Facts and figures

Sweden is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. A member of the European Union from 1996, Sweden joined NATO in 2024 after a long period of neutrality. A land of lakes and forests, Sweden stretches more than 1,500 kilometres north-south¹ and its people enjoy higher-than-average outcomes across a wide range of measures including income, employment, education, health and life satisfaction.²

Sweden has about 50 higher education institutions³ with more than 480,000 students enrolled in 2023/24.⁴ Uppsala University founded in 1477 is the country’s oldest and currently has 50,000 students and close to 5,000 researchers.⁵

Around 52% of young adults in Sweden attain a tertiary education.⁶In 2022, about full-time equivalent 105,500 personnel were employed in R&D work.⁷

Gross expenditure on research and development (GERD) increased significantly between 2018 and 2022 by 44% to reach 203.5 billion Swedish Krona, although rising only slightly as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product to 3.41%. The main sectors financing GERD in 2021 were business enterprise providing 60.7% and the government sector 23%.⁷

The European Patent Office granted 2,842 patents to residents of Sweden in 2023.⁸

Life scientists in Sweden have access to a funding from the Swedish Research Council, other government agencies and numerous private and non-profit foundations.⁹ They also receive funding through Horizon 2020 projects, European Research Council grants, and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions¹⁰ as well as EMBO.