Advancing Public Sector Innovation Together with Ukraine

Sweden-Ukraine GovTech Alliance for Resilience and Rebuildning (SUGARR) is a six-month Ukrainian-Swedish cooperation project focused on municipal innovation governance and the role startups can play in addressing public sector challenges. The project is funded by the Swedish Institute through the Ukraine Cooperation Programme 2026.

“The Swedish Institute funds collaboration between Swedish and Ukrainian organizations and individuals. Through on-the-ground projects and educational initiatives, we contribute to Ukraine’s reconstruction and closer integration with the European Union, while also strengthening resilience in both Ukraine and Sweden,” says Madeleine Sjöstedt, Director-General of the Swedish Institute..

At the heart of the initiative is a shared ambition: to lay the foundations for long-term Ukrainian-Swedish cooperation on public sector innovation. By combining the strengths and experience of both innovation ecosystems, the partners will explore how structured startup collaboration can contribute to more resilient, transparent and effective public sector innovation in Ukraine, while supporting the country’s reconstruction and continued alignment with the European Union.

“In Sweden, startup collaboration is a proven driver of innovation in municipalities and the wider public sector. Together with our partners, we want to develop a shared Ukrainian-Swedish model for faster, more effective public sector innovation,” says Vanessa Ware, Head of Public and System Innovation at Ignite Nordic.

From Mapping to a Long-Term Cooperation Model

Starting this September and running through February 28, 2027, the project serves as a preparation phase for a potential long-term cooperation between Sweden and Ukraine.

The work starts with UNIT.City mapping Ukraine’s innovation ecosystem and examining how municipalities and startups currently interact. This includes gathering perspectives from Ukrainian tech companies as well as public sector actors to identify barriers and opportunities related to startup collaboration, pilot processes and innovation procurement.

The Ukrainian and Swedish partners will then benchmark these findings against Swedish practices. A study visit to Sweden hosted by SISP – Swedish Incubators & Science Parks will bring Ukrainian actors together with Swedish incubators, science parks and municipal innovation environments, followed by bilateral workshops facilitated by Ignite Nordic.

The partners will use the findings to jointly develop an analytical report, a draft cooperation framework for municipal innovation and a roadmap for a potential full-scale Ukrainian-Swedish collaboration. The goal is to build the evidence, relationships and structures needed to test and scale the model in a future project.

Learning From Each Other

The partnership is built around mutual learning. Sweden has extensive experience with structured innovation support, incubation, public sector collaboration and mechanisms for engaging startups around concrete public needs, while Ukraine has implemented numerous GovTech programs and demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to innovate rapidly and adapt under highly challenging conditions.

“By combining Swedish public sector experience of systematically using startup collaboration as an innovation method within established policy and regulatory frameworks with Ukrainian government experience of rapid adaptation under extreme conditions, we can jointly learn, test and develop more resilient and effective approaches to public sector innovation,” says Vanessa.

For both countries, the project creates an opportunity to examine what works, what can be transferred and what needs to be adapted to different institutional realities.

“Ukraine’s innovation ecosystem has proven it can operate under conditions no one designed it for. What we want to develop further is the institutional layer that turns that capacity into systematic cooperation between municipalities and startups. Reconstruction makes this urgent: every rebuilt service, network and public system is a decision about how our regions will operate in the future,” says Diana Maslianchuk, International Partnerships Manager, UNIT.City.

“This project gives us the chance to study how Sweden structures that relationship, which parts are transferable and which are not. We expect to develop a realistic framework and to learn good practices that can be applied in Ukraine.”

For Sweden, the collaboration also provides an opportunity to learn from Ukrainian approaches to innovation, resilience and rapid implementation.

“In troubled times, fast and smart innovation becomes even more important, especially for government agencies. We are very happy to be able to take part in a project where Sweden, as an innovation powerhouse, can learn from, support and co-develop with an ally like Ukraine, which has shown excellent flexibility and speed in times of hardship,” says Jonas Michanek, VP Incubation at Swedish Incubators & Science Parks (SISP).

Public Sector Innovation as a Tool for Resilience

For Ukraine, strengthening the mechanisms through which municipalities can work with innovative companies has implications far beyond individual innovation projects.

“The public sector is where innovation either improves people’s lives or stops. A city procures transport, heating, healthcare access, digital services — decisions that shape daily life for thousands of people. Ukraine has already shown what happens when the state innovates seriously: our digital public services keep running through blackouts and massive attacks. Public sector innovation is not a modernization project. For us, it is a question of resilience,” says Diana Maslianchuk.

“We look forward to learning from Ukraine while bringing the Ignite Nordic model and years of experience in turning public sector challenges into concrete collaborations with startups. By combining our different experiences, we can build something that is relevant to both Ukraine and Sweden’s context and valuable beyond this project,” concludes Vanessa Ware.