Sweden funds Three Years of Injo - $1.8M

Up to eighteen Swedish innovation journalism fellows will be participating in the program at Stanford in the coming three years.

VINNOVA, the Swedish National Agency for Innovation Systems - the incubator/seed investor of the innovation journalism initiative - will be funding the innovation journalism program with 12 million Swedish crowns, or about $1.8 million. .

The Swedish innovation journalism initiative went this year from pilot stage to a permanent initiative. The Swedish program has been expanded, and divided into two parts, an International part and a Swedish part.

The International part includes the engagement in the Innovation Journalism Program at Stanford, international collaboration, and developing the concept of journalism. The director is David Nordfors (yes, that's me) at Stanford.

The Swedish program nominates Swedish fellows to the Innovation Journalism Program at Stanford and is in charge of activities within Sweden. The director is Jan Sandred at VINNOVA. Jan is an experienced news media professional, he is the founder of Biotech Sweden and other publications. He was an Innovation Journalism Fellow in the first round of the program in 2004.

These parts form together the Swedish Innovation journalism initiative. Jan and I are working closely together.

The Swedish program has hosted 23 Swedish innovation journalism fellows since 2004, and is beginning to show a good footprint in Swedish journalism circles.

The call for candidates to the Swedish Innovation Journalism Fellowships 2007 is still open - it closes on Nov 22. Go here if you are interested in being a Swedish Injo Fellow. There is a blog post about the call here.

Looking forward to the coming years!