'No business-academia gap in Finland' 

The Science and Technology Policy Council of Finland  has proposed the development, in Finland, of international Centres of Excellence in five key science, technology and innovation areas. The centres  will be established on energy & environment, metal products & mechanical engineering, forest, health and information and communication industry and services. 

The President of the Academy of Finland , Raimo Väyrynen and the deputy director general of Tekes , Martti af Heurlin - heads of the two organisations in charge of facilitating the process and bringing the actors together - explained to EurActiv how these centres will be established and how they are expected to work. 

Tekes is the main public funding organisation for industrial research and development and innovation projects in Finland whereas the Academy of Finland provides funding for basic research. 

Why does Finland want to create these strategic international Centres of Excellence in science, technology and innovation? 

af Heurlin: In a small country like Finland we have to make choices. We can't be good at everything - we have to make choices on what themes and knowledge areas are important for us in the future. We want to build on areas we think we can grow new businesses and where knowledge and R&D are important elements in building new business and growth. 

We have already earlier made choices, but now we have realised that we have to create few specific areas with the highest possible excellence knowledge at global level, so that we can attract international companies and experts from other countries to work in Finland in co-operation with these centres. 

Väyrynen: One basic idea is to bring together different kinds of resources and knowledge - R&D companies, universities and research institutes - and try to combine small country’s scarce resources in a new way. And even if the Science and Technology Policy Council’s report has identified the five areas, where these centre could be built, it can not be a top-down process, where the government decides that we need something on a specific field. It has to go bottom-up in the sense that the key actors (whether they are companies, universities or research institutes) must have adequate interest in investing in the same centres. It is about long-term sustainable efforts and not just one-time jump. 

How are you going to make these actors come together and what are the incentives for them to invest in these new centres? 

af Heurlin: We have a very good background for this, we have good communication tradition between business, research and the public sector. There is also a big tradition inside the business life in companies to communicate together, to try to build up the key areas where they want to invest together. This is something specific for a small country – it is easier to get together, to discuss and to define the areas which are important, and to know what is to be done together. There are many fields where communication between business and research works very well. Having this background it is also easier to find processes to define these new centres. 

As to the incentives, all stakeholders understand that we have to make some kind of choices. There must be some value added for all partners to do this. So that is the major incentive. Naturally there will be some public resources assigned to this but there will also be new structures defined by universities, research and business together to make the best value added out of it. 

Väyrynen: In practical terms, it has been agreed that Tekes and the Academy of Finland have the responsibility to facilitate this process, bringing together the actors, and Tekes in particular has a primary responsibility, as the Academy focuses on basic research. Overall, a tentative commitment of €130 million public funding has been earmarked for this purpose to start with. 

On the incentives, my understanding is that in the beginning there has got to be fresh public money in order to get the actors work together. But the further we move on the timeline, the more the resources should come from the actors themselves. Without the commitment of the stakeholders for a long-term co-operation no public money can bring results. 

Do you already have a clear commitment of stakeholders on these five fields? 

af Heurlin: We do not have all commitments yet, we have some of them. But it is not like if this was something new – the themes are know and we have already been working on them together. Now it is much about re-allocating existing resources in a new way, and, additionally, using some fresh public money as an incentive. 

Some fresh public money can not be an incentive forever. Will the government offer, for example, tax incentives for the participants? 

Väyrynen: In Finland, tax incentives have been ruled out. We know that they are applied in many countries. But the Finnish experience is that it is better to invest directly to support R&D, technology and innovation projects than use tax incentives which are not targeted the same way as direct funding. 

af Heurlin: Most studies say that it is more expensive to have tax incentives-based system, because it is very wide. Tax incentives could eventually be used to support very early stage start-up companies. 

When will these centres be operational and what are they expected to deliver? 

Väyrynen: They are supposed to deliver high-quality, pre-competitive research and technology results that can be used primarily by the companies to strengthen their position at the international market. 

Paper and forest sector cluster has already made a lot of progress. Forest cluster actors signed a letter of intent some weeks ago and they have very clear target to start activities early 2007. Forest cluster has been very practical as they already had some joint actions earlier. It will bring together the three main paper companies, who have joined their research laboratories into a central one, machinery companies, chemical companies, universities, research institutes and universities and VTT, the Technical Research Centre of Finland. An agreement and establishment of a non-profit limited company on the field will follow soon. 

