The Finnish population faces all the challenges of the 21st century, but they have prepared for them proactively. Finland has an aging, decreasing population, but its goal is to reach sustainable wellbeing during this period of globalization and Industry 4.0.
To be able to achieve its vision, the Finnish government uses a mission-ori-ented approach (cf. MazzuCato, 2016). In recent years it has reconsidered and redesigned their goals and strategies to reach its vision. This section is an over-view of these aspirations and their limitations. Some of the key changes have been already done, as noted in previous sections, for example the creation of Business Finland.
In April 2017 the Finnish government presented the ninth Europe 2020 National Reform Programme. It has research and innovation policy related goals,
9 They belong to the Ministry of Employment, but also complete tasks which come from the Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Education and Culture and Ministry of the Interior. (ELY Centres webpage)
Szakos Judit
like improving the quality and effectiveness of research activity, structural and operational public sector research reform, and diversification of the structure of business and industry. Around 10 of the 26 key projects have close links to R&I policy. (saaRnivaaRa – halMe– MitChell, 2018, 12.) In reference to this Programme, the Prime Minister of Finland, Juha Sipilä, predicts a bright future:
“In 2025, Finland is an inventive, caring and safe country where we all can feel important. Our society is based on trust.’” (Finland, a land of solutions, 2018, 7.)
In the Programme’s mid-term review, updated action plan 2017-2019, the government laid out its key project programs. In 2017 the Finnish government started to establish a new technical network-university, the Finnish Institute of Technology in Southwest Finland, and to add extra capitalisation to universities.
As stated earlier, it merged Finpro and Tekes into Business Finland.
The programme’s goals are to encourage experimentation, ecosystem development, and deregulation. Business R&D and funding for strategic applied research remain low, even though many international measurements highlighted these as weaknesses in Finland.
The government has also set priorities to boost growth within sectors: bio-economy, clean and green technologies, healthcare, and digitalisation, which in particular affects all the others. The programme aims to improve domestic col-laboration and international cooperation.
The Research and Innovation Council, as a government body, has set out a new vision and roadmap as well. The Ministry of Education and Culture prepared new guidelines for the internationalisation of higher education and research, and they want to strengthen their quality and relevance too. The guidelines, called
“Vision for higher education and research in 2030” help to reach these goals.
As well as a strong national innovation system, there are “smart regions” in Finland. These regions and cities hope to accomplish smart specialization.10 “The Government’s vision for 2025 is that regions will have generated growth based on high-quality competence and sustainable development, and that smart speciali-sation based on regional strengths, active renewal of business structures, and a better basis for entrepreneurship and business operations have created economic prosperity” with centres of excellence. (saaRnivaaRa – halMe– MitChell, 2018, 27.)
10 Smart specialisation priority areas in Finland: 1. Manufacturing & industry; 2. Key Enabling Technologies; 3. Sustainable innovation; 4. Human health & social work activities; 5. Information &
communication technologies
Smart Specialisation – Strengthening Innovation in Finland
Innovation performance in Finland
Conclusion
This paper explains how the Finnish public administration’s concept of innova-tive collaboration can boost the nation’s economy by facilitating its innovation ecosystem.
Due to the changing nature of innovation, every nation has a growing need for an innovation policy that goes beyond just R&D. The creation of horizontal linkages, network-facilitating policies and clusters has become increasingly important, and the state can act as a facilitator with its mission-driven orientation.
Finland stands as a role model of innovation, as demonstrated in this paper’s overview of international innovation rakings, with special attention to the role of public administration and the linkages between different actors. It is apparent that the organization of the Finnish public sector, together with its public policy of sup-port, is the key element of the country’s success. Finland is a mission-oriented, visionary state and has Triple Helix Model based linkages.
In conclusion, the following points can be made: (1) Finland’s performance in many sectors is one of the best in the world, based on international innova-tion rankings. (2) Innovainnova-tion-supportive public administrainnova-tion has been under a continual reform process since 2017 to make the Finnish innovation system even more cooperative by strengthening its horizontal and vertical network-based nature. (3) As reflected in the previous point, the vision of the state is apparent in public policy. Strategies and government action plans emphasize the role of pub-lic administration in promoting innovation and creating a mission-oriented state.
(4) In Finnish networks all the actors fit into the Helix models.
This paper demonstrates how Finland’s public administration promotes innovation with networks (in line with innovation-policy literature) and with its mission-oriented nature. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that one cannot duplicate any of this in any given country without implementing active policy learning.
Even if the success of Finnish development is really tempting for other coun-tries to copy, “Finland’s path is unique to its own history and not a readily replicable blueprint for other countries.” (halMe, et al. 2014, xi.) This means that no country should just follow Finland. Each country should choose its own path. Therefore, the aim of this paper is not to give guidelines about what to do but to highlight what works in Finland and to learn from its successful strategies.
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