As Swedish parties work to form a new government, an Uppsala green technology investor weighs how to scale local research

UPPSALA, Sweden – Six weeks after a narrow center-left majority won Sweden's election, the country still has no new government. Parliament voted down Social Democratic leader Magdalena Andersson as prime minister on Oct. 15, and four days later the speaker gave Center Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist a mandate to explore forming one. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson remains in office as head of a caretaker government.

Whoever eventually governs will inherit a question that Björn Lindh, an investor who builds companies out of research at Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, known as SLU, frames in economic terms. Clean energy has become the cheaper power source, he explained, and environmental technology the bigger market. Sweden ranks among the world's leaders in green innovation, he said, but needs to turn laboratory breakthroughs into commercial businesses.