Sweden is developing the innovation programs of the future

The Swedish Energy Agency, Formas and Vinnova have been commissioned by the government to design and launch the strategic innovation programs of the future. A pool of forces under the name Impact Innovation will help to transform Sweden, reach more actors who want to drive development and strengthen our international ties in innovation and research.

In the autumn of 2022, the mobilization and preparation process will start, which will culminate in the programme that start in full force in 2024. The programs will be aimed at one or more overall societal challenges:

• Production, consumption and value chains within the planet's boundaries
• Good and equal health
• Attractive and well-functioning communities

Actors can actors take part in brief information about the call for proposals that opens on 1 September 2022. The call gives actors the opportunity to prepare together and describe the system change they want to achieve within the programs.

- This is a unique and crucial effort in many ways that enables actors to together formulate objective, missions, with broad societal relevance and mobilize to reach them and thus more quickly achieve greater system-changing effects beyond traditional boundaries in society. We need to gather strength for a faster green digital and electrified transition for a sustainable society, says Robert Andrén, director general at the Swedish Energy Agency.

System-changing innovation for sustainability

This autumn's call for proposals and the forthcoming preparatory projects create the conditions for actor-driven innovation programs with extensive societal relevance. Broad constellations of actors must work together in a clear direction towards common objective, which increases the focus on socially beneficial innovation that can change entire systems for sustainability.

- Not least in the last year, we have become aware that we live in a changing world where we need to be equipped for rapid unpredictable events. At the same time, we need to accelerate the transition. One of the answers to how we should address the challenges of our time and the future is to work together towards ambitious common objective, and this initiative has exactly that approach, says Darja Isaksson, director general at Vinnova.

The investment is further based on experiences and lessons learned from ongoing strategic innovation programs, which started in 2013. The work has been successful and has yielded important results.

- We have the advantage that we can bring lessons and experiences from the ongoing strategic innovation programs into the next generation. Now we are ready to use these to shift up the work, as we must address the challenges in new ways. More actors need to be involved and new perspectives need to be introduced. Sweden is ready for real transformation, says Ingrid Petersson, director general at Formas.