Research

Sections

• Research scope and philosophy
• Main research questions
• Ongoing projects
• Ended projects
• Supervision in third cycle studies
• Education
• Appointments

Research scope and philosophy | Top

My research interests include empirical software engineering in the context of open technologies. Open technologies refer to technology-related artifacts that is shared, reused and collaboratively developed between its users and stakeholders. Here, I’m specifically interested in how actors in public and private sector can use, develop, and collaborate on Open Source Software, Open and shared data, and Open Standards to enable and promote interoperability, technological independence, and open innovation.

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

Main research questions | Top

Areas I'm 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 analyze the health of an Open Source Software project, and thereby make appropriate sourcing decision or proactive health measures.
• how and when open technologies can considered as digital commons, and how their sustainability may be informed by 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

• 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-foscused 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).
• NexusForum.EU – Open Source for the Cloud-computing continuum, 2024-2026.
  • Funded by 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 Adoption and Collaboration on Open Source Software in Local Governments, 2024-2025.
  • Funded by by DIGIT, European Commission.
  • Johan is the principal investigator of the study and supervising two external resources from OpenForum Europe and Wavestone respectively.
  • Consortium: RISE (SE), OpenForum Europe (BE), Wavestone (FR).
• 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 partiking in the research conducted.
  • Consortium: Lund University (SE/Coordinator), RISE (SE), Helsingborg Municipality (SE), Södertörn municipalities (SE), Predctive Movement Innovation project (SE), Closer (SE).
• Continuous Experimentation with Limited User Data, 2022-2024.
  • Funded by WASP - Wallenberg Autonomous Systems Project.
  • Johan is project member driving research on Continuous Experimentation in the context of game development, and collaborator on broader research concerning Continuous Experimentation with limited user data together with researchers from Aalto university. Dr. Elizabeth Bjarnason is the Principal Investigator.
  • Consortium: Lund University (SE/Coordinator), Aalto University (FI).
• B2B Data Sharing for Industry 4.0 Machine Learning, 2021-2025.
  • Funded by the ELIIT Research program.
  • Johan is 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 Software reuse through Open Source Software in the Public sector, 2023.
  • Funded by 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 Life-long Learning, 2021-2022.
  • Funded by Swedish Public Employment Service.
  • A continuation of Johans 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 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.
  • Research and design of Governance structure for the European mobility data space (EMDS).

• Oct 2019 – Aug 2021 – Open Source Strategist, Axis Communications, Lund, Sweden.
  • Supported and developed the OSS strategy and operations concerning consumption, compliance and development.

• Nov 2023 – 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 – Dec 2021 – Postdoc, Department of Computer Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
  • Researched how public sector organizations can create and orchestrate Open Government Data ecosystems.
  • Supported 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 organizations can share and collaborate on Open Source Software based on business goals.
  • Lecturing, course development and teaching assistant in MSc. courses on 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 new Point-of-Sales third party system.