National consortium for digital infrastructure
In autumn 2025, a new national consortium was formed as a voice for higher education institutions’ digital infrastructures in Sweden. The picture shows network installations. Photo: Getty Images.
The Higher Education Institutions Digital Infrastructure Organisation (UniDig) is a new consortium of higher education institutions to provide a stronger voice for their digital infrastructure. The consortium includes 38 higher education institutions.
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Måns Östring, IT Director. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt, Uppsala University.
UniDig (Universitet och högskolors organisation för digital infrastruktur) was founded in autumn 2025 with the aim of strengthening and streamlining the shared digital capabilities of Sweden’s higher education institutions. The purpose of cooperation at the national level for digital infrastructure is to strengthen the collective voice of higher education institutions and ensure long-term and effective management of digital services.
The background to its formation is that Swedish higher education institutions have experienced a growing need for better coordination of digitalisation matters, uniform governance of digital services, a stronger voice in relation to public sector and international actors, and a more efficient use of resources and licenses.
The consortium’s focus on national digital development is intended to ultimately lead to more rapid development of digital services for research, education and administration, as well as strengthening security and international cooperation.
“It’s good to have a national organisation that we, as higher education institutions, control. This will improve the conditions for finding national solutions in the area of digitalisation. But we also need to be patient because it will take time before a fledgling national organisation will be able to deliver tangible benefits to our higher education institutions,” says Måns Östring, IT Director at Uppsala University.
Establishment phase
Just before Christmas 2025, the consortium’s Board held its first meeting. Mauritz Danielsson, who is the CEO of the Ladok consortium, has been appointed acting CEO of UniDig during 2026.
Because it is a recently started consortium, a lot of work will initially involve establishing working methods and collaborations with other higher education institutions and government agencies. Here, Uppsala University will be involved in several of the joint processes.
“As a higher education institution, it’s important that we are involved in the formation of the organisation so that the structure and working methods established will dovetail with Uppsala University’s processes and working methods,” says Måns Östring.
Martin Löf Nyqvis
Facts about UniDig
The Higher Education Institutions Digital Infrastructure Organisation (UniDig) aims to work towards:
- ensuring that higher education institutions have control over their e-infrastructure
- quality in research and higher education through access to a range of suitable e-infrastructure
- giving the higher education institutions access to a basic range of e-infrastructures and, if necessary, additions to these
- increasing the capacity of the higher education institutions to jointly identify, set requirements on, and order e-infrastructures that meet the needs of the higher education institutions
- bringing together the voice of the sector in national and international contexts regarding e-infrastructure
- more efficient utilisation of resources and an assured supply of skills.
For 2026, the following proposed priority areas for UniDig have been presented:
- Identify and prioritise the needs for digitalised services. The development of digitalised services that is currently unfolding in the sector lacks any overall governance and joint prioritisation of resources. The goal is joint prioritisation of the investments made in new services.
- A collective voice for the sector nationally in relation to public actors. UniDig aims to be the sector’s collective voice in relation to public actors so that higher education institutions can draw up a joint prioritisation plan for the development of digitalised services.
- License management. Joint procurement and management of IT licenses for the sector can lead to significant cost savings.