National funding: 2025 - 2026
A national initiative to make Sweden a global leader in photonics-enabled innovation
Photonics connects everything.
Together with RISE, we’re building the Swedish Photonics Excellence Cluster – a national initiative uniting companies, researchers, and public actors to make Sweden a global leader in photonics-enabled innovation.
From October 2025 to March 2026, we’ll map the ecosystem and identify key opportunities. We’ll also create new collaboration hubs linking photonics developers with industries that benefit from light-based technologies. Together, we’re building a shared vision and strategy for a world-leading photonics cluster.
✨ Be part of it! (click the link to give input, share perspectives and help shape the roadmap)
Photonics is a true cross-cutting technology – it underpins progress across nearly every advanced sector. Sweden already has world-class expertise, strong industrial ecosystems, and leading research environments. We have what it takes to build a world-leading photonics cluster that drives innovation, competitiveness, and sustainable growth across:
💡 AI & Autonomous systems
🌐 Advanced Digital Technologies
⚛ Quantum
⚡ Energy
🧱 Materials and Production
🧬 Biotechnology
🛰 Space, Security, and Defence
Our tentative vision for Swedish Photonics Excellence Cluster in 2035
By 2035, our excellence cluster will be recognised as a critical enabler of Europe’s strategic technologies, attracting international talent, investments, and business. Sweden will be world-leading in photonics-enabled innovation through a coordinated national cluster that aligns research excellence, specialised SMEs, and global industries. By strategically embedding photonics into areas such as life science, defence, telecom, quantum, and energy, Sweden will be the place where international actors come to collaborate, invest, and co-develop the technologies that shape the future.
By then, Sweden will host more than 250 photonics companies with a combined turnover exceeding €10 billion, with at least 100 firms actively engaged in cluster activities. Knowledge hubs in five or more nationally important technology sectors will drive photonics-enabled innovations, creating over €50 billion in value for system integrators and their customers.
On the research side, Sweden will have consolidated its position as a global leader in selected photonics domains supported by a doubling of national research funding and integration with major European infrastructures. The cluster will be recognised internationally as a driver of both cutting-edge science and industrial demonstrators.
Through strategic talent and skills programmes, the cluster will attract STEM talent at all levels, from vocational training to PhD to international experts. By 2035, skills shortages will no longer limit the growth of the photonics industry or the value it creates in end-use sectors.
Our tentative vision was chosen as one of the most promising in Vinnova’s Cluster of Excellence program, in October 2025.
Get involved
We invite you to take part – share your perspective, join a workshop, or connect your organisation to the process. Your input will help shape the cluster’s vision and Sweden’s photonics roadmap to 2035.
✨ Share your perspective and signup to be involved
📩 Contact: Åsa Claesson – RISE / PhotonicSweden: asa.claesson@ri.se
