry in the field of space. The aim is to learn about the latest developments in the space sector and collect knowledge for the Government’s work to produce a Swedish space strategy. During her trip, Ms Hellmark Knutsson will also visit NASA’s Ames Research Centre and the Mojave Air and Space Port.