Establishing these centres as non-profit limited companies is indeed something new at least for Finland. Do similar structures exist in other countries and what are the advantages of this type of co-operation? 

af Heurlin: In Finland this is a new approach. Some similarities in a company format exist, but I think that in general this is something quite new. The commitment from all the parties is very important. It is also very flexible, more partners can join the co-operation in a flexible way. In addition, it gives a clear new platform for co-operation. 

Väyrynen: In this type of company there’s more commitment from the actors than in a loose consortia. However, we need to emphasise that these new companies will not be any huge enterprises but rather small facilitating companies with around 6 people-staff co-ordinating the co-operation of the actors. In Finland this is definitely a new concept. 

The idea of the whole process is to force the actors themselves to think of new ways of doing and to make them realise that the old, dispersed, fragmented efforts won’t work in a new competitive world. 

Is there industry-academia gap in Finland? 

af Heurlin:We have very close co-operation with the Academy and we are also working with universities and industries. Whenever we have a project programme with companies, especially with bigger companies, universities are always involved as programme partners or co-operating universities. We (academy, industry, research, companies together) have already had these kinds of national technology programmes for twenty-thirty years and we have learned a lot from them.

Väyrynen:  There are some variations, but it is only natural. In bio-sciences, for example, the industry-academia co-operation is very close, but if you take basic natural sciences on psychology, mathematics or humanities for example, they don’t have that much relevance for industry as do technology and bio-sciences. 

One thing that should be kept in mind when talking about Finland is that the public R&D funding sector is well structured, unlike in many other countries. We basically have a two pillar system: the Ministry of Industry and Trade and Tekes finance the applied, industry oriented research and the Ministry of Education and the Academy of Finland are funding basic research mostly in universities. It is a rather simple structure and I think that helps, because in reality Tekes and the Academy have been working pretty close together for long time. 

One new aspect in this centre is that universities are expected to be involved more actively than before. It was not long ago the universities were prohibited to take part in joint-start companies and only recently the legislation was changed in a way that allows universities to become active partners in enterprises like this. 

af Heurlin:In general, universities should become more active in producing the type of knowledge that can be used more directly in business. It is a slow process but it is the way to go. Universities should invest more in this type of processes – not just towards these new centres we are establishing, but more in general. 

Väyrynen: This is part of the law on universities. It is their third task. The first is teaching, the second is research and now university-society relations including university-industry relations has been enshrined in law as the third task of universities. So there is a legal obligation for universities to look around and see how they can promote regional development and welfare in society. This was changed some three years ago. 

Another new development in university legislation is under way. So far, the universities have been just an appendices of the state bureaucracy. As universities are now earning quite a lot of money from outside sources (EU, companies, Academy, Tekes), the government recently issued a new law proposal that would allow universities to actually build a separate economy, administered by the universities themselves. So, the universities can start thinking in terms of accumulating funds and investing and this way do more long-term planning. Of course the money that comes directly from the state budget will remain part of the public side of university activities. 

af Heurlin:This is a very big change and will naturally take years, as universities are not so flexible to implement this. We at Tekes can help them in this process and have signed up to offer services and special funding for universities with this regard. 

How do Tekes and the Academy finance universities?

Väyrynen:All Tekes and Academy funding for universities is based on competition. No lump sums are transferred to them and universities need to compete for the money. Naturally, not all universities like competition, but we are convinced that competition is a guarantee of quality. You get better research results through competition. 

af Heurlin: In addition, Tekes has linked its financing for universities to some conditions. The universities need to, for example, do international co-operation and have relations with industry in order to receive funding. 

What do you think of EIT? 

Väyrynen: There’s a lot of debate about EIT in Europe – some reactions are very positive, others critical. I think that it is a fact of life that EIT will come. As this is the case, it is important we make it as effective and useful as possible. Whether its ambitions can be reached remains to be seen. In this case the Commission, especially the Commission president has taken a very strong responsibility. 

af Heurlin:We are very much pro-EIT, depending, however, very much on what type of structures will be built.