Sylvia Schwaag Serger is professor at the School of Economics of Lund University. She has spent 20 years designing, implementing and studying innovation policy. In the Swedish context, she has worked as Executive Director for International Strategy at the Government Agency for Innovation (VINNOVA), as Science Counselor in Beijing and as analyst for the Ministry of Trade and Industry. At European level, she has chaired an expert group on international research and innovation cooperation for DG Research and is currently member of the Expert Group on the Economic and Societal Impact of Research and Innovation (ESIR). She has been an external expert in the OECD innovation reviews of Finland, Norway, South Korea and Germany and was a member of the Swedish Innovation Council chaired by the Prime Minister 2019-2021.
Sylvia is member of the Austrian Council for Research and Technological Development and the International Advisory Board of the Norwegian Research Council. She has been a member of the board of the University of Uppsala, and of the Swedish Government Expert Commission on Research (Forskningsberedning). She chairs the board of the Swedish Foundation for Internationalization of Higher Education and Research (STINT) and the scientific council of the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (FORMAS), and is academician at the Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering (IVA) (since 2019).
Sylvia has an MA in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a PhD in economic history from the London School of Economics and Political Science. From 2018-2020 she was Deputy Vice Chancellor of Lund University.