Academia collaborations

Technology moves at a great pace, and it’s crucial for innovation to collaborate with selected partners in the technology ecosystem. Universities have become essential for innovation and are important research partners for Ericsson. Academia collaborations have long been a mainstay of our research.

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Investments in university collaborations have a long term horizon. The focus is on forward-looking research and emerging technologies. We exchange knowledge, pick up new trends and technologies and build competence. Close collaboration between academia and Ericsson in-house researchers means that Ericsson can benefit from the latest academic research while providing industry relevance for university research projects and education programs.

Ericsson is currently working with around 300 academic organizations globally. A large part of the engagements are through public funded projects, other formats range from bilateral partnerships to jointly created research centers and personal mobility of employees.

The map below lists some of Ericsson's academic collaboration partners

Key academia collaboration partners for Ericsson

Click on + to see a list of academic partners

Close collaboration between academia and Ericsson in-house researchers means that Ericsson can benefit from the latest academic research while providing industry relevance for university research projects and education programs.

Working with universities is a way to pick up new technologies and trends from world leading research teams. We augment our extensive internal research and get access to basic and exploratory research in important areas for the mobile industry. We strongly believe that joint research between leading industry and academia boosts our combined innovation performance.

Our academia collaborations also aim to stimulate and support research in strategic areas for the mobile industry, to contribute towards competence building and competence availability in these areas.

Institutions and universities who collaborate with Ericsson get access to expertise and insights of our world leading global company with world class researchers and developers in 2G - 6G mobile systems and other ICT related areas. We can provide real use cases with an industrial perspective and scale for research and education, and we often contribute with infrastructure for early research.

Ericsson is a driver of strong ecosystems, where key academia partners are included.

University collaborations is also a platform for recruitment, to attract future talent and an opportunity for students to get to know our industry and our company.

Our goal is a mutually beneficial relationship, where Ericsson benefits from fresh perspectives and innovative ideas generated by academia, while universities gain practical insights and opportunities for their research and educational initiatives.

Ericsson collaborates with universities in different formats. The main ways include:

Bi-lateral agreements, which vary in scope from long-term, strategic collaborations in broadly defined areas to focus on specific research groups in a certain thematic topic.

Engagement in large, co-created research centers where Ericsson invests together with academica, communications service providers (CSPs) and industry partners.

Consortia members of publicly funded projects – national, regional, and global – is the most frequent form of collaboration. There are around 60 ongoing EU-funded projects and more than 100 national funding projects with NSF, Vinnova, SSF, BMBF, Tübitak, NSERC, MITACS, Business Finland, and more.

Personal mobility exchange, where individuals work embedded in the respective organizations. Industrial PhD students and post-doc researchers can be hosted by Ericsson, and we offer thesis work to Master students. Several Ericsson research leaders hold positions as Adjunct professors, allocating a substantial part of their work time to the university.

Patronage of academic conferences and workshops arranged by renowned organizations (for example IEEE and ACM).

Tier 1 - University long term strategic collaboration

Our most extensive collaborations are deep-reaching agreements with academic organizations at the highest level.

The purpose is to have long term and strategic competence provisioning and research, providing added value to mutually strengthen the university and Ericsson with the intention to make a difference to quality for company competitiveness and university attractiveness.

Budapest University of Technology and Economics

Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), founded in 1782, is one of the oldest and largest technical universities in East-Central Europe, being a strategic partner of Ericsson Hungary for more than 30 years now and becoming an Ericsson Group strategic partner in 2018. The main pillar of this collaboration is the research entity called High Speed Network Laboratory (HSN Lab), part of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics. Founded in 1992, HSNLab provided already more than 110 PhDs, most of whom joined Ericsson. The topics that we usually cooperate on with HSN Lab are related to networking, cloud computing, robotics or IoT, but AI also came into focus recently. HSNLab is hosted by the Department of Telecommunications and Artificial Intelligence, however, our cooperation with BME extends beyond HSN Lab as well, and involves several other departments with expertise in areas such as radio technologies, antenna design, vehicular communications or quantum technologies.

