FORUM Totalförsvar is a national initiative combining a doctoral school and a development program to strengthen Sweden's total defence capacity by building leadership, organizational resilience, and transformation capability across public sector organizations.
2023
FORUM Totalförsvar is a new national initiative jointly developed by the University of Gothenburg (SCDI / Forskningskonsortiet Digital Förvaltning) and RISE (CSDI — Centre for Security, Digital Transformation and Innovation). It responds directly to the Swedish government’s steering document Utgångspunkter för totalförsvaret 2025–2030, which mandates a broad societal mobilization extending well beyond the armed forces to encompass municipalities, regions, and government agencies. The initiative combines two established formats — an executive doctoral school for collaborative doctoral candidates and a structured development program for public sector leaders — into a single strategic arena linking research and practice. Its aim is to develop the knowledge, leadership capacity, and organizational capability needed for Sweden’s public sector to lead and organize effectively in transition, crisis, and conflict.
Total defence, crisis preparedness, resilience, leadership in uncertainty, organizational transformation, civil preparedness, municipal and regional governance, digital security, supply security, executive doctoral program
Sweden's new total defence framework places extensive and demanding requirements on all public sector actors. Municipalities must sustain core welfare services — schooling, healthcare, social care, and public safety — under conditions of crisis and war. Regions bear overall responsibility for health and medical services, including managing large-scale population movements and prolonged supply disruptions. Government agencies must develop coordination capabilities, secure their core functions, and support both military operations and international partners. Meeting these requirements demands a qualitative leap in leadership, organizational resilience, and transformation capacity that current competence supply structures are not equipped to deliver.
The initiative operates through two parallel and mutually reinforcing tracks. The doctoral school (Forskarskolan) admits up to 15 collaborative doctoral candidates in an initial cohort, drawn from municipalities, regions, and agencies. Doctoral candidates dedicate at least 50% of their working time to research — often within their own organizations — and are supported by dedicated supervisory teams from SCDI/GU and internationally recognized experts. Research themes span transformation, crisis preparedness, leadership, resilience, digitalization, and supply security. The development program (Utvecklingsprogrammet), delivered in partnership with CSDI at RISE, begins with a needs assessment and environmental analysis of each participating organization's transformation capacity. It then provides research-based knowledge inputs, cross-organizational learning, and concrete applied development — with an annual conference bringing all partners together for thematic lectures, workshops, and experience exchange. Both tracks are modeled on established formats already successfully operating at the University of Gothenburg and RISE.
The initiative is in its launch phase. The doctoral school builds on the existing Forskarskolan Digital Förvaltning, which since 2022 has admitted approximately 15 collaborative doctoral candidates and produced its first doctoral graduates. The development program draws on CSDI's established research and innovation capacity within digital security, transformation, and resilience.
FORUM Totalförsvar aims to strengthen Sweden's aggregate capacity to meet growing threats by simultaneously training the next generation of researchers and equipping current public sector leaders with the tools to lead in uncertainty. It creates a durable institutional bridge between academic knowledge production and operational practice in total defence.
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