Fri Tanke has established itself as the leading forum for scientific, philosophical, social and existential ideas. Our aim is to promote ideals of the Enlightenment: reason, science and human rights. 

In the company of the world’s greatest thinkers and speakers we initiate the debate on the most pressing issues of our time through book publishing and public events. 

During the past years we’ve facilitated conversations with Steven Pinker, Michael Pollan and Jane Goodall to name a few. We always film our events to make them accessible to a wider audience. Most of them are broadcasted by the Swedish equivalent to the BBC. On our YouTube-channel you’ll find the best of our events in English.

Fri Tanke was founded in 2007 with the ambition to translate high quality popular science titles to Swedish and make them accessible for a wide audience. The founders were Christer Sturmark, author & publisher, and Björn Ulvaeus, musician and former member of ABBA. 

Fri Tanke maintains a close cooperation with the The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, responsible for the Nobel Prizes in physics and in chemistry, the Bank of Sweden’s economics prize in Alfred Nobel’s memory, and a number of other major awards. The collaboration stretches ten years back and is chiefly manifested in the numerous lectures and events that Fri Tanke and The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences organize together throughout the calendar year, as well as an ongoing scientific classics publication project.