Organisation

Il n'y a pas en Suède d'instance nationaale accordant la qualification d'ingénieur.

Depuis quelques années tous les ingénieurs sont intégrés dans une institution de rattachement unique:
• Sveriges Civilingenjors forbundet (CF): qui offre un service et une orgganisation de référence pour les ingénieurs gradués, mais qui prend en charge des activités de défense professionnelle, ce qui lui donne une stature de syndicat;
• négociations des salaires et des conditions d'emploi
• to advance technology and uphold the interests of graduate/professional engineers;
• to work towards higher quality in engineering education.

Les titres d'ingénieur civil et d'ingénieur de collègene sont pas protégés

L'association suÈdoise des ingÈnieurs diplÙmÈs (CF) est une association professionnelle, qui apporte des services ‡ ses memebres, sans engagement politique.
CF has its origins in the Swedish Association of Technologists, which was formed back in 1861. This provided a forum for engineers to discuss the role of engineering in the development of society, and this spirit lives on in CF.
L'association poursuit aujourd'hui trois grandes missions.
La nÈgociation des conventions collectives qui dÈfinissent les conditions d'emploi et de rÈmunÈration, avec le souci de prÈserver un niveau de salaires comprables ‡ celui des autres pays.

La promotion de la profession
Le suivi et la prÈservation de la qualitÈ de la formation.

With its 86 000 members CFest la plus grande association de SACO, qui regroupe tous les travailleurs intellectuels(the Swedish Confederation of Professional Associations). le nombre d ememebres tend à augmenter régulièremen t( 4-5 % par an)
CF´s organsation
The association's members elect a Union Assembly which meets once a year. The Assembly in turn elects an Executive Committee. The staff of the Secretariat carry into effect the decisions of the Executive Committee. CF's Secretariat is located in Ingenjörshuset, which lies in the centre of Stockholm. Approximately a hundred people are employed in the Secretariat.
CF has around 1,300 branches and more than 4,500 elected local representatives in companies and authorities. The association also has a number of advisory boards and groups to deal with specific issues.
Member service most important
The service provided to members is the keystone of the Swedish Association of Graduate Engineers' activities. The association provides advice and support in connection with salary negotiations, redundancies and other labour market issues.
CF's ombudsmen are largely concerned with individual cases in connection with redundancies and transfers. Their advisory function also includes the provision of information on salary levels at various companies. The local representatives are given training by CF's central ombudsmen in negotiating techniques and tactics.
Wage negotiations take place locally at company level and at a central union level.
Members of CF are entitled to numerous benefits, including membership of an unemployment benefit fund, lower premiums on certain insurance policies, free subscriptions to trade journals (Civilingenjören and Ny Teknik) and the opportunity to apply for scholarships. CF also publishes a yearbook. CF's salary statistics are a valued service to members. These are published annually and are used as basis for salary negotiations.
CF has its own employment service, CF-Börsen, which is open to engineers seeking work as well as companies seeking personnel. The purpose of the service is to improve mobility on the engineers' labour market.
The association also has a special service for members who run their own businesses or are company managers.
The association makes use of the most modern technology for the provision of information and services in the most effective manner. Examples which may be mentioned include membership services via fax delivery and CF's home page on the Internet.

Négociation des conventions collectives

Traditionally, the parties on the Swedish labour market negotiate collective agreements regarding salaries and employment conditions. These collective agreements govern areas such as negotiating practices, salaries, general conditions of employment, working hours, insurance and pensions.
The Swedish labour market is characterised by a relatively small number of parties, which in some areas of common interest join together in negotiating syndicates. CF is one of these parties and negotiates and concludes collective agreements on behalf of its members. In the private sector CF signs agreements with up to 80 employers' organisations. In the public and local government sectors CF negotiates together with the other academic associations in SACO.
Representatives at the local level negotiate and conclude agreements on behalf of their members. The local CF branches at individual companies also act on behalf of members of other academic associations.
CF is more than a union
CF's work to promote higher technical education and research in Sweden is arranged via contacts with decision-makers, by taking part in official committees of enquiry and acting as a reference organ.
CF organises seminars and debates on engineering topics. CF is one of the organisations behind Engineers for the Environment and is a co-founder of Baltic Eco, which aims to clean up the Baltic Sea. CF's environmental fund awards annual grants to projects which improve the physical environment in Sweden and its near vicinity.
The association also awards the Polhem Prize, Sweden's most prestigious technical award, for an innovation of high technical engineering art, which has achieved commercial success.
CF's wholly-owned subsidiary STF Ingenjörsutbildning AB markets courses and further education for engineers. CF is one of the main organisations behind the Institute for Company Management, IFL, and the Technical Museum. The association is also a co-owner of Ekonomi och Teknik Förlag AB, which publishes Ny Teknik, Affärsvärlden, Datateknik and several other journals.
International cooperation
CF is active within several organisations on the international arena. FEANI (Federation Europeenne d'Associations Nationales d'Ingenieurs) is a European umbrella organisation for engineers' professional associations, which awards the title European Engineer - a mark of quality for employment abroad.
EMF (The European Metal Workers Federation) is a forum for the union movement within the engineering industry at the European level. CF also has good contacts with its Nordic sister organisations.
A Typical CF Member
Some 79 per cent of the professionally active members of CF are employed in private industry, 15 per cent work in the government sector and 6 per cent in local government.
Approximately one in five members is a design engineer and about as many are researchers. Others are computer experts, marketing engineers, administrators, consultants and teachers. Many members hold managerial positions at many different levels. Some are company directors, specialists or run their own businesses.
A typical CF member works for a large company in the engineering industry. He (for 84 per cent of the members are male) is 38 years old and has studied electronics and electrical engineering. However, he is closely pursued by mechanical engineers, civil engineers, chemical engineers and technical physicists. Over 30 per cent of the members live in the Mälardalen region (within a hundred miles of Stockholm) and 2 per cent work or live abroad. 13 per cent are technologists.
The engineering profession has been very male dominated in the past. Happily, change is on the way. Now around 30 per cent of engineering students are women, compared with 1-2 per cent in the 1950s.

