A closer look at the working groups of the Digital transformation of industry innovation partnership programme

Minister for Business, Industry and Innovation, Ibrahim Baylan, is the minister responsible, and has a special remit as coordinator of the innovation partnership programmes. In his dialogue with the partnership groups and their members, he has explained that they have a mandate to challenge accepted truths in order to jointly come up with and implement new ideas in response to societal challenges, to equip Sweden for the future and bolster our competitiveness.

“Growing digitalisation offers major opportunities to do things in a new way; this is also something that keeps coming up in all four innovation partnership programmes. In the innovation partnership programme for Digital transformation of industry, we are working together to increase the contribution of digitalisation to solutions to challenges facing society and to provide business benefits,” says Ibrahim Baylan.

Project manager of the Digital transformation of industry innovation partnership programme Emilie Anér is delighted and impressed to see the energy being put into the work in the different working groups:

“We are seeing a great deal of engagement in the five working groups in this programme; many actors are sharing their great expertise and limited time in joining forces to make a difference.”

Emilie Anér thinks that in certain cases, the groups themselves can carry out the necessary changes while sometimes the Government, with the help of agencies, can step in and take things up a gear. One example of the latter approach is the planning task assigned to Sweden’s innovation agency Vinnova, the Swedish Research Council and others which follows on from the work of the Advanced digitalisation working group. 

Some examples from the working groups

Digital skills supply

Fredrik Hörstedt, Vice President at Chalmers, heads the Digital skills supply working group with Åsa Zetterberg, Swedish IT and Telecom Industries. The group includes actors from practically every sector. With skills supply as its driving ethos, the aim of the group’s work is to propose measures to speed up the digitalisation of industry.

“The work spans a broad range of issues, which means that many different perspectives need to be incorporated to produce good measures,” says Fredrik Hörstedt.

“Some of the proposals we have produced are very hands-on. We have drawn up what we term ‘how agendas’ with concrete recommendations in four selected key areas. The focus of our work at the moment is on how we can tackle skills challenges in a way that is strategic, coordinated and innovative over time, from the top down. If we don’t have the capacity, we won’t be able to make the transition we need,” says Fredrik Hörstedt.

“The work has been successful in the sense that we can now actually move on with several of the proposals, working with other actors, and are able to influence strategies and scenarios looking ahead. I think this is incredibly stimulating and shows that the innovation partnership programmes are a unique resource that makes a difference. We also hope to help beef up the skills supply debate, which should be much more urgent.”

Fredrik Hörstedt thinks that there are very many reasons to work together across different sectors to resolve the major challenges society faces and from the EU assignments he works on, he can see that Swedes love collaboration.

“But at the same time, the way we are addressing skills supply is highly fragmented and made up of many specialised aspects. As digitalisation sweeps in and impacts on society as a whole, we are finding it difficult to re-jig the whole system.”

Data as a fuel for innovation 

Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder, head of security at the Swedish Internet Foundation is a member of the partnership group for the Digital transformation of industry, and also spokesperson for the Data as a fuel for innovation working group. The working group has independently chosen to focus its work on increasing the publication, use and dissemination of open and shared data to create and unleash great value for Sweden and wants its work to have a European and global perspective.

Since the working group was formed, it has compiled an inventory of needs, setting out what it will take for data sharing to take off in Sweden on a broad front.

“I think that open data is a crucial parameter for a well-functioning digital society. However, needs do differ so we have spent a lot of time in the working group identifying these needs, both of the business community and of the public sector. The working group has a wide range of expertise and we have kept the doors open for everyone who wants to join us and contribute,” says Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder.

“We are working especially hard on a proposal for a single arena for sharing and utilising data. This involves bringing the collaboration proposals that emerged from the working group together into one proposal. There is a major need for national coordination and soft infrastructure such as standards and classifications to unleash the power of data-driven innovation,” Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder continues. “The need for one arena is a temporary one but it will need to be in place in at least five years’ time so that agencies, municipalities and business actors can prepare early enough and so that activities can be better managed for the future.”

Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder hopes that the work of the working group will help to increase the amount of open data in Sweden:

“As things stand at the moment, we are not doing very well compared with other countries, while at the same time we have new legislation stating that data sharing must happen. I think this is an amazing opportunity to make many functions in society work more smoothly. However, simply sharing data is not enough; it must be relevant data that is useful, demanded by actors and leads to a more sustainable society.”

Advanced digitalisation – research, digitalisation and application

Lars Hultman is CEO of the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SFF), an independent research funding body which disburses about SEK 600 million to strategic research in the sciences, technology and medicine every year. Lars is also in the Advanced digitalisation – research, digitalisation and application working group, and sees a major need for collaboration to conduct the right research for the digital transformation of industry.

SFF recently issued a call for proposals amounting to SEK 200 million focusing on hardware in the field of ICT. Working jointly with the Advanced digitalisation working group, they will be announcing an equally large call for proposals in software systems for sustainable ICT, Future Software Systems.

“SFF sees joined-up and scalable digital infrastructure for data, communication and calculation as the most important pillar of Sweden’s further digitalisation. Needs that emerge from this include digital autonomy and cyber security. We need to be able to control the digital infrastructure on which we are becoming increasingly reliant. Vastly improved energy efficiency in ICT will be essential to achieve good sustainability. The needs we see are well in line with the EU’s focus on a Digital Decade and the Green Deal,” says Lars Hultman, explaining that SFF’s contribution in this scenario can be likened to “watering the roots of the ICT tree.”

By supporting prominent research groups in different parts of ICT at several different Swedish higher education institutions, SFF also is also helping to cover the growing skills needs signalled by industry and society says Lars Hultman.

In what way are partnerships important in drawing up calls for proposals?

“For SSF, fantastic research is not enough; to receive funding, the proposal must also be important for the future of Sweden. This means partnerships are important to us mainly for identifying the research areas that really are relevant. The most recent calls in ICT are therefore built on a number of in-depth interviews with leading representatives from industry and society, contact with international researchers and conferences and business intelligence in the EU, plus, last but not least, conversations in the innovation partnership programmes. The needs we see there represent our mapping, which we then use in deciding on new calls for proposals. Funnily enough, all this widely varied cooperation turns out to all point in the same direction – clear needs!”

• Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research website