How do we bring more solutions into the real world?
Sweden is home to many innovative solutions in energy, digitalization and sustainable urban development. But how do we move from successful pilot projects to solutions that are adopted by more cities and municipalities?
This is one of the questions Staffan Ingvarsson, CEO of Stockholm Business Region, will address at Innovation Day on 1 October, co-created with ElectriCITY as part of Stockholm ImpACT Days 2026.
Under this year’s theme, Rethink: Cities, Stockholm ImpACT Days brings together businesses, researchers, investors, public-sector organisations and international partners to explore a fundamental question: How do we build a city that is sustainable, resilient and competitive, while also remaining an attractive place to live, work, invest and do business?
With extensive experience in business development, investment and international collaboration, he sees how the public sector, businesses and investors can work together to create the conditions needed for innovation to scale and deliver real impact.
Ahead of Innovation Day, Staffan explains why collaboration is essential to solving tomorrow’s challenges.
Innovation Day is all about helping more innovations reach cities and municipalities. Why is this such an important issue?
– We are facing major societal challenges, and our ability to address them is closely linked to our capacity for innovation. At Stockholm Business Region, our role is to create the right conditions for companies to grow and contribute with new solutions.
He believes that innovation is not an end in itself, but a tool for building more sustainable and competitive cities.
Sweden has many promising innovations, yet many never move beyond the pilot stage. What does it take to achieve wider adoption?
– Innovation takes time. It’s not only about developing a good solution – it’s also about making it work within the systems that already exist.
He describes this as one of the biggest challenges facing innovation today.
– We need to become better at building bridges between new ideas and existing structures in areas such as urban development, energy and logistics. That’s when innovations can create real value.
A key part of Innovation Day is bringing together innovators, cities and investors. What role does investment play in helping innovations grow?
– Access to capital is a crucial part of the innovation ecosystem. When companies can demonstrate that they solve real problems, there are investors who want to support their journey.
He highlights Stockholm as one of Europe’s strongest environments for innovation and investment.
– Stockholm offers a unique combination of entrepreneurship, world-class research, international talent and access to capital. That creates excellent conditions for innovations to scale.
How do you see the role of joint procurements and framework agreements in bringing more sustainable solutions to market?
– Public procurement is a powerful driver of innovation. We’ve already seen successful examples where new procurement models have created better opportunities for innovative solutions to reach the market.
According to Staffan, those experiences now provide a foundation for the next step.
– Once we’ve shown that something works, it becomes much easier to scale the approach to other municipalities and organisations.
You’ve spent many years working with investment and business development. What’s the most common reason why a good innovation never reaches its full potential?
– Many innovations are promising, but they also need to be scalable. It’s not enough for a solution to work in one place – it has to be able to integrate into larger systems and create value in many different contexts.
What do you hope participants will take away from Innovation Day?
– I hope people leave with new contacts, new perspectives and renewed optimism. Innovation Day is a unique meeting place where people from different sectors can connect, inspire one another and start new collaborations.
He also hopes participants will leave with greater confidence in the opportunities ahead.
– There are tremendous opportunities in front of us. The better we become at working together, the greater our chances of turning innovative ideas into real impact. Innovation rarely happens in isolation. It happens when people with different perspectives come together. If Innovation Day leads to new collaborations that otherwise wouldn’t have happened, then we’ve taken an important step towards bringing more sustainable solutions to more cities.