ABOUT

Magnus Madfors is Director R&D Policy at Ericsson. In his position he represents industry in government organisations and forums, industry associations and business and product strategy groups in order to promote European industry’s positions on ICT R&D policies in the European Union.

With his 25 years of experience in industrial pre-competitive research, Mr. Madfors has contributed to the establishment of several international research networks, involving stakeholders from all segments into international research programs to promote research and innovation, encouraging an efficient transfer of knowledge. He is today actively involved in the development of the ICT and wireless communications area, having board positions within academia, industry associations and governments’ reference groups at both international and national level. He has been a member of the European Commission’s Information Society Technologies Advisory Group (ISTAG) and is the chairman of the R&D Cluster of DIGITALEUROPE representing leading corporations and national trade associations from all the Member States of EU. In 2009 Mr. Madfors successfully led the work of forming Europe’s knowledge and innovation community (KIC) of the European institute of innovation and technology (EIT) in the ICT-area and he is today appointed member of the Executive Board of EIT ICT Labs.

From 2001 to 2006, Mr. Madfors held the position as Director External Research Relations, being overall responsible for Ericsson’s external research activities with focus on long term research to ensure continuous and timely access to technical knowledge as input to Ericsson’s strategies. Mr. Madfors was in 2004-2006 the Chairman of the Board of one of Europe’s first European Technology Platforms – in mobile and wireless communications, where he contributed into the establishment of the industry momentum within the sector defining the strategic research agenda, today being continuously implemented through available instruments at EU-level.

In year 2000, Mr. Madfors was directly involved in the establishment of the global forum Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF), having the objective to formulate visions on strategic future research directions in the wireless field, among industry and academia, to influence regional and national research programs.

Mr. Madfors joined Ericsson in 1988, conducting research in the radio area. In year 1995, he became head of one of the technical areas within Ericsson Research, and in 1998 he became Director, commencing worldwide responsibility for the research within the area of Access Networks. In this position he continued his research, also representing Ericsson within international research programs. From 1995 to 1998 one of his main activities was to define and direct the technical work within research projects, which laid the technical foundation for what later became 3rd generation wireless technologies, (UMTS).

Magnus Madfors was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1963. He graduated with a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Stockholm Royal Institute of Technology in 1988. For several years he undertook part time technical teaching in telecommunication theory at the Royal Institute of Technology in parallel to his business profession.