L'AcadÈmie Royale des Sciences de l'ingÈnieur

Le projet CONNECT

CONNECT a pour but d'établir un lien entre netrepreneurs et ressources nécessaires pouir développer des entreprises à haut taux de croissance.
CONNECT brings together entrepreneurs, investors, inventors, scientists, service providers, large corporations, policy-makers and economic development agencies to bridge the knowledge gap which exists between the different communities.
The CONNECT concept was developed by a group of people from University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the local industry in 1985 to promote regional development by creating a culture of entrepreneurship and supporting high technology business development. UCSD CONNECT is considered an “incubator without walls” and has been extremely successful. During the last 10-12 years over 400 new high-tech companies have been launched through CONNECT and its activities. As a result, more than 100 000 jobs have been created in the region.
CONNECT in Sweden was started in the beginning of 1998 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) which transferred the CONNECT concept from UCSD to Sweden. Today there are five CONNECT networks around the major universities in Sweden:
* CONNECT Stockholm
* CONNECT Väst
* CONNECT Skåne
* CONNECT Uppsala
* CONNECT Norr (Umeå, Luleå and Sundsvall)
CONNECT Sweden is a project within IVA which helps create new regional networks, supports the existing networks in their activities and organizes national activities together with the regional networks. An important task of CONNECT Sweden is to ensure that all CONNECT activities are done with a very high quality.
Each regional network is a non-profit organization financed by membership fees and by fees for the service packages the networks sell to members such as service providers, venture capital firms and industrial companies. Each network has a president and board consisting of high level people from the regional university and the member companies.
CONNECT Sweden is financed by the Foundation for Knowledge and Competence Development and the Swedish Industrial Development Fund. The project board for CONNECT Sweden consists of 1-2 representatives from each regional network, representatives from the interest groups for CONNECT and a representative from IVA.
In order to assist entrepreneurs in creating and developing new high growth companies, various activities are performed by the regional networks and CONNECT Sweden.
Professional people from service providers and large companies participate in these activities in order to “package” the entrepreneurs’ business ideas in the best possible way so that the ideas can be developed into successful high growth companies. Some of these activities are as follows:
* Meet a researcher
* Meet an entrepreneur
* Springboards
* Financial Forums
* Partnership Forums
* Seminars and educational courses
Springboards are considered the “engine” for CONNECT. It is a virtual board meeting geared to help entrepreneurs and early-stage companies finalize strategy, business plans, etc. A panel of experts is invited to each springboard, each member specifically selected in order to best assist the entrepreneur or the company. It could be an evening event for 1.5-2 hours, or a breakfast event. After a presentation by the entrepreneur, the panel members give advice and usher the startup into their network.
Financial Forums and Partnership Forums are conducted in English in order to attract international Venture Capital firms and other companies searching for interesting niche companies to partner with or in which to invest. Taking place 3 to 4 times a year, these national forums present each time about 25-50 new high growth companies which have been “packaged” through various CONNECT activities. All presenting companies undergo a selection and coaching process ensuring effective business strategies, clear and distinct competitive advantages and possibilities to create a value for the investors and/or partners.
CONNECT Sweden, with the help of Swedish expertise, also produces publications explaining various subjects with which entrepreneurs and startups sooner or later are faced during their development. The following publications have so far been published in Swedish:
* Writing a Winning Business Plan
* Starting and Running a High Growth Company
* Financing a High Growth Company
* Compensating and Motivating Employees in a High Growth Company
* Composing the Board for a High Growth Company
* Building Growth Companies through People
Klick on the titel for download of an English version (Pdf-file)
* Legal Issues for High Growth Companies
* From Seed Capital to the Stock Market – how you as an entrepreneur work with investors
These publications can be downloaded from CONNECT’s website or bought for a nominal fee from the regional networks or CONNECT Sweden.
Since the first Financial Forum in December 1998 more than 325 high growth startups in Sweden have been “packaged” through various CONNECT activities like Springboards, Financial Forums and a Biomedical Partnership Forum. Today more than 600 professional business people participate voluntarily in CONNECT activities in order to assist the startups in the best possible way.
For more information, please contact:
Örjan Isacson, Project Director,
phone +46-8-791 29 03, e-mail: oei@iva.se