Mission - Innovation for Growth

Creating value through research is our mission and one way of evaluating this is to study the  growth of our spin-off companies. During the 10 year period Acreo has spun off 17 new companies and transferred more than 100 highly competent experts to the industry.

Despite a few turbulent years in the market these companies prosper today; representing new businesses employing more than 500 people and having a turnover of 924 MSEK by 2009. By including other successful projects, providing industry with new technology and new competitive solutions, the resulting turnover sums up to more than 1500 MSEK.

This is a striking measure of our ability to create value based on research. This sum is more than 18 times the total national funding Acreo received last year. Assuming that 40% of the increased turnover is returned to the government in direct and indirect taxes this governmental investment in Acreo R&D has a payoff time of less than two months. 

Acreo focus on equality

"Equality between women and men is a priority with us at Acreo. To increase our managers’ awareness of gender-conscious work we run a gender project, with the goal to make Acreo an equal workplace.”
Mårten Armgarth, CEO  

To find out how we can create an equal workplace, we have started a gender project in which 13 managers and leaders at Acreo receive training. The aim of the training is to create conscious managers and leaders who are equipped with tools and knowledge to actively highlight structures and barriers, to eliminate them and create equality.

The project is about making the invisible visible. We acquire knowledge about what we unconsciously are doing - or not doing - which prevents women and men to have equal opportunities in our organization. It is an incredibly exciting and rewarding process, both for the leaders in the group and the executive team that continually gets feedback.

The project started in 2009, and is now in its final phase. We are getting concrete results ready for implementation. Besides the usual issues such as career opportunities and development, we have been studying "missed opportunities for Acreo", possibly due to the fact that we by habit and comfort always explore the same networks that we always have; the ones closest to us and networks that usually consist of men. Another very important question for us is how gender affects research and innovation process - our core business.   (Maja Fredriksson, Human Resources)

The gender project is part of VINNOVA's TIGER programme (Applied Gender Research for Strong Research and Innovation Milieus) conducted within the framework of the innovation system Fiber Optic Valley.   

"To create a world for both men and women you can’t settle with just men in your crew. It’s important to have the whole view on research and what it can be used for, not only half of it – we want to create innovation and that is when different views meet".
Tove Madsen, Broadband Technology 

"I don’t think anyone is against greater equality. However, few know what needs to be done since it is a complex issue. It's about more than just the number of male / female executives and equal pay for equal work. The understanding of what gender is creates the possibility to identify and act when something is wrong, thus contributing to a more equal workplace".
Tommy Schönberg, Nanoelectronics

"I sincerely hope that everyone at Acreo, including myself, is doing their very best in being as fair and open minded as possible in all professional relations at work, not doing any deliberate difference between man and woman. However, no one is perfect and my first idea about this course was that it should help me find out if there was anything in my behaviour that could be apprehended as sexism. The course has helped me to understand that doing gender has a wider scope. I think that everyone could benefit from participation in a project/course like this. Learn to see the difference between man and woman and still meet everyone with equal respect."
Magnus Svensson, Printed Electronics 

The Acreo Story

Acreo was formed 1999 through the merger of the two research institutes IMC and IOF, dated back to the 50’s and 60’s, respectively, forming a larger enterprise building on profound competence and long term R&D experience in electronics and optics. By looking at the continuous achievements the initial business concept is evidently still valid: To develop, refine och transfer R&D results into industry processes and products, and to encourage and participate in co-operation between enterprises and universities. It is further strengthened by the addition of the area of communication technology and other new specialities within electronics and optics.

Acreo has attracted hundreds of partners from all over the world in various projects over the last 10 years. With the focus on hardware oriented ICT, Acreo has widened its competence profile by starting up new areas and capabilities such as printed electronics, bioelectronics, broadband and communication technology, and specialty fiber production. Over all, ICT is an enabling technology in many areas and Acreo has thus broadened its ability to address problems in a variety of application areas.

With our staff of highly qualified professional researchers with various backgrounds and experience we see the possibilities and opportunities for new solutions, in which our technology platforms meet the requirements from our customers’ different applications.