The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra) plays a part in meeting the challenges of environment, human use of natural resources and the impact by humans on the surroundings by investing in the kind of research that helps to bring about sustainable development of society. This is done by investing in various initiatives in which researchers and users make joint contributions to solving key environmental problems. Every year, Mistra invests a sum of around SEK 200 million in various research initiatives to build bridges among academic disciplines, as well as between research, on the one hand, and companies, public agencies and other stakeholders on the other. Mistra is a research funder that monitors its own contributions to ensure that they are conferring benefits on society in the form of a good living environment, and that various users are developing new products, services and working methods to meet the environmental challenges facing us.