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International interest in Swedish mission initiatives
How do we evaluate missions before they have reached their final goals? How do we capture the progress, lessons learned and values created along the way? When international actors gathered in Paris for the OECD's Mission Forward Conference, Sweden participated with several major initiatives. The discussions provided new perspectives and insights for the continued work on mission-driven innovation.
Erika Ax, Team Leader of A New Recipe for the Food System, Vinnova, Jeehoon Ki, Associate Research Fellow, KISTEP, Korea
Conference is the premier international meeting place for mission-oriented innovation. Nearly 300 participants from more than 30 countries gathered to share experiences from around 50 mission-oriented innovation initiatives.
For Sweden, the OECD Mission Forward provides an opportunity to learn from world-leading initiatives, draw on knowledge that can develop future innovation initiatives, share our own experiences and strengthen our position as an innovation country.
Sweden contributed with experiences from the food system transition
Sweden participated with experiences from A new recipe for the food system. The mission initiative brings together actors from across the food chain to develop the sustainable and competitive food system of the future, in Sweden and internationally.
Through mission-driven innovation platforms, new collaborations, working methods and solutions are being built that will contribute to long-term transformation of how food is produced, distributed and consumed in Sweden.
A new recipe for the food system
The Impact Innovation programs shared results and experiences
All five Impact Innovation programme were also in place. Impact Innovation brings together business, the public sector, academia and civil society to address societal challenges now and forward, with the goal of making Sweden sustainable, resilient and still competitive.
Since the start in 2024, the initiative has launched nearly 600 initiatives, invested around SEK 1.8 billion and engaged around 3,500 organisations.
During the conference, Impact Innovation shared experiences from implementation, follow-up, learning and collaboration.
What lessons does Vinnova take with it from the conference?
OECD Mission Forward offers an important opportunity for in-depth dialogue, together with leading international initiatives, to challenge established assumptions, discuss common challenges and possible ways forward.
Erika Ax and Jenny Engström participated in both panels and conversations.
– It has been exciting to meet different missions and work with actors at the same time. For example, how do we follow up that we are on the right path? How do we take care of all learning? And how do we create the conditions to work with missions in a system designed for something else, says Erika Ax, team leader for A new recipe for the food system.
– Many of the discussions at the conference were about how we build the ability to create change, not just how we develop new solutions. This is where I think Impact Innovation has something important to contribute. By combining innovation with systems thinking, continuous learning and broad mobilisation, we build capacity that lives on long after individual project and programme. It strengthens the prerequisites for solutions that can have an impact, be sustainably scaled up and contribute to long-term transition, says Jenny Engström, team leader Impact Innovation Accelerator.
Themes that were at the center of the OECD Mission Forward
The talks revolved around how mission-oriented innovation should be able to simultaneously drive a sustainable transition, strengthen competitiveness, improve people’s living conditions – and contribute to making Europe a leading innovation continent.
Four questions were particularly at the centre:
- Missions for societal benefit and competitiveness – how can missions both strengthen competitiveness and address major societal challenges?
- Scaling up the impact of missions – how can successful innovation initiatives create waterfalls and lasting change
- Evaluating the impact of missions – how do we measure learning, progress, results and values along the way, before the final goal is reached?
- Using mission working methods in more contexts – how can lessons, governance and collaboration models be used beyond the individual effort?
More on the OECD Mission Forward Conference
OECD Mission Forward is an international mission-driven innovation meeting place held every two years. The conference brings together researchers, experts, authorities, decision-makers and practitioners from around the world to share experiences and discuss how missionary initiatives are steered, scaled up and evaluated as more and more people move from idea to implementation.
Mission forward: Shaping the future through mission-oriented policy
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Last updated 5 October 2026