IVAs President - Some thoughts on Surviving Chaos

2026 Hans Werthén Scholars

Eight young researchers and students resident in Sweden have been awarded this year's scholarships from the Hans Werthén Fund for study and research abroad. The scholarships are awarded with the aim of giving young academics the opportunity to develop in other countries and to return with new knowledge and experience that can benefit Sweden.

IVA's President: Some thoughts on Strategic Indispensability

What constitutes the EU's strategic capital and how can we leverage this in our new world? You don't have to be the biggest and strongest in the world to be influential or strategically relevant. It is enough to be strategic and smart.

Report: Advanced manufacturing

Every lorry that rolls out of Gothenburg. Every fighter aircraft that takes off from Linköping. Every industrial robot assembled in Västerås. Advanced manufacturing is today one of Sweden’s most important assets – a world-class sector that employs hundreds of thousands of people and accounts for a significant share of Sweden’s export revenues. But international competition is intensifying. A new report from Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences shows what Sweden needs to do to maintain its lead in an increasingly competitive world.

What Sweden Can Learn from Ukraine’s Drone Industry

Sweden needs to reform its public procurement regulations and innovation system to better foster innovation and address future crises, according to a new study produced on behalf of IVA. The review examines how Ukraine has rapidly developed a dynamic drone industry in the midst of ongoing war.

Global Outlook: Asia #4

In subverting the choice between accommodating the global AI industry and building AI independence, South Korea offers examples of creative possibilities in technology policy.

IVA's President: Some thoughts on Lifelong Learning

The need for continuous upskilling and reskilling of professionals – not least engineers – is growing rapidly, driven by technological transformation as well as major societal challenges such as climate change and a deteriorating security environment.

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.

IVA's President: Some thoughts on the times we’re in

It is never easy to analyze the present or to put events into context and perspective. But New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman recently proffered the idea that we are now living in the “Polycene” era – a time in which the world can no longer be understood in binary terms, but is shaped by many closely interlinked forces.

IVA's President: Some thoughts on Uncertainty

The World Uncertainty Index (WUI) has remained steady at an average of 30,000 over the past 17 years, with a temporary peak of 50,000 during the pandemic years. The latest index from October shows the remarkable figure of 122,000. The responsibility to take ownership of our own future is particularly important in times of great uncertainty.

IVA’s Gold Medal 2025: Daniel Stenberg

From Huddinge to the Moon. Through his work with open-source software, Daniel Stenberg has built a technological foundation that quite literally reaches into space. With curl, he has created a tool that has become an indispensable part of digital communication – not only on Earth, but also between our planet and other celestial bodies.

IVA's 106th Annual Meeting Festivities

Many thanks to all fellows and friends of IVA who contributed to the festivities during this year's Annual Meeting - an evening to celebrate the art of engineering sciences!

“Lessons of history are almost completely useless!”

Joel Mokyr received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in Stockholm on Wednesday – but visited IVA beforehand. Watch the film where Joel Mokyr and IVA’s President Sylvia Schwaag Serger, both professors of economic history, meet for a conversation about technology and growth.

Open AI research the only way forward

Recently, the US non-profit Future of Life Institute called on all ‘AI labs’ around the world to take a six-month break in the development of advanced AI technology. How good an idea is it to pause the development of AI, and what should this break involve? We asked IVA Fellow Sara Mazur.

Challenges of extracting rare earth elements

Just after New Year, LKAB announced that it has made the largest rare earth discovery in Europe to date. The elements are vital for building batteries, wind turbines and other technology that can enable a rapid transition to a fossil-free society. However, extracting the in-demand elements comes with some major challenges that need to be resolved, according to Jenny Greberg, Vice President Technology at LKAB and a Fellow of IVA.

IVA’s Great Gold Medal 2022: Lars Samuelson – a Swedish nano pioneer

IVA’s Great Gold Medal is awarded to Lars Samuelson – the pioneer who has made a name for himself as one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

IVA’s Gold Medal 2022: Peter Carlsson – the visionary who dared to invest

Peter Carlsson is the visionary who dared to invest in something that most people thought was impossible. Despite years of warnings and setbacks, he has managed the feat of building a giga factory for the manufacture of green batteries in the forest outside Skellefteå.

New launch site makes Sweden a major space nation

Europe’s first satellite launch site has now been inaugurated – and it is Swedish. Just in time for Sweden’s presidency of the EU, Friday 13 January saw the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new launch site at Spaceport Esrange outside Kiruna. As the first of its kind in Europe, this marks a major step towards making Sweden a more significant space nation globally, says Anna Rathsman, Director-General of the Swedish National Space Agency and Fellow of IVA.

IVA’s Gold Medal 2022: Peter Löthberg – the online rebel who connected the world

Peter Löthberg is a technology entrepreneur who, back in the mid 1980s, set out on a mission ‘to network the planet’. As an unstoppable force, he played a key role in the early emergence of the internet for many years, not least in the process of making Sweden one of the first countries in the world to become widely connected.

Insufficient EU support for Ukraine

One year on from Russia’s invasion, Ukraine is a country in need of huge support from the outside world, and not just in military form. It is already estimated that the costs of rebuilding the country will be many times higher than the value of the entire Ukrainian economy. And the help that the EU is currently providing is far from sufficient. So says Torbjörn Becker, Director of the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE) at the Stockholm School of Economics, and Fellow of IVA.