Mission 

VINNOVA (The Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems) was set up 2001 up to foster stronger innovation systems that will contribute to sustainable long term growth of the Swedish economy.   Our tasks are to fund the needs-driven research required by a competitive business and industrial sector, particularly innovations linked to research, as well as to to strengthen the networks that are a necessary part of this work.

The Government has assigned VINNOVA to

...make Sweden a leading research nation in which research of high scientific quality is conducted.

...promote sustainable growth and increased employment by acting to increase competitiveness and the emergence and expansion of successful companies.

… support research and development work of the highest quality in areas such as engineering, transport, communications and working life in order to promote renewal and sustainable growth.

… stimulate Swedish participation in European and international R&D collaboration and in the exchange of experience in the field of innovation.

Budget

Since 2001 the yearly budget has grown from 100M€ to 190M€ which is 6% of the total governmental investments in R&D. Most of the support is co financed by other partners and VINNOVA estimates that this mode of operating doubles the activities.

VINNOVA’s vision is that:

Staff

VINNOVAs ataff has grown from originally 145 to 200 employees right now

Main activities

In terms of technology and sectors VINNOVA runs activities in the following fields: Information and Communications Technology, Services and IT Implementation, Biotechnology; Working Life, Product Realisation and Materials and Transportation. Most of the activities are based on programmes and we also very much collaborates with other national R&D financers

Figure 1. Technological fields of VINNOVAs investments

Programmes financed by VINNOVA also spans across sectors and disciplines in Thematic areas that involves people from different parts of VINNOVAs organisation such as Security and The Elderly.

Figure 2. Objects for VINNOVAs investments

 For small and internationally dependent countries like Sweden, the need to focus its efforts on a number of strong, internationally distinguished Research and Innovation milieus is a critical factor in the effort to promote growth. With a long term perspective and co-financing with groups of industries and other actors, VINNOVA has a focus on creating a number of globally-recognised spearheads so that Sweden can become an attractive partner for both companies and R&D investments

Small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) play a decisive role in promoting national competitiveness and employment. By investing in R&D programmes that focus on SMEs, VINNOVA aims to help these companies increase the knowledge content of their products and processes and thus increase their competitiveness.

VINNOVA's activities with regard to the commercialisation of R&D results are conducted in collaboration with other players in order to achieve the greatest possible impact for the entire system. VINNOVA focuses its efforts on the closely research-related phases of the innovation and commercialisation process.

VINNOVA regards international competitiveness and international co-operation as integral parts of its objectives and strategies. VINNOVA is also the focal point in Sweden for  EU’s framework programme, EUREKA and COST, participates in the multinational activities like JETIs, §169 and ERA-NETs and runs bilateral programmes for R&D- collaboration with countries outside Europe e.g. Japan, China and India.

Contact:
Staffan Håkansson.
www.vinnova.se
VINNOVA
SE-101 58 Stockholm