Swedish Marine Technology Forum proposed to become a network within the governmental research institute RISE. A decision will be taken at the annual meeting later this spring.

SMTF, would remain a member-based network and activities will continue to be based on members' needs and interests. SMTF will retain its logo and webpage, but RISE will act as hosting organisation and legal entity. STMF's personnel receive their employments placed with RISE.

The reason for the change is that SMTF has it difficult to develop its business in its present form. CEO Karina Linnér writes:

"We have generous funding from the public sector, but unfortunately this is not enough. We do not see how we can continue to develop SMTF in its current form and we do not want to raise the membership fee. Since some years, we have been thinking about interacting with a larger organisation in some form, with someone whose activities complements ours and with whom we can share and coordinate resources. We have discussed this with a few different organisations and we have found one that in my opinion fits SMTF perfectly, namely RISE "

- The staff that comes with the SMTF has a terrific background, and could use their skills more instead of having to deal with tasks that are a bit off, says Kerstin Hindrum of RISE.

- The point is that we can leverage our strengths and functions in a better way but at the same time maintain this membership structure. I think we can make this into something truly innovative, Kerstin Hindrum continues.

Learn more at SMTF .