Johan Linåker

Senior Researcher at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Lund University

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General bio and research philosophy | Top

Johan is a Senior Researcher at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Lund University, working at the intersection of empirical software engineering, open technologies, and digital sovereignty. His work focuses on how public- and private-sector organisations can use, develop, and govern open source software, open and shared data, and open standards to strengthen interoperability, reduce lock-in, and enable sustainable digital transformation.

Johan currently leads and supports European and national initiatives on open source adoption in the public sector, including coordination of research efforts of the UN Open Source Enablement Compass project, and the EU-funded OSAwards.eu project, as well as facilitation of networks around open technologies in Swedish industry and government, including NOSAD and the Swedish OSPO network. Johan regularly conducts reports and studies commissioned by various entities, including the European Commission, the Danish Agency for Digital Government, and the Eclipse Foundation, and collaborates across projects with several large international industry and government organisations on urgent matters related to open technologies. Johan also advises on governance models, procurement, and cybersecurity for public digital infrastructure and open technologies across different levels of government, with open strategic autonomy and governments’ capacity to shape their own digital future as a unifying theme.

Previously, Johan has worked as an action researcher at the Swedish Public Employment Service, served as Open Source Strategist at Axis Communications, and founded OpenHack – Coding for Humanity, a social initiative promoting open source solutions for the UN Sustainable Development Goals, now part of Engineers Without Borders Sweden. Johan enjoys collaborating with policymakers, practitioners, and researchers to turn research insights into practical strategies, guidelines, and communities around open and sustainable digital ecosystems.

His research often addresses the human and social aspects of software engineering, as the development of open technologies is, by design, a collaborative and social effort. This implies several challenges from a socio-technical perspective, often requiring a qualitative or mixed-method approach to investigate. His goal, however, goes beyond problem understanding and is focused on developing knowledge and designing artefacts that can help to address the problem at hand in a real-world context. An iterative process Johan prefers to do in collaboration with the actors present in the problem context.

Main research questions | Top

Areas Johan is currently investigating include:
  • how public sector can use, develop, and collaborate on Open Source Software in a sustainable manner.
  • how public and private actors can share and collaborate on (open) data and related boundary resources in the context Open Data Ecosystems.
  • how public and private actors can analyse the health of an Open Source Software project, and thereby make appropriate sourcing decisions or proactive health measures.
  • how and when open technologies can be considered as digital commons, and how their sustainability may be informed by the theory of the commons.
  • how public actors can apply and collaborate on procurement activities to enable an open and agile development of systems and software.

Ongoing projects | Top

  • UN Open Source Enablement Compass (OSEC), 2026–2028.
    • Funded by project partners, including GitHub and the Ethereum Foundation.
    • Johan is a project member and research lead contributing to the development of the Open Source Enablement Compass, a practical framework supporting national governments in assessing and strengthening their capabilities to adopt, govern, contribute to, and sustainably collaborate on Open Source Software. Johan leads research and analysis activities related to open source governance, organisational capabilities, and enablement strategies, drawing on experience from public-sector and OSPO initiatives across Europe.
    • Consortium: United Nations (Lead), RISE (SE).
  • OSAwards.EU – Public Recognition of Open Source, 2024-2027.
    • Funded by EU Horizon program.
    • Johan initiated the application and consortium building, and was the main coordinator and author of the application. Johan now leads the project as the main project coordinator, as well as principal investigator and task leader for three research-focused tasks within the project focused on OSS adoption, sustainability, and impact.
    • Consortium: RISE (SE/Coordinator), OpenForum Europe (BE), Fraunhofer Society (DE), Barcelona Supercomputing Center (ES), Tecnalia (ES), APELL (BE), Trust IT Services (IT).
  • Publicly Driven Data Sharing and Collaboration for More Efficient Freight Transports, 2023-2027.
    • Funded by Swedish Transport Administration.
    • Johan initiated and wrote the application, with the support of Prof. Dr. Per Runeson. Johan is Co-Principal Investigator and Co-supervisor for John Larsson, PhD. Student funded by the project, actively participating in the research conducted.
    • Consortium: Lund University (SE/Coordinator), RISE (SE), Helsingborg Municipality (SE), Södertörn municipalities (SE), Predictive Movement Innovation project (SE), Closer (SE).
  • B2B Data Sharing for Industry 4.0 Machine Learning, 2021-2027.
    • Funded by the ELIIT Research program.
    • Johan is a project member and co-supervisor for Konstantin Malysh, PhD. Student funded by the project. Prof. Dr. Per Runeson is the Principal Investigator.
    • Consortium: Lund University (SE/Coordinator), Linköping University (SE).

