On June 13, 2017, Minister Wan Gang met in Beijing with Ms. Helene Hellmark Knutsson, Swedish Minister for Higher Education and Research. The two sides held in-depth exchanges on strengthening bilateral collaboration in science, technology and innovation (STI) and reached a number of consensus.
   
Minister Wan thanked Minister Knutsson for her visit and introduced China’s implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy, the STI development and the 8th Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) and the 2nd Mission Innovation (MI) Ministerial. The two sides also talked about collaboration in healthcare, climate change and clean energy and the implementation of nationwide innovation and entrepreneurship in China. Wan said that the two sides need to further leverage the role of the China-Sweden Joint Committee Meeting on Cooperation in Science and Technology (JCM), enhance support for joint research, innovate in cooperation modalities, and encourage students and researchers to undertake exchanges and collaboration in innovation and entrepreneurship. 
   
Minister Knutsson spoke highly of China’s achievements in STI and the efforts to implement the Paris Agreement. She was deeply impressed by China’s national drive of innovation and entrepreneurship. She introduced the innovation policies in Sweden’s ongoing initiative of Collaborating for Knowledge and hoped that Sweden can continue to expand collaboration with China and push forward joint endeavors in science and technology between research institutions and enterprises of the two sides. 

The ministers also discussed about the 4th China-Sweden JCM among other topics.