Driving digital transformation
Digital Futures is a cross-disciplinary research centre with the mission to address societal challenges through digital transformation. Established in 2020 by KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm University, and RISE, it is supported by the Swedish Government’s Strategic Research Area initiative.
Bringing together academia, industry, and the public sector, Digital Futures conducts cutting-edge research in both physical and virtual environments. Its focus areas include smart society building, digitalized industry, health and well-being, and education. Key research themes span cybersecurity and trust, connected and cyber-physical systems, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
Digital Futures unites over 200 research groups in an ambitious effort to shape a sustainable and digitally empowered future.
Vision, mission, principles and foundation
The vision of Digital Futures is to shape an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable society through digital transformation.
This will be achieved through the mission to excel in research, empower people and build community.
Excel in Research
Create an international breeding ground for pioneering, cross-disciplinary research on digital technologies.
Empower People
Foster innovation, education, leadership and entrepreneurial spirit.
Build Community
Develop collaboration between academia, industry and public sector.
Driving innovation through scientific excellence, renewal, and collaboration
At Digital Futures, three core principles guide all activities: scientific excellence, strategic renewal, and cross-cutting communities.
The Strategic Research Programme lies at the heart of Digital Futures and must embody scientific excellence to successfully achieve our vision. Innovation and development thrive on renewal, including the recruitment and support of talented junior researchers, exploring uncharted areas of research, and testing bold new ideas.
Collaboration is essential. By connecting diverse scientific disciplines with industry, academia, and the public sector, we foster cross-cutting communities that promote interdisciplinarity and diversity. These broader perspectives create opportunities to uncover synergies and patterns, enabling impactful research to address a wide range of societal challenges.
To ensure continuous evolution, Digital Futures actively recruits new partners from the industrial and public sectors, as well as expanding its faculty network. We are also exploring opportunities to engage with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups. By identifying and addressing key industrial and societal challenges within the digitalization domain, Digital Futures develops scalable solutions—both in terms of commercialization and new research directions.
Built on a foundation of excellence
Digital Futures combines strong academic traditions with the expertise of international industry, entrepreneurial drive, and Stockholm’s bold strategy for urban and societal development. This unique combination of people, partners, strong brands, and long-term investments enables Digital Futures to establish solid yet agile operations that deliver real-world impact.
Our ambition
Digital Futures aims to be one of the top five university research centers globally in digital transformation technologies, fostering seamless collaboration between academia, industry, and society.
A dynamic meeting space
The heart of Digital Futures is its vibrant physical meeting space, where PhD students, faculty, postdocs, visiting scholars, and industry partners come together. More than just a physical venue, this space is equipped with state-of-the-art digital technology, enabling a seamless blend of digital and in-person collaboration. Researchers can participate in meetings, seminars, and events both on-site and remotely, fostering an inclusive and iterative environment.
Digital Futures is located on the 2nd floor of the KTH School of Architecture.
Facts & figures
> 330
Faculty members
> 200
Research projects
> 50
Scholars
> 120
Annual funding MSEK
Outlook
Digital Futures is a uniquely strong and expansive research initiative. It is a magnitude larger than any other Swedish research centre in the area and through a high-risk high-gain research agenda with long-term strategic perspectives competing with leading environments globally.
Digital Futures builds on strong traditions of internationally leading research environments at KTH, Stockholm University, and RISE.
Internationally, Digital Futures finds inspiration in and compares with Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) at UC Berkeley, Institute of Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) and Schwarzman College of Computing at MIT, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Einstein Center Digital Future in Berlin, Digital Futures at University of Manchester, the Swiss NCCR Dependable Ubiquitous Automation with ETH Zurich and EPFL, and finally the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute.
Member of C3.ai DTI
Digital Futures is a member of the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute. Established in March 2020 by C3 AI, Microsoft, and leading universities, the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute is a research consortium dedicated to accelerating the benefits of artificial intelligence for business, government, and society.
The Institute engages the world’s leading scientists to conduct research and train practitioners in the new Science of Digital Transformation, which operates at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, the internet of things, big data analytics, organizational behaviour, public policy, and ethics.
The other consortium member universities and laboratories are the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Carnegie Mellon University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Princeton University, Stanford University and the University of Chicago.
Our history
Digital Futures evolved from the Strategic Research Area “Information and Communication Technology – The Next Generation” (ICT TNG), established in 2009 at KTH in collaboration with Stockholm University and RISE. Over the past decade, ICT TNG has focused on four key thematic areas, leading to 15 targeted faculty recruitments and numerous collaborative research projects.
In 2017, following an announcement in the Swedish Government’s research bill, planning began for a new research environment focused on technologies for digital transformation. This effort engaged around 100 faculty members and research leaders from KTH, Stockholm University, RISE, and various other organizations and companies. As a result, Digital Futures was formally established in 2020, supported by an annual governmental funding increase of 78 MSEK, bringing its total budget to approximately 115 MSEK.
Building on the successful 2015 review of ICT TNG by the Swedish Research Council, strategic enhancements were introduced to further strengthen the research environment. These improvements were incorporated into the foundation of Digital Futures. Notably, the initiative introduced impact domains addressing key societal and economic challenges, encouraging research projects to make significant and transformative contributions. To structure research activities, a matrix approach was adopted, integrating vertical scientific themes with horizontal impact domains.
In 2021, Digital Demo Stockholm (DDS) became part of Digital Futures. Launched in 2016, DDS was an innovation-driven collaboration aimed at improving everyday life for residents in the Stockholm region. It brought together public sector, academia, and industry representatives, including KTH, Stockholm University, Karolinska Institutet (KI), and various business and public stakeholders.