Anne L'Huillier, Gerteric Lindquist, Bo Normark and Xiaodong Zou are awarded IVA's Gold Medals 2024

The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) awards this year's gold medals to Anne L'Huillier, Gerteric Lindquist, Bo Normark and Xiaodong Zou. They receive the award for their outstanding contributions to technology, economics, business and society. IVA's Gold Medal has been awarded since 1921.

She is set to transform the world’s oldest academy of engineering sciences

Today, Newspaper Dagens Industri publishes an interview with IVA's incoming CEO, Sylvia Schwaag Serger. Here you can read an excerpt from the interview about driving forces, choices and visions.

Embedl awarded for groundbreaking AI technology

Embedl wins IVA's Smart Industry 2024 Business Competition. The company develops innovative software tools and technologies that optimize machine learning models, with a focus on making AI models more efficient and energy-efficient.

IVA Gold Medal 2024: Xiaodong Zou

Xiaodong Zou is a chemist who fell in love with electron microscopes and who has succeeded in developing completely new methods for creating 3D images of atomic structures in porous materials.

IVA's Great Gold Medal 2024: Anne L'Huillier

Swedish-French Anne L'Huillier is the physicist and Nobel Prize winner who, against all odds, has succeeded in revolutionizing the possibilities of seeing into the world of atoms and molecules.

"United, swift and wise" IVA's President comments on the EU Commission's roadmap

Today, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, presented the five-year plan for the EU's future competitiveness. "It is absolutely crucial for the future of our continent that the European Commission vigorously addresses competitiveness issues," says Sylvia Schwaag Serger, President of IVA.

Sylvia Schwaag Serger new president of IVA

Today, the Assembly of the Academy decided to appoint Sylvia Schwaag Serger as the new president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA). Sylvia Schwaag Serger is a professor at the School of Economics, University of Lund, and since 2019 an elected fellow of IVA's Division Education and Research Policy.

IVA's 105th Annual Meeting

Many thanks to all fellows and friends of IVA who contributed to the festivities during this year's evening in honour of the art of engineering sciences!

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 100 List 2024: Sweden’s Most Promising Research Projects

A simple hair test for early cancer detection, a healthy sugar substitute, and a rapid test for tuberculosis. These are some of the research projects selected for this year’s 100 List, focusing on innovation through interdisciplinary research, compiled by IVA. All research projects are considered to have great potential to benefit society.

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.

Innovation the Swedish way

No other country has produced as many revolutionary innovations per capita as Sweden. In the book Innovation the Swedish way, produced at the initiative of IVA, authors Eva Krutmeijer and Henrik Berggren delve into the structures that created Sweden’s favourable innovation climate. Read four of the chapters here!

Cybersecurity for increased competitiveness

The Cybersecurity for Competitiveness project aims to contribute to a broad and nuanced discussion on the importance of a solid and coordinated effort to strengthen Sweden's cyber security. The project started in 2021 and runs until June 2023. This report is part of this work.

IVA Business Executives Council| Summer Session 2026

How can the Swedish mining cluster strengthen Europe's supply of metals and minerals?

Sweden is one of Europe's most important mining countries, and the Swedish mining cluster is world-leading. But what role can Sweden, together with Finland, play in securing the supply of metals and minerals in Europe? Welcome to an international seminar where leading experts from the IVA project's international reference group, with participants from the USA, Latin America, Australia, and Europe, will discuss how we can strengthen our supply chains.

The consequences of AI: fear in the digital age