City of Stockholm innovation director receives award for industrial collaboration

"It's incredibly honouring and fun to receive the award, but really I'm just a small channel. There are many people who work with collaboration with KTH, so it's not just me. I received a very nice motivation. It was very generous," says Karin Ekdahl Wästberg.

Karin Ekdahl Wästberg is the Director of Innovation for the City of Stockholm and its 47 departments. She supports the city's innovation management and finds good collaborations with academia and business. For six years, she has run various research and innovation projects as part of the strategic partnership with KTH. She has worked closely with several schools and is involved in the interdisciplinary research centre Digital Futures . On 11 April, she was awarded KTH's prize for industrial collaboration in connection with KTH's academic ceremony.

"Groundbreaking projects"

According to the motivation, Karin Ekdahl Wästberg's efforts in digitalisation, urban development and technological innovation have led to groundbreaking projects that have made a concrete contribution to more sustainable and efficient societal development.

"We are a mega-organisation with 46,000 employees and one of Sweden's largest employers. One of my tasks is to ensure that the city can be used as a test bed for research and innovation. We are becoming a smarter city with all our collaborations and learning," she says.

Celebrates the Triple helix

Karin Ekdahl Wästberg praises the Triple helix collaboration, a model for cooperation between academia, the municipality and the business community, which she says contributes to the City of Stockholm's high ranking for innovation.

"It's fantastic because everyone gets a little better. The solutions we develop for the city's problems are likely to be not only challenges in Stockholm, but the same solution can be bought by other cities and research and knowledge can be shared internationally," she says.

"Magic happens"

Karin Ekdahl Wästberg is an economist by training and has worked for many years in the public sector. She recognises that the city's societal challenges are complex and that innovation is an effective method for achieving goals such as sustainable development.

"When we meet researchers, magic happens when we understand things together. I get to see many interesting discussions, such as in the collaboration on the treatment of swimming pool water, where employees have worked closely with researchers. Roger, who works with purification under the pool, meets Thord, a researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and both are equally committed to the results of the water quality samples. Based on their respective professions, they meet in curiosity about what the research and learning shows and it's fantastic to be part of it," she says.

Wants to bring researchers and young people together

Karin Ekdahl Wästberg will use the SEK 500,000 prize money to help more young people realise that higher education is possible.

"To make them realise that everyone has the opportunity as long as they have the grades, that it is not a question of cost. I want more people to realise that science and technology are incredibly interesting and important, and to bring KTH's researchers closer to the city's young people," she says.

In partnership with Vetenskapens hus, she wants to introduce young people to the research carried out in the city and the professions that work there. The 400 different professions include many technical ones, such as engineers and architects.

"Otherwise, we risk missing out on many talented young people who don't think they have access to higher education and can't do it," she says.

Text: Sabina Fabrizi