Chalmers University of Technology

Ericsson has a long history of close collaborations with Chalmers University of Technology, both within education and research. Many Ericsson employees have studied at Chalmers. Today, Ericsson is actively interacting with students during their studies and collaborates with Chalmers forming future educations. Ericsson is engaging in common research projects with Chalmers such as wireless communication, positioning, sensing, radio hardware, antennas and software.

Chalmers was founded in 1829 paid for with a legacy from William Chalmers (1748-1811), a director of the Swedish East India Company. Today, Chalmers engage 194 professors, 977 PhD students, 624 teachers and more than 10 700 full time students.

Learn more about strategic collaborations at Chalmers.

Concordia University

Ericsson and Concordia University have a long history of academic and industrial collaboration. Taking the collaboration to the next level, a formal strategic long-term partnership was signed in 2024.

The Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science is Ericsson’s main partner organization at Concordia University. With over 233 faculty members, 44 research chairs, and over 10,150 students, the School offers 47 programs handled by its 7 departments.

Activities are also ongoing with the Applied AI Institute and the Faculty of Arts and Science.

In addition to world-class skills in cyber security, AI, and cloud and edge computing, the school is part of extensive academia and government ecosystems and is characterized by high levels of funding, making it a thriving environment for interdisciplinary research.

Security, cloud, and artificial intelligence (AI) are the key topics in the Ericsson – Concordia collaboration.

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

KTH, established in 1827, is Sweden's largest institution for technical education and research. The university offers nearly 100 programs, attracting around 17,000 students from around the world. KTH is known for its excellent basic and applied research, currently ranking 73rd out of 1,500 universities globally in the QS World University Rankings.

A strategic partnership between KTH and Ericsson was signed in May 2012 to strengthen collaboration in competence development, research, and personnel exchange.

The main areas of collaboration include: wireless access and networks, Internet of Things, Software, Artificial intelligence, and Digital transformation.

Ericsson and KTH collaborate on multiple levels, including research centers, bilateral, national, and EU projects, as well as personnel exchange programs such as industrial PhDs, master's internships, and summer internships.

Linköping University

Linköping University was founded in 1975 and has approximately 40 000 students. It offers Master of Science studies in for example Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Engineering. Ericsson works primarily with two divisions:

The Division for Communication Systems conducts research and education in communications engineering, statistical signal processing and network science. The research focus is on the development of technology components for 6G wireless networks and there are several common research interests with Ericsson, for example in the areas of massive MIMO and energy efficiency.

The Division of Automatic Control has research and education activities within sensor fusion, system identification, robotics and autonomous systems and optimization for control applications and complex networks. The collaboration with Ericsson is mainly focused on positioning.

Luleå University of Technology

Luleå University of Technology (LTU) is active in many research areas and highly ranked in Mining Science, Materials Science, Engineering, and Computer Science, Robotics, and Space Science. LTU has a strong tradition of collaboration with companies as well as with leading international universities and national and regional actors, and leveraging this collaboration to build quality and relevance into education and research.

Ericsson and LTU have worked together since the mid 1990s. Today, the scope is to jointly strengthen and develop education, research and innovation in areas of common interest. Activities comprise research, competence provisioning, and competence development, as well as access to physical environments, infrastructure, and innovation systems. Key collaboration areas relate to wireless communication technologies, digitalization of industries, and AI.

Lund University

Lund University was founded in 1666 and is one of the world's top universities. The University has approximately 47,000 students and 8,800 staff. It is one of the most popular places to study in Sweden and offers one of the broadest ranges of programs and courses in Scandinavia.

Lund University has been a close partner to Ericsson for over four decades with a formal strategic partnership since 2016. Collaborations are both through projects, joint publications, and mobility such as industrial PhD students, visiting researchers, and adjunct faculty. Ericsson participates in and contributes to a majority of the university’s research centers in ICT.

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

RISE is Sweden’s research institute and innovation partner. Through our collaboration programmes with industry, academia and the public sector, we ensure the competitiveness of the Swedish business community on an international level and contribute to a sustainable society. Our almost 3300 employees engage in and support all types of innovation processes. RISE is an independent, State-owned research institute, which offers unique expertise and over 130 testbeds and demonstration environments for future-proof technologies, products and services.