Sara Bjärstorp will be the new director for Forum for Social Innovation Sweden. Her mission is to develop national collaboration also with an aim to make the forum, based at Malmö University, stronger on the international arena.

”We need to collaborate across borders and boundaries to solve complex societal challenges. I look forward to leading MSI’s national and international work. It’s an opportunity to work in a concrete way with the dissemination of research-based knowledge on social innovation, contributing to changes in society,” said Bjärstorp.

I will bring all my experiences from the years as a leader within academia into my new role at the cross-border platform at MSI.

Sara Bjärstorp

She has long experience of academic leadership and quality development of education and research at Malmö University. She also has a great interest in collaboration and solid knowledge of different prerequisites and opportunities of collaboration between academia and other sectors.

Her most recent position was as a senior advisor to the dean, with the mission to develop strategic collaboration for the Faculty of Culture and Society. Culture, in all different forms and shapes, is of special interest to her. She is responsible for the University’s strategic initiative for culture collaboration in Malmö and the region, and she has several external appointments, for example as a board member of Luleå University of Technology and Media Evolution, a cluster organisation for the innovation and growth in the digital industries of Southern Sweden.

“I will bring all my experiences from the years as a leader within academia into my new role at the cross-border platform at MSI. I am very interested in collaboration and social innovation and through my recent work with collaboration with the cultural sector also developed a broad external network which is also valuable in my new role,” said Bjärstorp.

Charlotte Ahlgren Moritz, pro Vice-Chancellor of Collaboration and Innovation and chair of Forum for Social Innovation Sweden’s steering group, hopes that the choice of new managing director will contribute to the progress of both Forum for Social Innovation Sweden (MSI) and Malmö University.

“MSI is the University’s one and only collaboration platform that engages external partners from all sectors in society. It is important to connect education and research with different sectors, organisations as well as companies, networks and people, for mutual exchange and to shape new knowledge together,” said Ahlgren Moritz.

MSI has a prominent position nationally and an extremely strong and dynamic network.

Charlotte Ahlgren Moritz

The forum is a national knowledge and collaboration platform for social innovation, with headquarters at Malmö University, but active in regions all over Sweden and the universities; Jönköping University, Luleå University of Technology, Umeå University and Örebro University. MSI collaborates with the public as well as idea-based sectors, academia and private businesses and the work is both local, regional as well as national and international.

At the moment MSI is working with the themes and focus areas future work, children’s rights, digital inclusion, equal health, and security in public spaces. MSI initiates and arranges different meeting arenas, for example lectures, panel discussions, network meetings and conferences. For six years MSI arranged the largest conference on social innovation in the Nordic countries – Social Innovation Summit. MSI produce films, articles, editorials, and reports and also develop new models and processes for collaboration, for example testbeds and science-labs.

“MSI has a prominent position nationally and an extremely strong and dynamic network. This creates opportunities and a real potential for creating strong knowledge alliances,” Sara.

Now MSI moves closer to Europe through the EU-funded project Building Capacity for a Sustainable Society (BuiCaSuS), where MSI together with Reach for Change and Inkludera represent Sweden in a European competence centre with France, Spain and Latvia.

“I look forward to furthering develop MSI, continue to strengthen and develop our national work within collaboration and social innovation and through the European collaboration become a strong part internationally and in Europe, in collaboration with Sara Bjärstorp, our other MSI-nodes as well as our other partners,” added Ahlgren Moritz.

Sara Bjärstorp assumed the role as director for Forum for Social Innovation Sweden (MSI) at Malmö University on 15 September.

Text: Charlotte Orban