Karlstad University
The Service Research Center (CTF) at Karlstad University is a leading research institution focused on service innovation and development. With funding from Afa Insurance, CTF initiated a project to study how digitalisation impacts stress and work environments within municipal operations.
The collaboration between Swedwise and Karlstad University began through an established relationship and a shared understanding of the project’s technical demands. The university sought a partner with deep expertise in real-time data processing and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication. Swedwise was awarded the assignment thanks to its ability to offer relevant solutions tailored to the research needs.
Challenge
The goal of the project was to understand how digitalisation influences work-related stress. To achieve this, the research focused on electrodermal activity (EDA) – a biometric marker of stress captured through subtle skin conductivity changes caused by micro-sweating.
Although the university had already acquired wristbands equipped with EDA sensors, they lacked an integrated system to collect, store, and analyse the data securely and anonymously.
Specifically, they required:
• A mobile application to communicate with the EDA wristbands
• A secure cloud-based data storage solution
• A classification algorithm to detect stress episodes
• A web application to visualise and export data in formats familiar to the research team
Solution
To ensure long-term usability and flexibility, Swedwise proposed a cross-platform framework for the mobile application. This provided the research team with future-proof options for further development.
Swedwise delivered:
• A mobile app that connects with the wristbands via BLE
• An API and cloud database for secure, anonymised data storage
• A web application to visualise data and enable export to research tools
• A machine learning-based classification system to detect stress episodes in the recorded data
Swedwise also included the training procedure for the algorithms, enabling researchers to refine and evolve the detection models independently in future studies.
Result
The technical solution remains actively used in ongoing research and has already been applied in multiple additional studies. The ability to quantify and evaluate stress responses in real time continues to generate valuable insights for both academic and commercial stakeholders. Afa Insurance, the project’s funder, was highly satisfied with the research results and outcomes.
The project was nominated for the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) 100 List in 2024, which features research with strong potential to benefit society through commercialisation or methodological development. It was also presented at IVA’s Research 2 Business (R2B) Summit in January 2025.
Since its inception, the project has evolved from its original name, KomDig, to the SWEA Toolbox (Stress-Work-Emotion Algorithm). Learn more at the official project website.