Finland’s world renowned, 12 billion Euro annual innovation system owes its success to the researchers and other professionals working in Finland as well as to strong public support and collaboration between private, public and academic organisations. R&D-intensive companies from around the world are already taking advantage of Finland’s and Helsinki’s unique position.
The Finnish innovation system is an entity consisting of the producers and users of new information, knowledge and know-how, and of the different ways these actors interact locally or internationally. The core elements of the system are education, research, product development and knowledge-intensive business and industry.
The Finnish innovation system has four levels.
- The highest level of decision-making consists of the Parliament and of the Government. The Government is advised by the Research and Innovation Council (RIC), which is chaired by the prime minister. RIC is responsible for developing the innovation system and related strategic policies.
- Especially the key ministries, the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, form the second decision-making level of the system. In addition, the Advisory Board for Sectoral Research steers and coordinates the sectoral research of public research institutes.
- The third level consists of the public funding organizations. Academy of Finland is responsible for the funding of basic research while Tekes – The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation – is in charge of providing research and development funding mainly for companies, but also for research organizations. However, the third actor Sitra – The Finnish Innovation Fund develops the Finnish society through corporate funding, investments to venture capital funds and launching development programmes.
- The actual, research, development and innovation work is done at the fourth level by public and private enterprises and organizations.
