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1. New technologies in support of creativity and innovation

2. Facilitating access to culture through new technologies

New technologies in support of creativity and innovation

The first national digitalization strategy for the Swedish school system was decided by the government in October 2017 and was valid until 2022. The strategy aimed to ensure that all children and students get the digital skills they need as citizens and in working life. The overarching goal is for the Swedish school system to be a leader in using the possibilities of digitalization in the best way to achieve a high level of digital competence in children and students and to promote knowledge development and equity.

In early 2022, the government tasked the National Agency for Education (Skolverket) with developing a new national digitalization strategy for the school system for the years 2023–2027. In December 2022, the agency presented the assignment to the government. However, the government announced that they do not intend to proceed with the proposal for a new digitization strategy.

The Agency for Education was instead tasked with producing general advice or recommendations on the selection and use of learning tools in teaching, aiming for more reading time and less screen time. The proposal must be submitted to the government no later than January 15, 2025. The government announced that their renewed school policy aims to go back to the basics and re-establish a strong knowledge school where the focus in the earlier grades is on basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic. Digital learning tools should be introduced into teaching only at an age when they promote and do not inhibit student learning.

Facilitating access to culture through new technologies

There are currently no policies, programmes or initiatives at the national level, aiming at attracting young people's interest in culture, the arts and science through the use of new technologies.

Institutions for cultural heritage, such as museums, libraries and archives, offer rich historical sources that are open for all through their collections of digital and analogue documents, such as books, maps, audiovisual recordings, magazines, etc. The rapid digitalisation in Sweden has contributed to increased opportunities for the public to take part in and for their own purposes reuse this material. Still, more initiatives are needed to attract young people's interest in culture, the arts and science.

The use of digital communication technologies has created significant opportunities for developing new approaches for the cultural heritage institutions. When collections are made available as open data and are accessible free of charge via the Internet, they can also be used by a broad audience for a variety of purposes.

The government has in February 2017 proposed that the Swedish National Archives (Riksarkivet) should be commissioned to study how the national digital archives can be made open for the public, free of charge.

The government has also proposed that Swedish National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet) should be given the task to coordinate and support digitalisation, digital preservation and digital agency in the cultural heritage sector. The task should be carried out in collaboration with other cultural heritage institutions and universities.

What more, the government has proposed that the National Library of Sweden (Kungliga biblioteket) and the Swedish Film Institute (Svenska filminstitutet) should be tasked to jointly investigate and submit proposals in order to enhance collaboration on the digitalisation of audio-visual material. The report was published in 2018, that clarified the needs of the institutions to be able to implement digitisation.