Why Finland is the hottest spot in Europe for health and wellness innovation?
Finland is flexible, innovative and cooler than you think. Within Europe we
have a very promising future for R&D and business in health and wellbeing
sector. The Finnish innovation system is internationally recognized as one of
the world’s most developed ecosystems. That’s a pretty good starting point.
However this is not enough for us in Finland. We have set a clear goal in our
National Health Sector Growth Strategy – we want to become a leader and a
pioneer in everything that has to do with research, innovation, investments
and business in the field of health and well-being. Both public and the
private sector have committed strongly for the cause.
The most recent statistics show that healthtech has become the largest hitech sector in the sophisticated Finnish market. We are an ideal location for genomics research and development. We are strongly on our way to become the hotspot of healthIT and personalized-medicine in the world largest single market – Europe and the European Union. This would be a good addition to the world class sectors like life-science, ICT, let alone biobanks and mobile games that Finland is already so well known for.
We want to make Finland the best possible environment for companies to succeed
We offer an easy operating environment for businesses, minimal bureaucracy and stable as well as competitive economy. For example the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report in 2014-2015 has ranked Finland as the fourth most
competitive nation in the world. The strengths of Finland are innovation and higher education and training – both areas where Finland ranked number one in the study.
Finns love statistics and rankings. Maybe because we do so well in them. Nordic Growth Entrepreneurship Review in 2012 pointed out that Finnish environment for entrepreneurship is the best out of Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark – a very competitive market as a whole. Within the European Union Finland has been recognized as an innovation leader by the Innovation Union Scoreboard 2013.
Add the fact that our educational system constantly ranks on top ranks in the PISA test that measures the level of primary education and that Finland is the best country to be a mother – we remain friends of numbers.
I wish sincerely that your cooperation will be mutually beneficial and profitable. I wish you all the best!
Lenita Toivakka, Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade of Finland
Get to know the 31 Finnish companies at Health 2.0: sitra.fi/Health-USA-201
