On Tuesday 7 June FOI invited interested parties to an exhibition focusing of knowledge and competency – “For Safety’s Sake”. The aim was to highlight the authority’s breadth of competence and to give the Swedish Government Offices and the Riksdag an opportunity to mingle and make contacts with one another and with FOI.

“A very enjoyable event at which one, as a visitor, was warmly received and made to feel very welcome by all the staff at FOI. It was also a very pleasant way to get “mini-lectures” on topics of interest in quick succession,” says Martin Brothén from the parliamentary foreign affairs committee in summarising the event. Many of those invited were favourably surprised by the breadth of FOI’s competency and activities.

“Are you really involved in all this? I thought that FOI worked solely for the Swedish Armed Forces. What a lot of things you can do!” was one of the comments. FOI had taken two floors on the Tuesday afternoon at Operaterrassen. On the upper floor, with magnificent views towards Kungsträdgården park, there were video presentations about the research work and the substantive support offered by FOI in the field of safety and security. These illustrated the huge range of activities and the variety of customers – including for example Stockholm City, many Swedish authorities, the Government and the EU as well as the UN and the Swedish Armed Forces.

Through the presentations and the experts from FOI who were present, the participants learned of FOI’s work in such fields as environmental and health risk assessment, infrastructure security, disarmament and other security matters, the problems posed by hazardous substances, IT security, environmental analyses, evaluation and exercises as well as risk and vulnerability analyses and much more besides.

After a chance to mingle, a question and answer session and a light buffet lunch, the parallel mini-seminars started to wind down. On each hour and half-hour, two different seminars were hosted by FOI scientists. The subjects represented a small selection of FOI’s areas of expertise. Maritime piracy, EU crisis management, the threats and opportunities entailed in adaptation to climate change, and security aspects of Russia’s military capability were just some of the topics covered. All the seminars were very well attended even though the EU, piracy and climate change attracted the largest audiences.