In April, CISB promoted a course that brought important names related to the Swedish aeronautics sector so that they could present their experience in identifying future scenarios and developing technology for the Defence area to the Brazilian Armed Forces and Embraer.

Identifying future scenarios within the Air Defence segment and analysing what is being done to serve them is a strategic work for the national sovereignty of any country. Sweden has been conducting courses in which the Armed Forces, Swedish Defence University and Saab have been reviewing and developing their collaboration to perfect this process.

The CISB took the opportunity and adapted this course to the Brazilian reality, giving continuity to other previously performed Innovation Management activities that were offered to the country’s defence sector. The result was the Executive Course in Scenarios & Technology Forecasting, which took place between April 16 and 19, in São José dos Campos (São Paulo).

The event brought together representatives of the Armed Forces, the Brazilian Defence Ministry and Embraer with people representing the Armed Forces of Sweden and Saab. The objective was to provide Brazilians with information about the role of a long-term planning process and how future scenarios are constructed to support this planning.

During the four days, there were lectures, presentations and group exercises during which participants practiced the application of methods and models. “We have shown the Swedish way of working with scenarios and forecasting technology in a triple helix environment, which has resulted in a very strong innovative development,” says retired Colonel Mats Olofsson with a background in the Swedish Armed Forces and one of the event’s speakers.

For Knut Övrebö, Chief Engineer in the Saab Future Air Systems area and who also spoke during the course, bringing together Armed Forces and Industry (in this case, Embraer) was important for the complementarity of knowledge, since both sides have experience in different areas. Övrebö highlights another benefit of the course: the beginning of a network among Brazilian participants. According to him, the action will allow Embraer engineers and Air Force engineers to “get to know each other and know how both can rely on expertise in future work.”

The learning process should not stop there. Olofsson says the goal is to continue and expand the collaboration between Brazil and Sweden in the aeronautical sector. He projects the creation of projects on low TRL (Technology Readiness Level), mainly in research between universities, and on high TRL, with demonstrators and the industry as main actors. Mats Olofsson added that INNOVAIR, Sweden’s national strategic innovation programme for aeronautics, and Saab “are prepared to support CISB with more courses of the same kind, as well as a follow-up course that could go a bit deeper into the scenarios and technological challenges of the future”.