Ended projects | Top

  • Study on a national public sector support structure/OSPO for Open Source Software in Denmark, 2026.
    • Funded by the Danish Agency for Digital Government.
    • Johan was the principal investigator on the study.
    • Consortium: RISE (SE).
  • Continuous Experimentation with Limited User Data, 2022-2026.
    • Funded by WASP - Wallenberg Autonomous Systems Project.
    • Johan was a project member driving research on Continuous Experimentation in the context of game development, and a collaborator on broader research concerning Continuous Experimentation with limited user data, together with researchers from Aalto University. Dr. Elizabeth Bjarnason was the Principal Investigator.
    • Consortium: Lund University (SE/Coordinator), Aalto University (FI).
  • Study on Adoption and Collaboration on Open Source Software in Local Governments, 2024-2025.
    • Funded by DIGIT, European Commission.
    • Johan was the principal investigator of the study and supervised two external resources from OpenForum Europe and Wavestone, respectively.
    • Consortium: RISE (SE), OpenForum Europe (BE), Wavestone (FR).
  • NexusForum.EU – Open Source for the Cloud-computing continuum, 2024-2026.
    • Funded by the EU Horizon program.
    • Johan initiated the application and consortium building, and was one of the main authors of the application. Johan leads a research-focused task on how OSS can enable digital sovereignty.
    • Consortium: RISE (SE/Coordinator), OpenNebula (ES), Tecnalia (ES), Martel Innovate (CH), F6S (IE), Meiji University (JP), Yonsei University (KR).
  • Study on Software reuse through Open Source Software in the Public sector, 2023.
    • Funded by the Danish Agency for Digital Government.
    • Johan was the principal investigator on the study and collaborated with Dr. Sachiko Muto, also from RISE.
    • Consortium: RISE (SE).
  • Study on Public Sector Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs), 2023.
    • Funded by DIGIT, European Commission.
    • Johan was the principal investigator on the study and supervised two external resources from OpenForum Europe.
    • Consortium: RISE (SE), OpenForum Europe (BE).
  • Study on Open Source Software in the Automotive Industry, 2023.
    • Funded by Eclipse Software Foundation.
    • Johan was the principal investigator on the study and collaborated with Astor Nummelin-Carlberg from OpenForum Europe.
    • Consortium: RISE (SE), OpenForum Europe (BE).
  • Health and Security Management for Open Source Software, 2021-2023.
    • Funded by Swedish Innovation Agency (Vinnova).
    • Johan initiated the application and consortium building, and was the main coordinator and author of the application. Johan was the principal investigator collaborating with Dr. Thomas Olsson and Dr. Efi Papatheocharous from RISE, and with representatives from the industry partners.
    • Consortium: RISE (SE/Coordinator), Scania Trucks (SE), Debricked (SE), Addalot Consulting (SE).
  • Government Assignment on Data-sharing in the context of Lifelong Learning, 2021-2022.
    • Funded by the Swedish Public Employment Service.
    • A continuation of Johan's postdoctoral project. Johan was the principal investigator for the project supporting a set of national public sector organizations in establishing a joint data ecosystem.
    • Consortium: RISE (SE/Coordinator), Swedish Public Employment Service.
  • JobTech Dev Research Project, 2019-2021.
    • Funded by the Swedish Public Employment Service.
    • Johan drafted and enabled the project through personal contacts and negotiations with the Employment Service. Johan was the prinicpal investigator for the project, driving research and collaboration with the employment service under the mentorship of Prof. Dr. Per Runeson.
    • Lund University (SE/Coordinator), Swedish Public Employment Service.

Supervision in third cycle studies | Top

  • Assistant supervisor for: Konstantin Malysh, 2022-2026, PhD. Student, Lund University Faculty of Engineering, "Tool support for data sharing and management in data ecosystem", Principal supervisor: Prof. Dr. Per Runeson.
  • Assistant supervisor for: John Larsson, 2023-2027, PhD. Student, Lund University Faculty of Engineering, "Publicly Driven Data Sharing and Collaboration for More Efficient Freight Transports", Principal supervisor: Prof. Dr. Per Runeson.

Education | Top

  • April 2014 – Sept 2019
    • Ph.D. in Software Engineering
    • "Guiding Development of Contribution and Community Strategies in Open Source Software Requirements Engineering".
    • Department of Computer Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
  • Sept 2008 – Aug 2012
    • MSc. in Industrial Engineering and Management.
    • Specialization in Software Engineering.
    • Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

Appointments | Top

  • Aug 2021 – Senior Researcher, RISE – Research Institutes of Sweden AB, Lund, Sweden.
    • Research and support on adoption and collaboration on Open Source Software and Data in the public sector.
    • Main project coordinator and research lead for OSAwards.EU, a 2M Euro EU Horizon CSA project.
    • Research on digital sovereignty and sustainability of Open Source Software.
    • Facilitation of two national networks focused on Open Source Software and Data in Swedish Industry and Public Sector.
  • Jan 2025 - Adjunct Assistant Professor (part-time.)
  • Nov 2023 – Dec 2024 - Senior Researcher (part-time.)
  • Jan 2022 – Oct 2023 – Affiliated Researcher, Department of Computer Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
    • Co-supervision of two PhD. students.
    • Research on Continuous Experimentation in Game Development.
    • Guest lectures in MSc. courses on Requirements Engineering and Business of Software.
    • Lecturing and course development in PhD student courses.
  • Oct 2019 – Aug 2021 – Open Source Strategist, Axis Communications, Lund, Sweden.
    • Supported and developed the OSS strategy and operations concerning consumption, compliance and development.
  • Oct 2019 – Dec 2021 – Postdoc, Department of Computer Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
    • Researched how public sector organisations can create and orchestrate Open Government Data ecosystems.
    • Supported the Swedish Public Employment Service in process and strategy development, and digital transformation.
    • Guest lectures in MSc. courses on Requirements Engineering and Business of Software.
  • Sept-Nov 2016, Sept 2017 – Visiting Researcher, Department of Computer Science, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada.
    • Collaborative research on stakeholder engagement in the Requirements Engineering processes of Open Source Software projects.
  • Apr 2014 – Sept 2019 – Ph.D. Student, Department of Computer Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
    • Researched how organisations can share and collaborate on Open Source Software based on business goals.
    • Lecturing, course development and teaching assistant in MSc. courses related to Requirements Engineering, Business of Software, Development methodologies, and Scientific methods.
  • Jan 2015 – 2020 - Founder and Board member, OpenHack – Coding for humanity, Stockholm, Sweden.
    • Founded a social startup focused on facilitating Open Source Software development addressing SDGs.
  • Sept 2012 – Apr 2014 – Software Developer, IKEA IT, Helsingborg, Sweden.
    • Developed intergations between internal systems and a third-party Point-of-Sales system.