2026-2028
6G-FiSRE – Towards Resilient 6G Networks – A Finnish-Swedish Joint Undertaking
Resilient digital infrastructure has become a strategic necessity. Modern societies depend heavily on connectivity, yet communication networks remain vulnerable to cyberattacks, infrastructure failures, and crises. Rather than treating resilience as an add-on after the fact, we need “resilient-by-design” technologies that maintain continuity of critical services under adverse conditions. The same resilience that keeps civilian critical services running under stress is inherently dual-use, strengthening continuity in security- and defence-related operations.
6G-FiSRE was launched in June 2026 as a Finnish-Swedish joint 6G resilience programme, led by the University of Oulu in Finland and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, to advance Europe’s technological sovereignty and societal security. With a total budget of nearly €4.3 million with funding from Sweden’s Vinnova and Finland’s Business Finland, the programme unites leading academic, industrial, and public-sector partners to develop next-generation communication systems that operate reliably under increasingly complex and uncertain conditions.
The collaboration builds on deep Nordic expertise and a long history of cooperation among the region’s wireless communications leaders. The consortium includes Aalto University, Chalmers University of Technology, Luleå University of Technology, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Nokia, Ericsson, Bittium, Combient and Saab. The programme places particular emphasis on dual-use capabilities, designing 6G systems that serve civilian needs and security-related applications alike while influencing international technology development.
Finland and Sweden seek to make future communication networks more capable, robust, secure, and trusted through this programme—an essential foundation for stable societies in an increasingly uncertain world.
“Mobile networks have always been built for speed and efficiency, not for surviving a crisis. This programme designs resilience in 6G from the ground up, ensuring critical services remain connected even during cyberattacks and disasters. Finland and Sweden have long been wireless pioneers, innovating in parallel. By joining our research, industry, and testbeds into a single programme, we turn two strong national efforts into a single Nordic force capable of shaping the global 6G standard.” (Professor Hirley Alves, University of Oulu)
“Resilience can’t be bolted onto a network after it is built. It has to be engineered in and, increasingly, made autonomous, with AI that enables networks to sense risk, adapt, and heal themselves in real time. What makes this collaboration different is that it finally brings together Sweden’s and Finland’s wireless strengths: two GSM pioneers moving from parallel efforts to a joint undertaking, with the scale and the shared voice to influence how resilient the world’s future networks will be.” (Professor James Gross, KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
Purpose, goals and approach
6G-FiSRE aims to establish resilience as a fundamental design paradigm for future 6G mobile networks and to demonstrate practical solutions that enable 6G networks to resist, absorb, recover, adapt, and learn from adverse events. The project will explore the critical interplay among resilience, efficiency, and sustainability, ensuring that 6G systems remain robust and trustworthy under stress while remaining economically viable.
6G-FiSRE will deliver resilient-by-design mobile networking from 5G-Advanced to 6G and beyond:
• a Nordic threat/requirements landscape and resilience roadmap,
• AI-driven end-to-end architectures that predict disruption and adapt core/edge/RAN,
• a set of concrete resilience enablers (assurance, self-healing, graceful degradation), and
• a testbed-validated proof-of-concept demonstrating measurable continuity gains and informing standardisation.
6G-FiSRE will combine theoretical analysis, modeling, optimization, and prototyping. A particular feature is the distributed set-up with partners both in Sweden and in Finland, requiring frequent synchronization points for the project as a whole, but also on work package and task level. All work package items consist of collaborative work between at least one Swedish and one Finnish partner.
The programme will initially run for two years, during which research ideas and industrial needs will be developed in close collaboration. The ambition is to lay the groundwork for a larger, long-term investment in resilient 6G networks to shape future global standards.
Project timeline: 2026-2028
Contact person: Roy Nyberg
Funded by: Vinnova and Business Finland
Photo © Anni Kääriä